How Google’s Search Engine Really Works (A Peek Under The Hood)

Google’s search engine is technically complex.

There are hundreds (maybe even thousands) of different factors taken into account so that the search engine can figure out what should go where.

It’s like a mysterious black box, and very few people know exactly what’s inside.

However, the good news is that search engines are actually pretty easy to understand.

We may not know every single factor (out of a hundred or thousand), but we also don’t need to.

I’ll bring it down to the basics with a simple method to please Google, rank higher, and bring in more website traffic.

I’ll also introduce some of the latest developments, like RankBrain, that help Google guess what you’re actually looking for (even if you don’t type it in).

First, I’m going to walk you through exactly how Google’s search engine really works so that you can see that it’s not as difficult to understand as you might think.

How Do Search Engines Crawl the Web?

Google’s first job is to ‘crawl’ the web with ‘spiders.’

These are little automated programs or bots that scour the net for any and all new information.

The spiders take notes on your website, from the titles you use to the text on each page to learn more about who you are, what you do, and who might be interested in finding you.

how search engines work nutshell spiders

That may sound simplistic on the face of it.

Which is no small feat, considering there are more than 1.8 billion websites online today — with thousands of new sites popping up every day.

The first massive challenge is to locate new data, record what it’s about, and then store that information (with some accuracy) in a database.

Google’s next job is to figure out how to best match and display the information in its database when someone types in a search query. Scaling becomes a problem, though.

Google processes over 3.5 billion searches a day, and that number increases every year.

how google works number of searches done per day

That means the information in its database needs to be categorized correctly, rearranged, and displayed in less than a second after someone expects it.

Time is of the essence here, because speed wins, according to Marissa Mayer back when she worked for Google over a decade ago.

She reported when they were able to speed up Google Maps’ home page (by cutting down on its size), traffic leaped 10 percent within seven days and 25 percent just a few weeks later.

Google won the search engine race because it’s able to:

Find and record more information
Deliver more accurate results
Do both of those two tasks faster than any other search engine

One of the reasons Google is the front of the pack comes down to the accuracy of its results.

The information it displays is more likely to match what users are actually looking for.

Think about it this way.

When you type something into Google, you’re expecting something. It might be a simple answer, like the weather in your city, or maybe a little more complex, like “how does Google’s search engine really work?”

Google’s results, compared to other search engines, tend to answer those queries better. The information was the best of the best.

This breakthrough came from an initial theory Google’s co-founders actually worked on in college.

Why Do Links Matter to Google?

Google’s co-founders were still at Stanford in 1998 when they released a paper entitled “The PageRank Citation Ranking: Bringing Order to the Web.”

Check it out — you can read the whole thing right here!

The PageRank breakthrough was simple.

Academic papers were often ‘ranked’ by the number of citations a paper received. The more they received, the more authoritative they were considered on that topic.

Google co-founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, wanted to apply the same ‘grading’ system to the web’s information. They used backlinks as a proxy for votes. The more links a page received, the more authoritative it was perceived on that particular topic.

Of course, they didn’t just look at the number of links. They also factored in quality by considering who was doing the linking.

If you received two links, for example, from two different websites, the one with the more authority on a topic would be worth more.

They also considered relevance to better gauge the ‘quality’ of a link.

For example, if your website talks about “dog food,” links from other pages or sites that talk about things related to “dogs” or “dog food” would be worth more than one talking about “truck tires.”

External links (links from other sites) are also more valuable than internal links (links to different pages on your own site.)

how google works external vs internal links.

Before we go any further, please understand these concepts are over two decades all.

PageRank may have mattered years ago, but it’s evolved tremendously since then. So don’t worry about it explicitly today.

One of the reasons is because of newer algorithm developments, including RankBrain.

What is ‘RankBrain’ and How Does It Work?

RankBrain was first acknowledged in 2015 by Google engineer Greg Corrado:

RankBrain has become the third-most important signal contributing to the result of a search query.

Google’s been working on this technology for years to help the search engine handle the massive increases in volume without losing accuracy.

The RankBrain secret sauce is that it uses artificial intelligence to continually learn how to improve.

So the more it processes new information or new search queries for users, it actually gets more accurate.

For example, in 2010, Google’s algorithm “might have up to 10,000 variations or sub-signals,” according to Search Engine Land. That’s a lot!

As you can imagine, somehow managing all of those on the fly would be incredibly difficult (if not impossible).

That’s where RankBrain comes in.

