Skip to content
GetProfit
Log in

← All terms

Search volume

Search volume is the number of times people search for a query on Google over a period, most often given as an average per month.

How it works

Search volume counts everyone who typed the query, including people looking for another shop or a brand you do not carry. It measures interest in the query, not demand for your product. How much of it reaches you depends on your price, feed and the auctions you win. There is no single benchmark: it depends on the country, the category and the product’s price.

For a seasonal product, the yearly average hides the peak, so read the months one by one; see Keyword Planner volumes for seasonal products.

Formula

Avg. monthly searches = sum of monthly searches over the last 12 months ÷ 12 (Keyword Planner’s default range)

Ways to calculate

Example

Example store, not client data.

Keyword Planner shows “porcelain dinner set” at 2,400 searches in November and 24,000 over 12 months, so Avg. monthly searches = 24,000 ÷ 12 = 2,000. In November, the tableware shop’s search terms report shows this search with 960 impressions and 2 orders. Impressions equal 960 ÷ 2,400 = 40% of the month’s searches.

Not to be confused with

  • Impressions — how many times your ad was shown. Search volume counts searches whether your ad appeared or not.

Right and wrong readings

  • Wrong: “The query has 2,000 searches a month, so we can expect about 2,000 visitors.” Right: volume counts all searches on Google; the shop appears only in auctions it wins. In the example, 2,400 searches brought 960 impressions.
  • Wrong: “‘Dinner set’ and ‘dinner sets’ show the same volume, so each is searched that often.” Right: Keyword Planner combines close variants into one figure. In Google’s example, “car” and “cars” come back as one row.

Sources