A question I get a lot from prospective new SEO clients is, "I appear for these keywords in Google and I'm ranking number one for multiple key phrases. However, I'm just not getting any enquiries." This is more common than you think and there is usually one very clear reason why.
My last specific prospect was from a legal company. They had just had a website revamp. They had been in business for about 5 years but had never had an inbound enquiry in the last two years. They just couldn't understand it.
They were ranking number one for all these search terms and still getting nothing. I see this a lot when clients have a new website, but haven't invested in SEO.
So I started asking them what the search terms were that they thought they were ranking for. They told me and, lo and behold, I checked and they were. However, when they were telling me the kinds of phrases, they were pretty confusing. I didn't quite understand them myself.
So I went into my SEO software and checked these specific phrases. There was zero search volume in the country that they were in. Actually, there was zero search volume all over the world.
This means you might have fantastic key phrases, but if no one is actually typing in what your key phrase is, it can rank number one and you are not going to get any clicks to the website. Zero search volume means zero opportunity, no matter how high you rank.
I also checked their Google Search Console to validate it and cross-check it against my SEO software. Here are the instructions if you need to do this yourself.
1. Go to search console
2. Click search results
3. Then select the date range you want to look at
4. Then hit the add filter on the right-hand side and select query
5. Select the exact query or queries containing
I got them to type in the phrases they were using because you can do that within Google.
6. If you look slightly below you can see all the phrases followed by clicks and then impressions
If nothing comes up for that phrase then there is no search volume.
So then I got them to take off that filter for the phrases to see if they were getting any other clicks on other key phrases. They were only getting clicks on their brand name, and that was only about 20 clicks a month. By the way, my image above is another client.
A general rule of thumb is an enquiry will come through at around 2-5%. In the legal industry it is more around 7-7.5%. So if there are 50 clicks to your website, you will get 2-3 enquiries.
They understood this after I showed them. But initially, they didn't quite get it because they were ranking number one for these key phrases and just getting no enquiries. That is why doing keyword research is so important.
You may think that your product or service has this really good, shiny key phrase and everyone is going to want it. But the fact is, a lot of people may not know it. Getting your special name or service out there actually takes time, and that is a whole other story.
So the moral of the story is make sure you do your keyword research and actually see if there is enough volume for that key phrase to be worth ranking for.
This can be a long answer but in general, anything 10 or over a month is good, and I mean per keyword. Ideally, there are keywords that are searched 100 times a month or even more. A good start is 300 clicks a month. That means 300 people are searching for that service/ product or something to do.
So in the legal industry in this case thats on average 21 enquiries coming to you. Imagine your average service price. Let's say $30,000, using SEO that could be $630,0000 a month.
That is the kind of volume that makes ranking high actually worth it.
If you don't know where to start or don't have the tools, take a look at our SEO packages and we can get you started on your SEO journey.
The most common reason is that the key phrases you are ranking for have zero or very low search volume. That means no one is actually typing those words into Google, so there are no clicks coming through to your site regardless of your ranking position.
You can check this inside Google Search Console by typing in the specific phrases and looking at impressions. You can also use SEO tools to check search volume data across different countries. Don't have access? Ask us for an SEO audit.
A general rule of thumb is that enquiries come through at between 2 and 5% of total clicks. So you would expect roughly two enquiries for every 100 clicks to your website.
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