Search Volume or Keyword Difficulty: Which Matters More?

Search volume and difficulty are the two numbers printed beside every keyword, and they disagree more often than they agree. Volume estimates how many people type a phrase each month, while difficulty estimates how hard the first page of Google would be to reach, and the busiest phrases are usually the most fiercely held. A cake maker in Nairobi might find that "birthday cakes Nairobi" is searched far more often than "eggless birthday cake delivery Kilimani", yet the bigger phrase is crowded with large bakeries, supermarkets and listing sites that have been online for years. For most small business websites, difficulty decides whether a phrase is worth attempting and volume decides the order in which you tackle the ones that survive. Both come second to a question neither number answers, which is whether the person searching would actually buy from you. Keep that order in mind and a long, confusing list turns into a short queue of pages worth writing.

What each number is really telling you

Search volume is an estimate of how many times a phrase is typed into Google in an average month, in one country. It is usually averaged across a year and rounded, so a phrase that is busy in December and quiet in June will show a figure that matches neither month. It also measures demand, not visitors. Clicks on any results page are shared out unevenly, with the top few positions taking most of them and maps, adverts and question boxes taking their own share, so a phrase searched a few hundred times a month will not send you a few hundred people even if you reach the first page. You can see both numbers side by side for any phrase in our free keyword research tool, which also lists the related searches people type in your country. Read them together every time, because either one on its own will mislead you.

Difficulty is an estimate of how strong the pages already ranking for a phrase are, worked out mostly from how many other websites link to them and how established those websites are. A high reading means you would have to pass pages with years of history behind them, while a low one means the current first page is held by weaker or younger pages. Our guide to keyword difficulty explains how the score works and how to use it, and, set beside volume, the score is best read as your odds of reaching the first page at all. It says nothing about whether the people searching would become customers. It also says nothing about how good your page would be. A simple way to hold both ideas is to think of volume as the size of the prize and difficulty as the odds of winning it.

Why difficulty usually decides first for a small site

A page that never reaches the first page of results gets almost no visitors, however many people search the phrase it was written for. Very few searchers go past the first page, so the prize behind a popular phrase is only worth something if you can actually get to it. An electrician in Leeds who aims his main service page at "electrician Leeds" is competing with national directories, comparison sites and large firms with years of links. He may wait a very long time to see a visitor from that phrase. If he writes a page for "EICR for landlords Leeds", describing the electrical safety report landlords need, he faces a smaller crowd and can start to appear within months. Fewer people search it, but a fair share of them become his visitors, and many of them will need the work done.

For a new or small site, this makes difficulty a filter rather than one factor among many. Think of each phrase as its prize multiplied by its odds: a large prize with almost no chance of winning is worth less to you this year than a modest prize you can reasonably expect to collect. Time matters as well, because hard phrases take long months or years of effort, while easier ones can pay back within a season. There is also a knock-on benefit that is easy to miss. Pages that rank for easier phrases start to earn links, enquiries and a track record with Google, and those things improve your odds on harder phrases later. Winning small first is not a lack of ambition; it is the route that leads to the bigger phrases.

In practice, a difficulty-first approach means sorting your list and setting aside everything above the level your site can currently reach. Setting aside is not the same as deleting, so park those phrases in a separate column and come back to them every few months. Before you park a phrase, search it in a private browser window and look at who holds the first page, since the reading is an estimate and the results page is the evidence. If small businesses and thin pages appear there, the phrase may be more open than its number suggests. If every position belongs to a household name, trust the number. For the Nairobi cake maker, that check might leave phrases about eggless cakes, cakes for children's parties in particular estates and same-day cake delivery, while the broad citywide phrases wait their turn.

When search volume deserves more weight

Once difficulty has done its filtering, volume comes into its own. Among phrases you can realistically win, the one more people search is usually the better one to start with, simply because the same effort can bring more visitors. Volume also settles questions of wording, which matter more than many owners expect. A tutor in Lagos could describe her service as home lessons, private tutoring or extra lessons, and each phrase draws a different number of searches. Her page can use all three naturally, but the most searched one belongs in the title and main heading, because that is the wording most parents will type. Checking variants like this takes a few minutes and often changes a title for the better.

Volume also tells you when to publish. Searches for many services rise and fall through the year, and a page needs time to be found and settle before the busy season arrives. A caterer in Mombasa will see interest in party trays and celebration meals climb ahead of Eid, and a sweet shop in Pune will see orders for gift boxes rise in the weeks before Diwali. Publishing or refreshing the relevant pages well before that rise gives Google time to index them. For a site that has been online for several years and already ranks well across its subject, volume can take the lead more often, because the odds on harder phrases are no longer so long. Even then, though, the reading still tells you how long a fight to expect.

