How to Gain Visibility and Organic Traffic with Minimal Search Volume

Once upon a time there was a majority of SEOs who believed that those targeting keywords with low or no search volume were self-saboteurs. 

But web users are smart. If they see a page smeared with blatant keywords and SEO headings that is unable to help them with their query, they’ll bounce. 

Specificity and relevance is far more likely to generate greater engagement and trust from target audiences. Uniqueness and originality will set businesses up favorably amid Google’s Helpful Content Updates and when it comes to acquiring natural backlinks.

In this guide, I’ll walk you through how websites can gain visibility and organic traffic when there’s minimal search volume – and why you should embrace this strategy. From content clusters and keyword specificity to reframing your SEO reports – here’s how to make this strategy work for you.

1. Go for high relevance not high volume 

I’m not the first person and I won’t be the last person to write about the power of targeting keywords with minimal search volume. Just look at this excerpt taken from Bernard Huang’s article on ranch SEO, which I would absolutely recommend reading:

If you (or your company) want to be a thought leader in a specific industry, your strategy shouldn’t be to focus on the most basic and commonly known information – that is, by targeting high-search-volume, highly competitive keywords (such as “SEO strategy”).  

Being a thought leader is about straying from the sea of sameness you see on the SERPs. Instead of relying on keyword tools and search volume to inspire your content, look at highly relevant keywords (such as “how to increase traffic on niche websites”) that closely align with the user’s journey. Investigate the words that people are using and typing in real life.

The best way to do this is to: 

• Speak to clients, sales teams, or product teams to better understand the words that people are using. 
• Use these words to inform your keyword and content strategy, even if the search volume isn’t impressive. 
• Build trust and relevance toward the brand by aligning language and terminology with what the target audience is using.

By focusing on the highly relevant keywords you unveil during the process above, you’re more likely to ensure your content is people-first, unique, and useful. 

This low-search-volume strategy will make you a far less reactive and more proactive SEO. Instead of forecasting high estimated traffic volumes in your spreadsheets, you can build crucial trust and engagement among your target audience . This, over time, will convert into visibility, traffic, and leads.

Above is just a glimpse of how you can grow website visibility and organic traffic because you target low-search-volume keywords – and not in spite of targeting them. Engaged sessions on the adjoe blog alone increased by more than 2,000% YoY when we adjusted our strategy to focus on publishing and optimizing product-led articles with lower-search-volume keywords. 

One last thing: Don’t forget to keep an eye on the keywords you choose to target. I’ve come back to see search volume increase for keywords that, just a few months prior, had zero search volume (I really mean zero).

2. Cluster your way to thought leadership

Prioritize content clustering in your strategy to signal your authority on certain topics. Especially, if you’re working for a smaller company trying to outcompete established brands.

One niche article alone will not help you gain traffic or visibility. But if you consistently publish/optimize a kaleidoscope of granular, targeted articles, you'll take up space with your voice and expertise on a certain topic. 

Content clustering – or what Bernard Huang describes as “ranch SEO” – empowers you to build a focused long-term strategy, rather than a haphazard one.

Here are other key reasons why topic clustering is non-negotiable when you’re writing about topics with minimal search volume:

• Less pressure on content teams: Content teams don’t have to cover excessive ground in one long-form content piece, for example. If they know they have a few specific keywords to target, they can focus on writing short, crisp articles that are more likely to draw engagement and conversions.

• More resilient content: Clusters leave brands with a strong, robust, lasting digital presence that goes beyond just rankings. Websites can leverage traffic coming in from multiple pages, rather than relying on a few long-form articles to drive significant traffic.

• Better internal linking: Your team will have far richer internal linking opportunities if they’re writing about topics that are interlinked but covered in separate content pieces on your website. 

• Better UX: If a user wants to discover more about a topic, they’re not compelled to read a lengthy 5,000-word-long article that covers everything from A to Z about that one topic. They can engage with one article from start to finish, before clicking through to the next. 

• Cross-channel visibility: You can take clustering one step further by taking your strategy cross-channel. Produce content on a certain topic on social channels, YouTube, and podcasts, etc. to ensure your SEO strategy is resilient against the zero-click phenomenon. Chantal Smith also talks about this strategy in her well-written article referencing the zero-click era. I recommend you take a look at her piece.

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With more say in certain topics, you’ll capture attention from your target audience – and their trust. You’ll also simultaneously obtain natural backlinks (and thereby visibility and traffic) by giving publications reasons to share your unique niche content.

Topic clustering is a long-term strategy, and it’s excellent for tackling longer sales cycles (shout-out to my colleagues in B2B). You won’t achieve results overnight, but think of your strategy in terms of achieving small things every day. Incremental moves, such as publishing a new article on your target topic several times a month, will help your website gain visibility and traffic over the long term.

3. Reframe Your Reports

This is an important point to finish on. 

You might be asking yourself: “If there’s minimal search volume, how do I report this back so that my reports don’t look sad and depressing?” I know many SEOs struggle to get buy-in as it is, so how will this low-volume traffic strategy help?

You will have to suppress your excitement if you see you’re ranking at number 1 for a keyword that has 0 search volume. It’s all part of the process. Focus instead on the progression of search volume and whether that keyword is going to lead to greater engagement with your content.

Reframe your reports, so that as well as reporting on visibility and traffic, you’re educating stakeholders on the following point: Search volume isn’t everything. 

Intent, inbounds (qualified leads), and engagement are more reliable indicators of your strategy’s impact on business. These metrics also don’t fluctuate as much as traffic and impression metrics, so your reports won’t send you into panic every month.

Populate your report with deeper-funnel metrics – such as time spent on page, scroll depth, engagement, key events (conversions), so your team can see just how relevant your content is – and tweak it if necessary. 

Monitoring backlinks in your report will also indicate the strength of your content – so use these metrics to acquire stronger buy-in and trust in your long-term strategy.

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Final thoughts

There’s a sea of sameness in the SERP. Do better by doing differently – with greater focus and patience.

SEO might once have been considered a game of shortcuts (maybe for some it still is), but focusing on high-volume keywords to gain visibility and traffic is a shortsighted strategy, and results could now be short-lived in the evolving search landscape. 

This year we’ve seen industry experts raving about the scalability of SEO content with AI. Others have meanwhile strongly advised us to focus on producing quality and highly relevant content instead of “smearing” yet more pages all over the web. 

Let’s realign with what’s important for businesses. Whether you’re working for a company in a highly competitive or regulated industry, such as health, or you’re devising a strategy for a company in a minimal-search-traffic niche – such as Adtech – being able to differentiate your website from competitors will always be a remarkable achievement in the eyes of web users, Google, and (ideally) the company you’re working for.

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