Generally, the two most important ranking factors are:

Links (and citations)
Words (content and queries)

Note: this changes over time, and these aren’t the only factors that matter. Speed plays a major factor in Google ranking, as do Core Web Vitals.

RankBrain, however, is still a main component. It helps analyze or understand the connections between those links and content so Google can understand the context behind what someone’s asking. This is often called semantic search.

For example, let’s say you type in the word “engineer salaries.”

Now think about that for a moment. What type of engineer salaries are you looking for?

It could be “civil,” “electrical,” “mechanical,” or even “software.”

That’s why Google needs to use several different factors to figure out exactly what you’re asking for.

Let’s say the following events played out over the past few years:

You’re getting a degree in computer science.
Your IP address puts you on the campus of Stanford University.
You follow tech journalists on Twitter.
You read TechCrunch almost every single day.
You Googled “software engineer jobs” last week.

Google’s able to piece all of these random bits of data together. It’s like a bunch of puzzle pieces suddenly coming together.

So now Google knows what type of “engineer salaries” to show you, even though you never explicitly asked for “software engineer salaries.”

That’s also how Google is now answering your questions before you even ask them.

For example, do a generic search right now for anything, like “pizza.”

Now, what do you see?

You see the typical ad spaces up at the top.

However, the local results below the ads are assuming that you’re asking “where to get pizza.”

The Knowledge Graph on the far right-hand side is serving up almost every fact and figure about pizza imaginable.

RankBrain process and filters all this data to give you answers before you even ask them.

Change your search up a little (like this one for “pizza hut”) and the search engine result page (SERP) changes with new information.

Now you know how Google’s search engine really works.

While you don’t need to be an expert, understanding the basics like this can help you better figure out how to give your prospects exactly what they want (so you get better rankings and more traffic).

Here are a few of the big things to keep an eye on.

How to Rank Higher in Google: Solve People’s Problems

People type searches into Google to get an answer to whatever question they’re facing.

If they’re looking for an answer, it means they have a question.

If they have a question, it means they have a problem.

So your primary job is to solve someone’s problem.

In theory, it’s really that simple. If you solve someone’s problem better than anyone else, you’ll get better rankings and more traffic.

Let’s take a look at a few examples so you can see how this works in real life.

Someone comes home from a long day at work. All they’re looking forward to doing is grabbing something to eat fast and hanging out with their family or watching a new show on Netflix.

Before they’re able to throw a meal together, they try to run the kitchen sink and discover that it’s clogged.

Bummer.

It’s already getting late, though, so they don’t want to call a plumber. Instead, they head over to Google and start typing in “how to unclog drain” as their search query.

Then here’s what they see:

how google works SERP example for how to uncolog a sink.

See?!

Way up at the top is an ad for a plumber (just in case you want to call in a professional).

Next up is an Instant Answer box that contains step-by-step instructions that Google believes has helped other people. So you might already be able to fix your sink without ever leaving this page!

Below that are related questions that other people commonly ask (along with their answers).

So all of this begs the question: How do you create something that can help solve a user’s problem?

I’ll answer that in one second, but here’s what you don’t do for the record:

how google works example of keyword stuffing

“Keyword density” used to be an old-school tactic that was once relevant when Google’s algorithm was dumb and static. With RankBrain, Google has become a borderline genius.

So keyword stuffing like it’s 1999 will hurt you in the long run. As you can see, this is a terrible “answer” or “solution” to someone’s problem.

After saying that, there are a few places on a page that you want to pay special attention to.

For example, the Title Tag and Meta Description are used by Google to provide an official answer for what this page is about.

Those are the two elements that will also show up on a SERP when someone types in their query.

It only makes sense, then, that you should use the main topic in those areas so that everyone knows exactly what your page is discussing.

how google works title tag and meta description

Do you want to see where that text is getting pulled from?

Simply right-click on a website to view the source code. For example, my homepage looks something like this:

You can see the title tag and meta description at the top of the code.

I’m also using Yoast’s WordPress SEO plugin to help add these extra fields on the backside of WordPress.

That way, all you have to do is write out the specific title and description in plain text (as opposed to getting your hands dirty with code).

Otherwise, the actual page content should be written for humans (as opposed to keyword stuffing to tricks or fool the search engines).

Instead, here’s how your page content should look:

how google works example of good content

I wrote an in-depth response to help someone figure out a solution to a complex problem (keyword research).

Even though it’s a complex subject, I was trying to give them a simple, step-by-step solution so they could fix that problem ASAP.

