It all really depends on what you are looking for. I think it is crucial to consider that we have cultural variations and that we search differently. However we are all human beings with the same problems or same concerns and we are all looking for information and news. What really differ though are local searches and the way we conduct them. In many non English speaking European countries for instance we adopt English phrases and English terms and put these into our local search engines to avoid all the non local information that we would get otherwise.

We also have variations when it comes to the data that can be found in the markets. It is very difficult to find reliable sources and get local keyword data to study. A few suppliers like Keyword Discovery or Yahoos free version is showing data per country and per word however the accuracy is not always to rely on. I have seen many problems where these tools can’t show any data because the phrase has too few searches per month or our individual alphabetical characters is messing with the results.

However, these are the only sources that we have, if we don’t build our own database tools, and they are at least good indicators. These tools can show you in real time what people are looking for and what people want in their results lists. So by studying these lists we can all get an understanding of the searches out there and as well be able to compare country by country.

When speaking at conferences in Europe I always get the question about reliability and the point of using it when it is not showing data with 100% accuracy. When it comes to discussions on setting up traffic goals and measure success with search marketing efforts, the key here is to remember where as we can not get perfectly reliable data, we can get indicators and we can study the trends of searches. And I do believe we can set goals and maybe even as the numbers are indicators and always lower than reality you can also do it with a more realistic approach. If you want precise and accurate numbers I would suggest running a paid search campaign on broad terms with broad match for a couple of months and get some data that’s even applicable to your site and its performance. I don’t see it as dangerous and I don’t see it as unnecessary. It is good indication and it is one out of many sources that will give you input to base decisions on.

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 11th, 2007 at 9:15 pm and is filed under Research. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.