Whether you’re conducting keyword research or trying to determine the efficacy of SEO to your website traffic volumes, the prediction of traffic levels is likely to play a part in your calculations. Unfortunately, there are a number of variables that are largely unpredictable that can also dictate the number of visitors an SEO campaign will generate along with the number of searches that are conducted on a particular keyword every month.

Historical Traffic Data

There are many tools, some of which are offered by the search engines themselves, that display the number of searches conducted each month on a given keyword. This is obviously useful information when trying to work out the number of visitors that an SEO campaign might generate. However, you also need to consider factors such as the ranking your web page receives, how good your index listing is at converting searches to visitors, and many other factors.

Estimates Are Estimates

It is also important to remember that the traffic figures you use may be historical or they may be an estimate of future traffic that has been determined by the use of historical data but the search forum can change dramatically from day to day let alone month to month. Certain keywords historically perform better in certain months. For example, the keyword sunglasses will typically perform better in summer months than winter months while the keyword Christmas is likely to increase in traffic the closer we get to the festive period.

Sudden Rises And Declines In Popularity

As well as seasonality, we also need to consider the fact that some keywords may only enjoy a very brief and one off increase in popularity and then revert to near insignificance. In most cases, it should be fairly evident whether this will be the case with a specific keyword or not but sometimes results change unexpectedly leaving us with little clue what happened or why. The important point is to remember that traffic predictions, whether provided by software or your own calculations, really are only predictions and are not guaranteed to indicate future levels.

Your Web Page Listing

The listing of your web page within the results will play a part, as will the quality of those around you. The better and more appealing your own website title and description the better your page is likely to perform but it will also depend on the other organic listings and paid listings that feature in the results. Controlling your title and description should be considered a part of your on page SEO because of the effect it can have on your click through rate.

SEO Is Not An Exact Science

SEO could never be considered an exact science and this includes the prediction of traffic levels than optimised page can expect to enjoy. The fact is that there are many different influencing factors on how well your SEO will translate into traffic levels, even how each searcher is feeling when they perform a search on one of your keywords. Unfortunately, not everything in SEO can be completely controlled.

Get Involved