The number of keywords used in a search still matters

We all know how fascinated keywords are. There is an entire world of analysis around keywords, from a linguistic analysis or from an optimisation point of view.

An interesting analysis is to see a breakout percentage by number of terms used across different countries:

Source: iCrossing -  Trellian data / Forrester

Nordic countries for example have a large percentage of one word search over 50%, compared to American geographies where the percentage is for less than 40% using one word. One can think that less number of keywords means or has something to do with the language itself used in the country. Conversely,  one can immediately see that this hypothesis is wrong. If you compare UK and US or CA split by number of words, this differs completely in percentages despite of these countries tending to use the same language structure and share a lot of vocabulary terms. Another good way to check this is checking Germany as an example as one can expect -one word %- to be in large proportion as Germans use very long word construction that can include adjectives and nouns.

A second interesting analysis is to check if there is any potential correlation between internet penetration and number of words that people use. The hypothesis behind is that one can expects that more mature markets with internet usage have evolved in search and therefore  tend to use more long-tail terms. Again, having a look to the graph above, there is no substantial theory behind this as Nordic countries with heavy internet penetration have low rates for 3-4 word searches.

Trying to have a more detailed analysis of how the number of terms used impact organic and paid search results, one arrived to different interesting conclusions.

If we have a first look to organic, the graph below shows the percentage of searches that generated a click on one of the search results. Clearly 3 and  4 words show the largest percentage of searches that generate a click on the search results.

On the contrary, if we have a look to paid search, the graphs below shows the importance of 8 , 9 and 10+ words in generating a click. This shows that paid search is a more targeted technique and therefore provides higher relevancy.

In conclusion, seems that the number of words that people use when they search is still important and of course matters particularly across different geographies.