Answered Overall score 100, search volume in GREEN, ranked at top, but no real traffic

[mhannor]

Hey you all, I just purchased TB last week, and spent hours doing KW Research. I'm a Christian YT channel and I optimized two videos, both said search volume was good but I'm not getting any searches on these videos.

I would take a screenshot but I'm past the limit for the day, which I have to create another post for but the keywords that I used were:
second coming of holy spirit
how to explain the trinity to a new believer
introduction to the godhead

I'm ranking for all of these and this is great, but where is the real traffic? Most of the views that I have come from Facebook from self promotion.

I have found tons of keywords this way and I'm wondering, are these keywords useless? Correct me if I'm wrong but if the KW does not have a monthly estimate of searches, does that means, even if I rank in the number 1 spot, there is not enough data so the green bar for search volume means nothing? Please help me understand and let me know where I need to make corrections, I'm happy that I'm ranking but how does this help if I don't get any traffic from the keyword?

 

[Stanley | Team TB]

The keyword itself is only half that battle. It is important to do all these best practices because ranking for that search term places you in front of the viewers who are specifically looking for that topic.

But that doe not guarantee views.

Views are gained when these people who are searching for these terms actually click on your video. We often stress doing a search for these terms before your make your thumbnail... the reason being that you not only want to create a thumbnail that is compelling, dynamic and clickable... you also need it to stand out against the competition.

Think about it like this... does it really matter if you are ranked #1 or #5? What is the difference? The top five results all populate in front of the viewer at the same time when they search a topic. Do you think they care which is #1? Are they going to click that video just because it was at the top of the list? The math says otherwise. Regardless of where each ranks the viewer is going to click on the video which offers the title/thumbnail that appeals most to them. And the video with the title/thumbnail which appeals not only to a more broad range of viewers but which also stands out from that pack is the one who is going to get the clicks.

It is also worth noting that topping the ranks does not mean you are suddenly going to be inundated with channel-breaking amounts of views. That is what virality is for. You optimize for search not for this traffic... but for the years worth of search traffic that will be coming through after your video has not gone viral. You can make 500 videos and aim for that viral hit to gain you 1,000,000 views when it happens or you can make 500 optimized videos averaging a steady foundation of views and discovery while you try to get that viral hit... the latter is the process that TubeBuddy caters to.

 

[Apin89]

I'm waiting for a competent person to answer

 

[mhannor]

Ok, that puts things in perspective. I will use the keywords ive found and see what happens. Thank you!