Hello, I have a bit of a problem....

I have a company that manufactures therapeutic heat packs for back
problems and I need to know roughly how many hits our site is going to
get when someone types in the word "heat pack" when our company is
displayed in the top ten of the search results (I have the means of
getting in the top 10).  Or i need to know how many people per month
type in the query "heat pack" at google.  I know someone can't just
spit out a number because it depends on where you are positioned in
the top ten, what is displayed in the description of your site, and
many other things.

However I'm not sure even within a factor of ten, on how many hits our
site is going to get, being in the top ten.  There could be 50,000
people a month typing in "heat pack", or there could be
500,000.  There could be companys in the top ten of google results for
heat pack getting 10,000 hits per month from this querry, or 100,000.
I'm worried that once I get in the search engines, that the response
will be much greater then my inventory, since our pack is superior to
all other packs on the market, so i need some kind of numbers to play
with.



I realize you probably cannot give me info from google, but perhaps an
approximate number, or another number from a similar product with
similar results?  Or perhaps you can find results/data from other
search engines on the result I'm looking for ("heat pack")?  I need
info, and I need it pretty bad LOL.

Thank you for your time.

Hi there,

This is for searches of "heat pack" without the quotes - very few
searchers use quotes. I have used every tool I am aware of and deduced
an overall estimate for you.

Google Adwords
--------------

Although it is impossible to get a precise figure for any Google
search term, you can get a fair idea from Google's Adword program. You
need to sign up and go through a few pages, and their estimates are
only good estimates if someone else is already bidding on the keywords
you choose. From my Australian viewpoint (Adwords can target specific
regions) I see four ads (at the right of search results) when I search
for heat pack.

If you pay for the top position in the Google Adwords listings, they
estimate 3 click-throughs per day = 90 per month.


Overture
--------
In Dec 2002, heat pack was searched for 1281 times. The figure
includes any search for heat packs - the plural. This compares with
these other search terms:

MP3             1138884
Madonna          299979
Wheelchair        33214
Furby             12885
Aibo               8690
2012               2244
Foot Bath          2048
Ice Pack           1388
Sinus Mask          238
http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/?term=heat+pack


eSpotting
---------

Europe's largest pay-per-click search engine reports last month:

heat pack      5
heat packs    26
http://www.espotting.com/popups/keywordgenbox.asp


7Search
-------

Popular American pay-per-click, 183 searches in December 2002
(includes plurals)
http://conversion.7search.com/scripts/advertisertools/keywordsuggestion.aspx


WordTracker
-----------

WordTracker is a popular keyword service, and they offer a free trial.
They study the searches made at MetaCrawler and Dogpile. From a total
of 348 million searches made in the last 60 days, there were:

heat packs   94
heat pack    49

foot bath    59
fott baths   36

2012        275
Furby       572

http://www.wordtracker.com/



MY ESTIMATE
===========

Somewhere between 1,000 and 10,000 Google searches per month.


Based on Overture click-throughs
--------------------------------

Overture claim 500 million click-throughs per quarter. 
http://www.corporate-ir.net/ireye/ir_site.zhtml?ticker=OVER&script=410&layout=0&item_id=347827
Whereas Google has roughly 12,000 million searches per quarter.
http://searchenginez.com/google.html

It is very hard comparing searches with click-throughs. If they were
equal you could estimate 30,000 searches for heat pack each month at
Google. But that would be the very highest.

Based on WordTracker
--------------------

By comparing Google's number of searches with the WordTracker results,
we get 5,000 searches per quarter.


Based on personal experience
----------------------------

I have a web page which comes up #2 in a Google search. The numbers of
visitors I get from that particular search is very similar to the
number that comes up using the Overture tool. Another web page,
(different site and topic) comes up #4 and gets roughly half the
Overture figure. Many more would click on other pages listed in the
results, so I'd multiply the Overture figure by two or three to get
number of Google searches.



I hope you accept my reasoning for the estimate of 1,000 - 10,000
Google searches per month. Usually when someone asks a question of
this nature at Google Answers, it doesn't get answered - because it is
impossible to give a precise answer. I only answered your question
because you appear to appreciate the haziness of it all!

Best wishes,
robertskelton-ga