Google even takes website usage data into account now to determine how helpful your content is.

For example, let’s say that someone clicks on your website from Google and is turned off by the poor design or hard-to-read content. So they ‘bounce back’ to Google immediately to find a different result.

That’s a bad sign! Google determines you weren’t a happy searcher. So maybe Google will try to find a few other results to swap out with that one to hopefully make everyone happy.

That’s why I also break up the paragraphs and include a lot of images. The goal is to help people quickly find what they’re looking for.

I want them to read the page faster and digest the information more easily so that they’ll stick around longer instead of bouncing away.

That’s the key to ranking well in search engines. Give the people what they want, keep them around or coming back for more, and Google will be happier as a result.

Let’s go back to our clogged drain example to see how this works in another context.

Those are all pretty good results!

In each case, the person who crafted each page provided a detailed answer to a common problem.

Let’s zero in on that second SERP result, “7 Brilliant Ways to Unclog a Drain (Photos)” from Yahoo, to discover what they’re doing so well to hit number two on a big, popular search query like that.

This seems like it might be a good result because it gives us multiple methods to try, along with photos so we can see exactly what’s happening.

Let’s click on that to see what they provide.

how google works good content example: include images and easy to read text

Pretty good overall!

It provides the user with good, quality content to help solve a problem. The better your content does that, the more links or ‘upvotes’ it will receive when other people find it useful, too.

Links and other citations or social signals help alert Google. They tell the search engine that your page is on the rise and to start paying attention to your website for these topics.

Your page will get better treatment, move up in the rankings, be exposed to more people, get more links or votes as a result, and continue that upward trend.

That’s where the genius of Google’s process comes into play.

It makes people happy by giving them exactly what they’re looking for. When you do it right, it gives you compounding benefits that can take off all of a sudden, expanding your website traffic as a result.

How Google Search Engine Works: Conclusion

Google’s search engine is one of the most complex technologies in the world.

It crunches a mind-numbing amount of data at lightning speeds to give people exactly what they’re looking for in seconds.

When you boil it down to the basics, search engines are actually pretty easy to understand.

They want to help people find what they’re looking for.

People use Google to find answers and solutions. They have something on their minds, and they want to find an answer that helps them clear the issue to move on with their day.

How Google finds and delivers that information is the building blocks of SEO, making it crucial to growing your business online.

Now that you know how Google works, how are you going to use this information?

How to Use Reverse Image Search For Competitor Research

What do backlinks, reverse image search, and your business have in common?

Your bottom line.

Sure, you can blog until you have hundreds of posts on your site, but it takes time.

Can your business afford to wait? Probably not.

This is where a backlinks strategy comes in. Not only can it help with boosting your domain authority (DA), but it could expose your business to a new audience who may want to buy from you if you target the right sites.

How do you find these sites? Reverse image search. When done correctly, you can use it to snoop on your competitors and find the backlinks boosting their DA and profits.

Here’s how to turn their backlink success into yours.

What Is Reverse Image Search?

A reverse image search uses an image in place of a text-based query.

All you need to do is upload an image onto a search engine, and you’ll get a list of information. These details usually include:

file type
source of the original image
image size
other sizes of the same image
websites using the image
related images

While many people use reverse image search to check if someone is stealing their content, it’s a powerful tool in the hands of a savvy digital marketer.

I’ve used reverse image search to grow my backlinks by 26 percent, but it can do so much more than find unclaimed backlinks. When done right, it can give you the upper hand over your competitors while growing your authority.

Why Would You Use a Reverse Image Search for Competitor Research?

Backlinks.

Using reverse image search on your competitors is one of the best link-building strategies most people skip.

Not having any backlinks is a reason more than 90 percent of websites don’t get traffic from Google.

By uploading a photo of a competitor’s headshot or company logo, you can see at a glance where their inbound links are coming from and start building a list of backlink opportunities.

Why is this important?

Backlinks are a valuable Google ranking factor. The search engine uses links from other sites as a vote of confidence.

According to a study by Backlinko, the site holding the #1 spot on Google has, on average, 3.8x more backlinks than those in positions two through 10.

Reverse Image Search - power of backlinks pie chart

By analyzing where your competitors are getting links, you can determine what sites are helping grow their authority and get a slice of the pie for yourself. Getting those backlinks could help grow your traffic, build your authority, and potentially one-up your competitor.

