What Is Keyword Traffic Analysis?
Keyword traffic analysis is the process of examining how much traffic specific keywords could bring to your website if you ranked well for them. This analysis helps you decide which keywords to prioritize.
For example, when someone searches “email marketing tools” on Google, the results page appears. If the user clicks your site’s result, that visit is keyword traffic (also called keyword search traffic).
SEO tools like Semrush’s Keyword Overview make traffic analysis easier. They provide valuable insight into how often a particular term is searched per month (keyword search volume). And how hard it will be to rank for the keyword (keyword difficulty).
Why Keyword Traffic Matters for SEO Success
Keyword traffic analysis identifies which keywords already drive traffic to your site and which could drive more. With this data, you can create or optimize content to target these high-potential keywords.
Better targeting leaders to stronger rankings, more website visitors, and, finally, more leads and sales.
Here’s an example.
Shopify ranks in the first spot for the keyword “how to build an email list.”
But their article is on the eighth page of search results for the keyword “how to increase email subscribers,” which has a similar intent (the purpose behind the search) to the first keyword.
Keyword traffic analysis highlights this gap.
Shopify can decide whether to optimize the existing article to target the other keyword or create a new piece of content focused on increasing the number of email subscribers.
How to Conduct a Keyword Traffic Analysis
Check Estimated Keyword Traffic
Estimated keyword traffic shows the approximate number of visits you might receive if you rank for a keyword.
Use this metric to prioritize keywords with high relevant traffic potential. And ultimately attract the right target audience to your site, minimize content budget waste, and maximize revenue potential.
In the Keyword Overview tool, enter the search term and your domain to get personalized traffic potential.
Click “Search.”
The dashboard will display important keyword metrics, such as:
- Search volume: Average number of monthly searches
- Personal keyword difficulty: How hard it is for your site to rank for this keyword
Now, look at the segments “Potential Traffic” and “Potential Topic Traffic.”
Potential Traffic shows you the estimated monthly amount of traffic your site could get if you were ranking for this keyword.
Potential Topic Traffic shows you a traffic estimate you could get by using high-volume variations of the analyzed keyword.
Scroll down to the “SERP Analysis” section for more data and select the “URL” overview.
In the “Search Traffic” column, view how much traffic each of the top-ranking pages gets each month.
These estimates can help you calculate how much traffic you’re getting based on your ranking position. Or predict how much traffic you could get based on position improvements.
Check the Keyword Traffic in Google Search Console
Google Search Console (GSC) shows how much traffic your site gets from specific keywords. This data reveals which phrases bring the most visitors, where you can improve traffic, and which keywords to refine based on current performance.
Here’s how.
Log in to your GSC account and select the site you want to analyze.
Click “Search results” under “Performance.”
This performance graph shows four key metrics:
- Total clicks: Number of visits from search results
- Total impressions: Number of times your site appeared in search results
- Click-through rate (CTR): Percentage of impressions that led to clicks
- Average position: Average ranking of your site in search across all search queries
Scroll down to see your top-performing keywords, called “queries” in GSC.
This list is sorted by clicks, showing which queries drive the most visitors to your site.
These are your top performers. Record these queries and track traffic changes over time so you can react quickly to sudden drops. Later in the article, we’ll show you how to do this easily with Position Tracking.
To find opportunities for improvement, click “CTR” two times to sort the list from lowest to highest click-through rate.
These are terms where your pages appear often but don’t earn many clicks.
Check the “Position” tab to see the average position and confirm this page ranks low.
By optimizing pages for these terms, you can improve rankings and capture more visitors.
Connect Google Search Console and Google Analytics for More Insights
Connecting GSC with Google Analytics (GA4) gives you more insight into why queries and pages with low CTR underperform.
To link GSC and GA4, open the left-hand menu and click “Admin.”
Under Product links, click “Search Console links.”
Click “Link” to connect GA4 and GSC.
In the section “Choose Search Console property,” click “Choose accounts.”
Select the website you want to connect to. Then click “Confirm.”
Next, select a web stream for your domain and click “Next.”
Finally, review the data and click “Submit.”
Your GSC and GA4 data are now connected. Let’s see what you can do with these insights.
In the left-hand menu, click “Reports” > “Search Console” > “Google organic search traffic.”
In this view, you can see the combined data from two tools.
Let’s say you identified a page in GSC that’s ranking low in search results but still gets some clicks.
Now, you can use GA4 to check metrics like “Average engagement time per active user.” This metric shows you the average time a user spends on your page.
A low engagement time means users are leaving your page quickly after viewing it. That could be due to various reasons, like the page isn’t loading quickly enough or the content doesn’t answer their question.
Use this data to identify low-performing pages, analyze the issues, and make changes. Improving these pages increases the chance of capturing more keyword traffic.