There is a floor below which volume should make you pause. If a phrase is searched so rarely that even the top position would bring a visitor or two a year, a full page for it may not be the best use of an afternoon. The exception is a phrase with very clear buying intent for a high-value service, where a single enquiry could pay for the whole website many times over. A low number in the tool can also mean too few searches to report rather than none at all, especially for local phrases. When a phrase sits on that floor, ask whether it belongs on an existing page as a supporting section instead. That way you capture it without spending a whole page on it.

Weighing search volume and difficulty for each keyword

Put together, the weighing becomes a short routine you can run on any list. First, strike out every phrase a buyer would not type, however attractive its numbers look. Second, set aside the phrases whose difficulty is beyond your site's current reach, after checking the results page for each borderline one. Third, sort what remains by monthly searches, highest first, so the phrases with the biggest realistic prize rise to the top. Fourth, adjust that order for what a customer is worth to you, moving a lower-volume phrase up if the people searching it tend to spend more. The finished list is your writing order, and it usually looks quite different from a list sorted by either number alone.

Here is how it might look for a bookkeeper in Birmingham. "Accountant Birmingham" has the biggest volume on her list, but its difficulty is high and the first page is full of large firms, so she parks it. "How to do a self assessment tax return" is also popular, but the results are dominated by official government pages and the searchers mostly want to do it themselves, so it fails the buyer test. "Bookkeeping for small businesses Birmingham" has moderate volume and moderate difficulty, which makes it a sound second page. "Bookkeeper for builders and tradespeople" has few searches and a gentle reading, but those clients stay for years and have messy receipts she is good at sorting, so it goes to the top. The numbers informed every one of those decisions without making any of them on their own.

Run the routine again every few months, because both numbers move. Volumes change as habits and seasons change, and difficulty changes as new competitors arrive, old pages lose ground and your own site grows stronger. A phrase you parked last year may now sit within reach, and a phrase you wrote for may have become crowded. Keep a simple record of each phrase, its two numbers on the date you checked and the page you wrote for it. Over time that record shows you how quickly your site's reach grows. It turns a one-off decision into a habit that keeps your writing pointed at phrases worth winning.

What neither number can tell you

The most important figure for any phrase is one no tool can show you, which is what a visitor from it is worth to your business. A wedding venue near Naivasha might take a handful of bookings a month, each worth a great deal, so a phrase with very few searches can justify a page if the people typing it are couples choosing a venue. A café, on the other hand, earns a small amount from each visitor and depends far more on people walking past or finding it on the map. The same pair of numbers would lead those two businesses to different decisions, and both would be right. Before trusting any rule about which number matters more, work out roughly what one new customer brings you over a year. That figure tells you how much volume you need and how much difficulty you can afford to take on.

The words in a phrase also hint at intent. Phrases containing price, cost, hire, book, near or a specific place usually come from people ready to buy, while phrases beginning with how to, ideas or what is often come from people still researching or planning to do the job themselves. The results page confirms it: if Google shows businesses and service pages, it has judged the searcher to be a buyer, and if it shows guides and videos, it has judged them to be learning. Research phrases still have their uses, because a helpful guide can earn links and introduce you to future customers. Just do not expect them to fill your diary next week. Match each phrase to the kind of page that suits it and both numbers become far easier to read.

When you are ready to test your own list, the checker that shows these numbers is one of our free AI SEO Tools, which also include a website SEO checker and planners for your online and social media marketing. Run your phrases for the country where your customers live, because the same words can have very different numbers in Kenya, the UK and India. If a phrase you care about shows no figure at all, try a slightly broader wording to see whether the demand sits there instead. Note the related searches it suggests, since they often contain the specific, winnable phrases that a short list misses. Then sort the list by difficulty first and volume second, and let that order decide what you write next. Keep the results somewhere you will see them again in a few months.

So which matters more? For a small business site, difficulty matters first, because a phrase you cannot win sends nobody, and volume matters second, because among the phrases you can win it shows where the most people are. Both bow to relevance and value, because a busy, easy phrase that brings the wrong people is still a poor choice. Weigh them in that order and you will spend your writing time where it can pay back. Your list will be shorter than you hoped at first, and every page on it will have a real chance. As your site grows, the parked phrases will come back within reach, and you will be ready for them.