Using Search Volume To Select A Domain Name

When I am hand registering a domain name or searching through dropping domains I typically spend a lot of time analyzing search volume based on exact match results from Google. Although this is a good way to look for hidden gems for back order or hand registration there are times that it may be valuable to lower the number of exact searches you may typically search for and reasons it may continue to be something that helps you find a good name for resell to an end user.

We all like to go for the big search volume names because we are hoping for large amounts of traffic from type-ins or hopefully the SEO value we get from having an exact match name. But one thing many people do not realize is that there are certain industries that have quite a bit of competition in the advertiser space, a very limited set of customers, and based on that a very low search volume. But every one of those customers matter. When you have a keyword being searched for 1 million times it may be ok to miss one or two visitors to a competitor but when there are only 100 possible customers per month and the value of the sell can be in the hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars, every single search counts.

I recently picked up several names on drop for just this reason, together they form a network of exact match names in a growing and very lucrative industry where customers are limited but value is high. Where I typically try to not go below a certain number of searches per month for exact match names, in this case the PPC value and advertiser competition shows that a network with decent traffic could be an opportunity for a decent sell to a player in this industry, we are talking less than 1000 searches per month total between the names but all of value. I cannot stress that enough.

At the end of the day we all want lots of traffic but really the amount of traffic and the value of each visitor is determined by the industry being targeted. 100 visitors to a site selling 1 dollar items does not mean much, but 100 customers ending up at a site that could be selling 20 thousand dollars items is  a whole different value.

I know this is nothing earth shattering, but sometimes I think we lose perspective of the real value of traffic and why sometimes low search volume does not mean low value.