For example, let’s say you’re competing with me. If you reverse image search my headshot, you’ll see results like these before the fold:

When you scroll down past this, you’ll see a few more pages:

If you continue to scroll through the results, you’ll see I’ve been featured on sites like:

Searchengineland.com (DA 91)
Meltwater (DA 77)
Forbes (DA 95)
Getresponse.com (DA 81)

These are all powerful backlinks helping me grow my domain authority, website traffic, and sales.

How to Do a Reverse Image Search to Track Your Competitors

Ready to uncover those hidden link-building opportunities that lurk behind your competitor’s images? Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to do it.

Step 1: Find a Photo

What photo should you use for your reverse image search to track your competitors? I’d recommend using a headshot of the person who would be credited as the author.

Use their LinkedIn profile picture. They’ll likely use the same headshot for their guest blogging bylines, just like I do.

In addition to searching for a competitor’s headshot—or if your competitor doesn’t have a “face” attached to it—search for the brand’s logo.

Step 2: Use Reverse Image Search

You can’t upload a photo on the standard Google homepage.

Click on “Images” in the top right-hand corner to load the reverse image search feature or go to images.google.com.

Where to find reverse image search on Google homepage

Next, click on the camera icon.

Choose the headshot or logo you downloaded in step 1 and click on the blue “Upload an Image” tab. Google will then return a results page that looks like this:

Step 3: Start Looking for Opportunities

If we use the example of my headshot, you’ll see the first result points back to this blog.

Scroll down further, and you’ll see my author profile for CoSchedule. The blog has a DA of 57 and is a popular tool for content marketers. As a competitor, this is the kind of site you want backlinks from or to write guest posts for.

Having a guest post on a high authority site like CoSchedule could add to your credibility. You can use it to establish yourself as the go-to expert in your niche and get your message in front of your target audience.

Don’t forget to reverse image search your competitor’s logo! It can help you find opportunities to get listed on resource pages or niche directories.

How to Find Guest Post Ideas Once You’ve Completed the Reverse Image Search and Competitor Research

Now that you’ve completed your reverse image search, you should have a master list of websites your competitor uses for backlinks. Now what?

It’s time to come up with guest post ideas, start pitching, and, when a site agrees to your guest post, deliver compelling content to drive traffic back to your business.

You’ll have a much stronger pitch if you have a few blog post ideas. Here’s how to make sure you come with content the website will love.

Read Their Blog

You don’t want to make the mistake of pitching a blog post that’s already on your target’s website or won’t add value to their audience.

Editors receive an average of 10 pitches per day, and 20 percent of them don’t thoroughly read 90 percent of those pitches because they can tell at a glance they’re not worth the time. Make sure yours is in the 10 percent that the editors read.

How? By thoroughly reviewing the website you’re targeting. After reading the site’s content, you should be able to answer the following questions:

Who is the audience? B2B, CEOs, moms working from home, etc.
What is the level of the audience? beginner, intermediate, advanced, etc.
What type of content do they post? 3,000+ word tutorials, quick tips and tricks, narrative essays, etc.
What are the content gaps? Are they missing a comparison between two popular tools? Can you offer a different perspective on a hot topic?
What topics do best? Use Buzzsumo to see what posts get the most shares on social media.

Keyword Research

Once you have a few topic ideas in mind, tie everything together with keyword research.

Presenting a unique guest post idea backed with a strong long-tail keyword shows you know how visitors reach the site and, therefore, can write for their audience.

Plus, you want people to read your post. Choosing a keyword with a decent amount of traffic ensures you’re writing a blog your target audience will find and consume.

Use Ubersuggest to find high traffic, low competition keywords. Remember to check your chosen site’s DA so you can target the right keywords.

using ubersuggest for keyword research after completing reverse image search competitor research

How to Pitch Your Guest Post After Doing a Reverse Image Search on Your Competitors to Find Potential Backlink Opportunities

I have an in-depth guide on becoming a successful guest blogger, but here are the pitching basics to follow every time:

Read the Guidelines
Always check to see if the site has guest posting guidelines. If they do, follow them to make sure your post doesn’t get rejected. According to research by PointVisable, 22 percent of guest posts are rejected for not following the guidelines.
Personalize the Email
Hop onto LinkedIn or read the “About” page and find the exact person you need to email. If you can address the blog owner by name, you’ll have a higher chance of success than starting an email with “Dear Sir.”
Introduce Yourself
Include your industry expertise, accolades, and link to other places you’ve been published. You want the person to understand you’re not a generalist. You’re an expert with something valuable to add.

