Ideal Google Searches for Domain Development

[soggyindo]

I couldn't find an existing thread, so I thought i'd throw it open about the ideal (not biggest) search numbers people look for in finding domains for development (domains with exact keyword matches, like BasketballShoes.net).

In my experience it's all about getting the top few search engine results. And if you're a one person operation, that can be tough for the big search terms.

Bigger numbers have the advantage of devoting yourself to success in one site, rather than being spread too thin between 5 or 10 sites. Small numbers let you slip under the radar, but require constant updating.

So, what sort of numbers do you look for? (For ease of comparison, let's use "exact monthly searches" using the adwords keyword tool).

I'll start things off by saying - for products - i've usually gone for about the 8,000 - 20,000 a month level.

 

[shockie]

i'm starting to target higher numbers (no significant results yet), but i wouldn't fully exclude the smaller ones.

i have this one site with <1000 monthly exacts, but still manages to get thousands of uniques per month without too much of that long-tail stuff.

 

[soggyindo]

i'm starting to target higher numbers (no significant results yet), but i wouldn't fully exclude the smaller ones.

i have this one site with <1000 monthly exacts, but still manages to get thousands of uniques per month without too much of that long-tail stuff.

thanks shockie - i'd rep you if i could again...

that's what i'm finding too. you can get plenty of traffic on a 18,000 site, without having to double the search numbers, and double or triple the competition too...

good to heasr you're doing ok on 1000-ish numbers - plenty of them around. but still not enough income on one of those to sit back and relax, i'm thinking..?

 

[doggyowner]

I'll start things off by saying - for products - i've usually gone for about the 8,000 - 20,000 a month level.

Ill second those figures, are excellent exact searches / month. Throw in some descent advertiser competition and you can have a potential winner there. I took a gamble and bought a couple of thingstodoin[UScity].com on tdnam yesterday, all had 15k-30k exact searches / month. Gonna throw up minisites on them.

 

[shockie]

good to hear you're doing ok on 1000-ish numbers - plenty of them around. but still not enough income on one of those to sit back and relax, i'm thinking..?

it's enough to pay for the domain, hosting, and also have a little extra at the end depending on the month, which is better than a loss. unrealized value also gets added to the domain/website so that's nice, but it's definitely not enough to retire on or anything, lol.

 

[soggyindo]

Ill second those figures, are excellent exact searches / month. Throw in some descent advertiser competition and you can have a potential winner there. I took a gamble and bought a couple of thingstodoin[UScity].com on tdnam yesterday, all had 15k-30k exact searches / month. Gonna throw up minisites on them.

Interesting you agree with the ~20,000 figure. I wonder if people prefer higher numbers for development. If not - perhaps ~20,000 names are good for selling to developers?

 

[seven]

The Google numbers are nowhere close to the actual searches. I've had several sites at #1 for terms supposedly getting 5,000 or more a month and would maybe have 10-20 uniques a day.

What Google is good for is searches in relation to one another, but the numbers are way, way off.

I currently have the .com of a domain getting "2 million searches per month". Hopefully I can get it in the top results soon and see what that actually translates to.

I'd say you'd be doing good if you got 10% of the supposed search volume - even at #1.

 

[shockie]

The Google numbers are nowhere close to the actual searches. I've had several sites at #1 for terms supposedly getting 5,000 or more a month and would maybe have 10-20 uniques a day.

that's quite a difference. is the 5,000 number coming from exact searches?

 

[seven]

that's quite a difference. is the 5,000 number coming from exact searches?

Yes. The very same.

I'm just using 5,000 as a rough figure.

3,000 searches
4,600 searches
8,500 searches

Whatever the case may be - the search numbers aren't close to reality.

I know this isn't the same as mentioned above, but its the closest I have to the moment of actual proof.

Supposedly the average search volume for the term "i want money" without the quotations is 74,000 - even more in January. I'm number 5 at that very term and I get 20-30 uniques a day. I'm also the first relevant site for actual money (the others are song/youtube).

20-30 a day so maybe I get 900/month at #5 for a term that supposedly at least gets 74k searches a month.

 

[shockie]

a few things to note:

- without quotations includes many many queries that are irrelevant to your site, and will not pull up your site onto the first page anywhere near 74k times.

- about half of the organic traffic will go to the first listing, so expect to receive much less than than if you're halfway down the page.

- if most of the people who are looking up "i want money" is looking for the lyrics or music video of such a song, then it would also make sense that those youtube/music sites get most of the traffic.

 

[onewordonly]

If I want to develop a site for a specific subject then I will just check up on all the keywords that I would like to use for my website but it doesn't mean I will use the top words, less popular words might sound and work a lot better.

 

[soggyindo]

Yes. The very same.

I'm just using 5,000 as a rough figure.

3,000 searches
4,600 searches
8,500 searches

Whatever the case may be - the search numbers aren't close to reality.

I know this isn't the same as mentioned above, but its the closest I have to the moment of actual proof.

Supposedly the average search volume for the term "i want money" without the quotations is 74,000 - even more in January. I'm number 5 at that very term and I get 20-30 uniques a day. I'm also the first relevant site for actual money (the others are song/youtube).

20-30 a day so maybe I get 900/month at #5 for a term that supposedly at least gets 74k searches a month.

i'd heard #1 gets approximately 60% of all the searches, from memory i think it roughly halves each position down you go, ie.

#2 30%
#3 15%
#4 7%
#5 3%...

with so many variables in there like domain name, how you write your intro, etc etc.

i should look up the 'exact' figures, but it does drop off quite considerably...

 

[JohnPK]

Supposedly the average search volume for the term "i want money" without the quotations is 74,000 - even more in January. I'm number 5 at that very term and I get 20-30 uniques a day. I'm also the first relevant site for actual money (the others are song/youtube).

20-30 a day so maybe I get 900/month at #5 for a term that supposedly at least gets 74k searches a month.

But 74,000 is the number of broad searches per month in the US.

The exact numbers are 2,400 (US only) / 3,600 (worldwide)

So you're getting nearly 38% of the US traffic from this google search -
not that bad IMHO.

cheers
John

 

[doggyowner]

.. with so many variables in there like domain name, how you write your intro, etc etc.

Amen to that, an appealing meta desc text, your "free ad", is crucial for click throughs.