SEO · June 15, 2024
SEO Tools for Website Traffic: What They Get Wrong
Drawing on experience as CMO of an HR tech brand, a look at why popular SEO tools like Ahrefs and SEMrush can mislead marketers, and where the real opportunity in long-tail keywords actually is.
SEO tools like Ahrefs and SEMrush are staples in digital marketing, but leaning on them too heavily can be misleading, since their traffic estimates are often best-guess approximations. A page might show 200 monthly visitors in Ahrefs while Google Search Console shows it's actually pulling in over 5,000.
About 70% of keywords are long-tail, and these popular tools tend to underrepresent them in favor of the short and medium-tail keywords everyone is already competing for. The smartest approach focuses on the long-tail terms competitors overlook, since they often carry high conversion intent even at low search volume.
The best organic search results tend to come from strategies rooted in real customer conversations: using Google auto-suggest, related searches, and low- or zero-volume keywords to find the exact language buyers use at the point they're ready to act.