Reverse Image Search FAQ

How do I reverse Google Image Search?

Go to images.google.com and click on the camera icon. Upload the image and click on search.

How do you do a Google reverse image search on my phone?

Download or take a screenshot of your chosen image, then open the Google (not the Chrome) app on your phone. Tap the rainbow camera icon, allow any permissions it asks for, then tap the gallery icon. Select an image from your phone, and Google will display the results. You can also use Google Lens to take a photo and search for it.

How do you reverse image search with Chrome?

If you’re using the Chrome browser (again, not the app), you can reverse image search by right-clicking on any picture and selecting “Search Google for an image.”

Is reverse image search free?

Yes. It’s a free tool you can access via Chrome.

Reverse Image Search Summary

As you can see, reverse image search is a powerful backlink tool. It can help you identify the best sites to target for backlinks and go after the sites giving your competitors results in their business.

However, searching for an image is only the start. Once you have a list of sites, do your due diligence and pitch blog post ideas to establish your business as the go-to expert.

Only compelling blog posts will get you the backlinks you need to rank higher on search, attract the right people onto your website, and into your sales funnel.

Do you think reverse image search is a good way to gain an advantage over your competitors?

How to Use Semantic Search for Paid Ad Campaign Copy

Semantic search isn’t only for organic traffic; it’s for paid search as well. Understanding the difference between broad and exact match search is important, but semantics is all about the search intent behind a query.

Google is focusing a lot more on search intent and keyword variants. Knowing the correlation between intent and semantics can help you narrow down to the perfect audience.

How Does Semantic Search Work?

What is semantics, and how does it apply to search? Semantics focuses on the search intent of a keyword and the thoughts and feelings that the person has as they search that keyword.

It’s a complicated subject, and there isn’t a “black and white” set of steps to follow. A lot of context and concept is behind every search query, and many SEOs overlook this by thinking basic keyword research will solve all their problems.

When it comes to semantics for paid campaigns, we’re talking about incorrect spelling, plurals, variants, synonyms, and other related words and phrases pertaining to the search word.

If we understand what semantics is, we can understand how it impacts paid search.

The goal of every advertiser on Google is to gain visibility for as many applicable keywords as possible. The problem is, no matter how much keyword research you put in on Ubersuggest, Ahrefs, and SEMrush, you’ll never find all the keywords that people in your target audience are searching.

This is where semantics come in.

Google uses semantics in broad and phrase search to help find a wider range of searches and triggers that will match user intent and display your ad.

Exact Match Vs. Broad Match in Semantic Search

To understand semantics, it’s important to know the difference between exact and broad match in Google ads. An exact match requires the searcher to input the exact keyword you’ve chosen to display your ad on.

For example, if you used the exact match “wedding cakes,” the person searching must enter some of the following keywords into Google to display your ad:

wedding cakes
white wedding cakes
chocolate wedding cakes
cheap wedding cakes
and so on

These are exact match keywords because they contain the phrase exactly as-is. As a result, this type of advertising doesn’t use semantics because it doesn’t allow the flexibility necessary to locate related phrases with the same search intent.

Here’s another example: If someone searches for “cakes for weddings” or “weding cakes,” your ad may not display because Google thinks it doesn’t match your intention.

Even though the search intent is the same, you’re not using semantics in your advertising and may experience a higher CPC because you’re targeting a much narrower audience than necessary.

Using Semantics for Paid Vs. Organic Search

When it comes to organic search, many SEOs and site owners like to find every slight permutation of a keyword and include it somewhere in their content. At one time, this was the best strategy.

However, with the RankBrain update, Google started to implement machine learning and AI to understand the search intent and context of the search rather than rewarding the people stacking as many exact match keywords into their content as possible.

The goal is to make the process of finding information on Google as natural and conversational as possible.

For example, if you asked a friend, “Who is the richest person in the world?” they might respond, Jeff Bezos.

If you then asked, “Who has the most money in the world?” the answer would be the same, correct?

This factor should apply to Google search as well. Just because two people ask the same question differently doesn’t mean they should receive two different sets of search results. The question has the same intent, and the query demands the same answer.

If we apply this to organic search, it would tell us that we don’t need to worry so much about getting every single variation of the keyword because Google will identify the similarities and help us rank for all the keywords with the same intent.

On a different note, Google’s machine learning is using your habits as a searcher too. After searching for the richest person in the world on Google, I searched “most money” to see what that would bring.

