Many people use the global search volumes provided by the Google Keyword Tool and ignore the local search volumes when doing Keyword Research. However, the global search volumes are no longer a useful parameter in many cases.

Here is a screen shot of the search trends for the keyword phrase “domain name registration”. Note that US doesn’t figure in the top 10 countries in the chart. If you are doing the keyword research for a site that targets US customers, the global search trends are almost irrelevant!

There are a large number of English speaking Internet users in other parts of the Globe and the searches from those regions are now a lot higher than what it was a few years ago. Take this into account when doing keyword research.

The Google Keyword Tool provides both global search volumes and a local search volumes. The local search volumes are provided for the previous month.

In software like Good Keywords v3 and SEO Lab Professional, you can enable the display of the local monthly volumes by right clicking within the list and selecting “setup columns”. Then check the box for the corresponding month column.