What to do if Google Adwords keyword tool suggests “no searches”

Question

I believe I have a great idea, and want to test the market before I create a site for it. However, I'm having some difficulty with Google AdWords - I'm a total beginner with SEO/SEM.

When I plug in keywords into AdWords tool, I get no results at all, globally, unless I put it some very very broad keyword that aren't really related to my idea. I guess this means no one is searching for it? That very well can be. However, due to the unique nature of my idea, I believe people aren't searching for it because they don't know they can do something like that yet.

I know you definitely can do something like that - I just finished a proof of concept, so it's a valid idea that solves an actual problem. But, what to do if no one is searching for it? Once I make the site, how do I get visitors to it? Is organic link building my only road to success?

Answer 1

If you build your links organically you’re still going to run into the same problem of which keywords to target.

The way I would approach it is to think about the people who are going to use your service, and how they already go about doing similar tasks online, more importantly how they get to those sites, then piggy back off the searches for those... It wont is 100% relevant traffic but if no one is searching for your terms this is probably the best way to get interested viewers to your site.

For instance if you were starting out an insurance comparison site (before any one knew that insurance comparison existed) I would start by using the same keywords as people looking for insurance providers so targeting "car insurance" "home insurance" rather than the term "compare insurance" which no body would have been searching for.

Answer 2

You might need to use display advertising on relevant sites if you can't find any good search terms to target. However, the keyword tool often doesn't return statistics for lower volume keywords, so you could try adding the keywords to an account to see how many impressions and clicks you get.

Answer 3

I have been in your position before and unfortunatly Google Adwords or SEM likely isn't the best tactic for you. You will end up spending a lot of time optimizing for keywords that will not get you the returns you are looking for.

What I suggest is create your page / product and try to get feedback and validation from the communities who would actually use them. Find the places that your cusomters or potential customers go to talk and then target those areas. You could even consider advertising on those networks directly.

Selling a product that people don't know they need is a tough problem to have when starting out. Finally, I would use Twitter and Twitter search to find users who are having problems that your tool is solving, then you can perhaps get it in front of them and see how well it converts.

Let me know how it goes @kentf