The number-one result on Google was still relevant to my original search. Since I didn’t click through to anything, Google is still scrambling to find an answer to my query.

Why Should You Use Semantics for Paid Search?

Goog l e released data that tells us how important semantics are for paid search. Approximately 15 percent of daily searches are new searches that they’ve never seen before. If those 15 percent of searches have never entered Google’s database before, how could anyone ever pick them up using keyword research or competitive analysis?

You can’t.

When it comes to long-tail keywords, the goal is to grab as many of those as possible. However, thousands and thousands of search phrases never hit the keyword research phase because they yield no traffic, and most people would never include a keyword with no traffic in their content.

Unless Google does it for you.

This factor has become ever prevalent with the rise of voice search as well. Voice commands are much more common today than they were when released in 2011. Twenty-seven percent of the population uses voice search on their phones. It’s also believed that 62 percent of individuals would make a purchase using voice technology on their smart home device.

We all know that people do not speak the way they search on Google. Semantics play a major role in Google’s ability to take a voice search and translate it into accurate results.

3 Steps to Use Semantic Search for Paid Ads

What can you do to capitalize on semantics? By now, we see the importance of semantics for paid search, but what should you do to ensure you’re reaching as much of your audience as possible?

Worry Less About Keywords for Semantics
We should all worry less about creating content around keywords and instead create content around topics.

The goal is to cover a topic as in-depth as possible, and the keywords will come naturally.

A lot of SEOs talk about “silos” and “clusters.” These two strategies help you build out content in a way that increases site relevancy and boosts authority. By doing this, you’re showing Google that you’re an expert on the subject, and it should give you precedence over your competition.
Focus More on Intent
I’m always preaching the importance of search intent, but this has become Google’s bread and butter. It makes it more difficult for SEOs to game the system by stacking a bunch of keywords in their content.

When choosing keywords for a paid search, you want to focus on the thought behind the keyword and target the intent. Think about the queries that lead people to your website.

What are they trying to do when they come to your site?

Are people there to learn something? Purchase something? Inquire about something? Once you’ve determined that, you’ll want to find keywords matching that intent.
In this image, the keyword “best deals on iPhones” has a different search intent than “best iPhones,” pictured below. While they both contain a similar phrase, the person searching is trying to accomplish different things.

Someone searching for deals is already in buy mode; they want to buy an iPhone and are looking for good deals.

Someone searching for the best iPhones may not have settled on the phone yet. They want to research brands, quality, read reviews, and learn more before making a purchase.

These two individuals are at different steps in the buying process.

Understanding this can help get more people to your site and may even decrease your bounce rate because they’ll get more of what they bargained for when they land.
Don’t Ignore User Experience When It Comes to Semantics
With the release of Core Web Vitals, we know that Google is paying attention to the on-site experience. Factors such as loading speed, load delay, and page layout are important.
Focus is shifting away from advertisers and affiliates and turning to the users. Google doesn’t care about how well you understand SEO and how many hours you spent on keyword research.

All they care about is that people get what they want on your site. If you’re giving people what they want, Google will reward you. If you’re not, they’ll reward your competition.

For many years, site owners pumped out sub-par keyword-loaded content built to rank but ignored the people searching for those keywords. That won’t cut it anymore.
Work on improving your page speed, optimizing your site for mobile, and pay attention to bounce rate and session duration. These are all indicators of whether or not you’re choosing the right keywords and targeting the right audience.

If you find that certain paid ad keywords have a higher bounce rate, it could mean you don’t have the right search intent. Semantic advertising isn’t all about verbiage; it’s also about relevancy. You could have the best offer in the world, but it won’t mean anything if your site doesn’t function properly.

Measuring the Success of Your Paid Search Campaign Using Semantics

How can you measure the success of semantic search in paid ads? The most important metric you’ll want to track is the success of individual broad-match keywords. By finding out which words Google’s AI is displaying your ad for, you can determine whether you should continue advertising for that broad-match keyword.

For example, if you’re advertising a site that sells iPhone cases, and you find that your audience’s search intent doesn’t align with the phrases your ad is displaying for, you might want to readjust or target something different altogether.

Two other metrics that can tell you a lot about the success of your campaign are the bounce rate and average time on page. If you’re targeting the right audience and bringing the right people onto your page, they’ll likely stay awhile.

If you have a 90 percent bounce rate and an average time on a page of less than a minute, chances are people are landing on your site, not liking what they see, and going somewhere else.

