New study highlights worst-performing search terms

A new study by content marketing specialist Siege Media has taken a closer look at the keywords that have the worst click-through rates (CTR) on Google and found that those geared towards knowledge graphs and quick answers generally perform much worse than other search queries.

In its Which Keywords Have The Worst CTR? infographic, Siege Media explains that it used Ahref’s Keyword Explore tool to examine popular keyword ‘stems’ by dividing the number of average clicks by the number of average searches for the 50 most-trafficked keywords for each of those stems, which are prefixes or suffixes added to the stems to create new phrases.

Relevant findings

“Translation” was the worst-performing keyword stem, with just 19.45 per cent of searches resulting in clicks, while “population” and “definition” came in second and third with 25.27 per cent and 26.03 per cent respectively. The study noted that these low numbers are not unexpected, as Google attempts to answer questions featuring these keywords directly.

The most surprising stems to feature in the “worst list” include “how-to” searches, which came ninth on the list with just over half of searches as clicks. Other terms that appear to be leave searchers unsatisfied when using Google include “coupons,” “recipes” and “jokes,” which all required numerous clicks within SERPs before an adequate answer was found.

Siege Media concluded that it is becoming increasingly difficult for SEOs to use search volume metrics as a gauge for true traffic potential, as so many searches now do not result in any clicks. However, it added that services such as Moz’s Keyword Explore should help publishers and marketers calculate traffic potential accurately and scale estimations accordingly.

Google app update

In other search engine news, Google announced on Thursday that it has updated its search app to work better when online connections are poor. Previously, Google would only search for a query once if a connection dropped out, but it will now keep trying until a Wi-Fi connection becomes available again. It will also provide a notification stating that it was able to complete the query successfully. The tech giant said that the feature will not have any impact on battery life or data charges.