Analyze Keyword Gaps for Content Optimization Ideas
Keyword gap analysis compares your content with competitors’ to show where they attract traffic that you don’t. So you can find optimization ideas for your content.
Here’s how.
Open Keyword Gap.
Enter your page URL and a competitor’s URL.
Select “Exact URL” for both pages so you can analyze differences between the two.
Click “Compare.”
The graph on the next page shows you how many keywords you and your competitor have in common.
Scroll down to “All keyword details for,” and select “Missing.”
These are the keywords your competitor ranks for but you don’t.
Now, click “Weak” to see keywords both of you are ranking for, but your rankings are lower than your competitor’s.
When you identify the keyword worth targeting, click on it to go to Keyword Overview to check the estimated traffic for the keyword.
By updating your article to target some of these keyword variations, you can increase the traffic to this specific page and improve the lifetime value of this content asset. Ensuring it keeps on bringing relevant traffic and revenue and exceeding the investment it took to create it.
Analyze Competitors’ Keyword Traffic to Find New Ideas
Competitor keyword traffic analysis shows where competitors get their visitors, which reveals high-traffic keywords you can also target.
Use these insights to create new content or update existing pages to capture part of that traffic.
Here’s how to conduct competitor traffic analysis with Organic Research.
Enter the competitor’s URL. Then click “Search.”
Click “Positions.” You’ll get a list of the keywords this competitor is ranking for.
The “Traffic” column will show you an estimate of how much traffic your competitor gets from a specific keyword.
Analyze this list to find keywords you could also target and get a traffic estimate on how much traffic your site could get if it managed to outperform your competitor.
Select the keywords you want to target and click “+ Add to keyword list” to save them in Keyword Strategy Builder.
Name your list. And click the green checkmark to save it.
Find these keywords in Keyword Strategy Builder to start building out a content plan to increase keyword traffic based on your competitor research.
Weigh the Factors to Prioritize Keywords
Prioritizing keywords requires weighing multiple factors. A structured scoring system helps you choose phrases that could have the biggest impact on traffic and business goals.
To help you, we created an example scoring framework with all weighted factors.
In this example, we’ll list out all factors and give them a score of 1, 2, or 3. At the end, add the scores to find keywords with the strongest potential.
| Factor | 1 = Low priority | 2 = Medium priority | 3 = High priority |
| Traffic potential | Low traffic potential (less than 50 visits per month) | Moderate traffic potential (between 50 and 500 visits per month) | High traffic potential (over 500 visits per month) |
| Personal keyword difficulty | Highly competitive (PKD % over 70%) | Somewhat competitive (PKD % between 40% and 70%) | Low competition (PKD % lower than 40%) |
| Content relevance | Loosely related to your audience’s needs, content goals, or your offering | Related to some of your audience’s needs or content goals but not the core offering | Directly related to your audience’s needs, content goals, and/or your offering |
| Existing performance | Already ranking well and driving traffic | A drop in rankings and traffic; it has some visibility, but there’s space for improvement | Very low CTR with a high potential to drive traffic if improved |
| Competitive landscape | No clear content gaps identified | Some content gaps were identified, but not related to your offering | Clear content gap opportunity with relevance to your offering |
Use this scoring system as a starting point for evaluating and prioritizing keywords. Adjust as you refine your goals and learn more about your audience and competition.
Track Keyword Positions to Determine Keyword Traffic
The last step in keyword research is tracking keyword positions to understand how rankings affect keyword traffic and help you detect issues like sudden drops for high-traffic terms.
Use Position Tracking to automate this process and easily stay on top of your rankings in search results.
After initial setup, the tool tracks rankings for you and sends you updates automatically.
To set up Position Tracking, click “+ Create project.”
Enter the domain and project name. Then click “Create project.”
Choose the search engine, device, and location for which you want to track positions.
Click “Continue To Keywords.”
You can enter keywords manually or import them from tools like Keyword Strategy Builder or Google Search Console.
Click “Keyword Strategy Builder.” Then select the list you saved before while doing competitor research.
Click “Import keywords” > “Add keywords to campaign.”
By default, the tool will send you weekly ranking updates. If you don’t want this, uncheck the box.
Then, click “Start Tracking.”
After the tool finishes the analysis, you’ll see a summary of your domain, along with visibility, estimated traffic, and average position.
Click the “Overview” tab to review estimated traffic and other keyword metrics.
Scroll down to the “Rankings Overview” section.
These are the keywords you entered before, along with page rankings, estimated keyword traffic, search volume, and more.
Knowing which keywords drive the most traffic to your site helps you maintain strong visibility in search results and ensure your organic traffic remains strong.
Don’t delay keyword traffic analysis. Sign up for a free seven-day Semrush trial today and find insights that could move the needle for your site.