This could be a sign of a deeper on-site issue, but for this example, you might want to make sure you’re sending the right people through.

semantics for google analytics dashboard

You can use tools like Google Analytics or the Google Ad dashboard to explore this data.

Conclusion

Much of this article will be great news for many of you. It means you don’t have to lose your mind on hours of keyword research anymore. By using broad matches and focusing on intent, you could pick up all the relevant keywords without having to identify them manually.

If you need a little more help, we can walk you through the steps necessary to get your campaign up and running.

The paid ad space is constantly changing and adapting to the digital environment, and we all have to jump aboard and roll with the changes. If we don’t, we risk letting our competition get ahead while paying more per click and receiving lower-quality click-throughs.

Be sure to keep semantics in mind as you set up your paid campaigns and really think about what the individual is trying to accomplish when they type a phrase into Google.

How have you used semantics to narrow down on your target audience?

When to Target Low Search Volume Keywords

Going after the “low-hanging fruit” is common advice in the SEO world. Ranking for those terms will help you rank for bigger terms down the line, at least that’s the standard belief.

Do you think that’s true?

There might be some truth to it, but there are many reasons to target low search volume keywords whether your site is brand-new or well-seasoned.

In this guide, I’ll cover why low search volume keywords are crucial to SEO and show you how to find them.

Reasons to Target Low Volume Keywords

There are many scenarios where you would want to target low search volume keywords. Let’s take a look at six of my most prominent reasons.

1. If User Intent Is High

User intent refers to the reason why someone is searching a specific phrase into Google. For example, when someone searches for the “best tennis shoes” versus “tennis shoes,” each of these keywords has a different intent.

Someone who searches for the best tennis shoes is likely looking for reviews of tennis shoes. When we put that into Google, the results prove to be true.

The majority of results Google provides are reviews of the best tennis shoes because that’s what people want. This tells us most people who search this phrase end up clicking reviews.

If we change the search to “tennis shoes” the results are dramatically different. Now we’re not receiving results for reviews of shoes, but we’re receiving results of places to buy shoes and different brands instead.

What does this mean?

It means the keyword “best tennis shoes” has an informational-based search intent. This could mean the person is interested in buying shoes but hasn’t entirely decided on a brand or a location to buy them.

They might want to read reviews, surf the web, and shop around a little before making a final decision.

When someone searches “tennis shoes,” it’s clear they’re ready to buy and they know what they want. This is considered transactional intent — meaning they want to make a purchase.

If we’re writing a review on the best tennis grips and we’re trying to get people who are researching rather than buying, we may want to target the following keywords.

low search volume keywords on ubersuggest

The keyword “best tennis grips for sweaty hands” is a very specific keyword. Even though it only averages 140 searches per month, it could still be a worthwhile long-tail keyword because it’s highly targeted and the search intent is spot on.

2. If Search Difficulty Is Low

Search difficulty refers to how difficult it will be for you to rank for a specific keyword. One of the main reasons people target low keywords is because it’s easy for them to rank quickly without much work.

If you refer back to the previous image, you’ll see “best tennis grips” has a search volume of 320 with a difficulty of 41. This means the keyword might be challenging to rank, and would require more backlinks and higher authority.

The keyword below it, “best tennis grips for sweaty hands” will be much easier to rank for because it only has a search difficulty of 18. As you can see, it has a lower search volume, though.

One of the basic principles of SEO is to find as many low competition keywords as possible and include them in your content as naturally as you can. By doing this, you might spread yourself wide over many different keywords, but they’re all low competition so you’ll be able to rank quickly, get traffic on your site, and increase your domain authority to begin to target more competitive keywords.

3. If It’s a Long-Tail Keyword That Contains a High Volume Keyword

Take a look at the list of keywords above. These all have low search volume. If you look at the one highlighted with a rectangle around it, you’ll see it contains nine words, which makes it a “long-tail keyword.” Long-tail keywords are phrases that contain more than four words and oftentimes, they contain a high search volume keyword in the middle.

That’s the case with this example.

While “what is the best tennis racket for intermediate players” may only get 20 searches per month, the keyword “best tennis rackets” gets 8,100 searches per month. As a result, you may want to target these long-tail keywords and position an entire piece of content around them with the intent of eventually getting the high-volume keyword.

When you’re starting out with a newer site or trying to grow an existing one, you’ll target these types of keywords that contain the high search volume keyword because they offer you a way to get both of them without having to go all in on the highly competitive phrase. The same goes for high search volume, low competition keywords.

4. If You’re Covering a Niche Topic

If we continue on with the tennis example, tennis is considered a niche topic. It’s something that doesn’t interest everyone, but those who enjoy it will want to know as much as possible about the sport. They’re highly interested in it and will spend a lot of money to purchase products to make them better at it.

As a result, it is beneficial to go after low search volume keywords even if they don’t bring about a lot of traffic. Google is putting a lot more emphasis on the comprehensiveness of a website and rewarding those who cover topics to the fullest extent.

In fact, a great example of this came in a 2021 update where they targeted affiliate websites with “thin content.” Thin content refers to pieces that don’t add a lot of value or personality to the products or services they promote.

Affiliate marketing websites are notorious for this.

Let’s say you have a site and you’re promoting tennis rackets on Amazon. Some affiliate sites will simply copy everything in the Amazon product description over to their site and slap an affiliate link on it.

You can’t do this, according to Google. They refer to it as “scraped content” and while they won’t penalize you for it, they’re rewarding sites that add insight and interesting anecdotes in addition to product specifications.

How does this tie into low search volume keywords and niche topics?

Targeting low search volume keywords isn’t always about traffic. The goal of your site should be topic mastery and expertise. Google is paying a lot more attention to this nowadays. You can’t simply be the best keyword research expert and expect to rank right away anymore.

Google wants to see you actually understand the topic and are passionate about it. As a result, you can cover extensive topics by researching low search volume keywords that provide a well-rounded piece of content for the reader. Doing so shows you not only understand SEO but understand the topic you’re covering as well.

5. If It Has a Low Cost-Per-Click (CPC)

The cost-per-click is the average cost an advertiser pays to get someone to click on their Google ad. If certain low search volume keywords also have a low cost per click you might want to target them because it would be easy for you to beat out the competition and get to the top of the SERP even if it’s only for 50 people a month.

Keywords that have a high CPC are more competitive and will cost more to get you one click. For example, if you’re targeting a keyword with a $4.00 CPC, chances are you’ll have to have a large budget and be willing to pay more than that per click if you expect to get on the first page.

That cost can add up quickly and it doesn’t mean a conversion. You’re paying more than $4.00 just to get someone to click through to your website. The rest is up to you.

By going after low search volume keywords, there is less competition and the cost of getting someone to your website is lower.

6. For Link-Building Purposes

We all know link building is an important piece of the SEO puzzle and acquiring as many high-quality backlinks as possible is crucial if you expect to ever rank for anything. One way a lot of people acquire backlinks is through manual outreach.

You reach out to website owners in your niche to see if they’re interested in either including a link to your content on their site or fixing a broken link by replacing it with your great piece of content.

For this to work, you need to have a great piece of content with traffic that shows the website owner you’re worth their time.

A great way to do this is targeting a bunch of low search volume keywords that are relevant to your niche but might not be the most competitive. By doing so, you’re creating a piece of content that is topically relevant and interesting to the person you’re reaching out to. This increases the chances of them including a link on their site.

FAQs About Low Volume Keywords

How to Determine Search Volume for Keywords?

Ubersuggest is a great tool and is pictured above in many of the images. All you need to do is input a phrase and the tool will provide relevant keywords as well as their search volume.

What Is a Good Keyword Search Volume?

There’s really no specific volume because the goal is to find a keyword with as low competition by high search volume as possible. If you can do that, you’ll have an easier time ranking in a shorter amount of time.

How to Find High Search, Low Competition Keywords?

Finding low search volume keywords with high traffic isn’t easy. If it was easy, you wouldn’t have thousands of people competing against each other, and we’d all get to rank for whatever keywords we wanted. Utilize Google Trends, research using tools like Ahrefs, and spy on your competition by seeing what keywords they rank for.

How to Get Search Volume for Keywords?

Finding the search volume of a keyword is as simple as punching it into one of the various tools. You can use Ubersuggest, Ahrefs, SEMRush, and even Google Keyword Planner. All of these tools will display search volume. Keep in mind these are estimates so the results may vary from tool to tool.

Conclusion

Finding low search volume keywords is a great way to get traffic to your website whether you’re just starting out or making sure your site is topically relevant. There are many pieces to the SEO puzzle and we’re always trying to figure out how to get ahead of our competition.

If you’re struggling to figure out keyword research and SEO, we can help. Be sure to keep these tips in mind as you conduct your research and put together the next list of keywords you plan to target.

Do you think low search volume keywords can help you rank for higher search volume keywords? Let me know why in the comments.

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