What does the figure in Wordstat show?

The total number of searches per month that contain your phrase along with any other words. For the phrase “buy a sofa,” this amount will include both “buy a used sofa” and “buy a sofa on credit inexpensively.” This figure does not show the frequency of the phrase itself.

How can I see the exact frequency of a request?

Quotation marks and exclamation marks. Quotation marks limit the query to a given set of words; an exclamation point before a word fixes its word form. The difference between the broad and precise values is often tenfold.

How to view seasonality in Wordstat?

Query history tab: it gives monthly dynamics for past periods. You need to look at it for two or three years in a row - in one year it is impossible to distinguish seasonality from a one-time surge caused by news or the launch of a competitor.

Is it possible to predict website traffic using Wordstat?

Not directly. The number of impressions in Wordstat is demand, not your future traffic: between them are position in the search results, CTR of the snippet and competition. Wordstat is good for comparing topics with each other and for the shape of the seasonal curve, rather than for an absolute forecast.

Why switch the region in Wordstat?

Because both the volume and shape of the demand curve for the region and the country are different. For local businesses, the federal figure is inflated and misleading, and seasonal peaks in different regions can shift by weeks.

How to transfer seasonality from Wordstat to a media plan?

Through coefficients, not absolute values. The ratio of each month to the average annual level is calculated, and this coefficient is multiplied by the base budget of the channel. Absolute numbers of impressions are not transferred to the media plan.

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PerformanceSeptember 5, 20269 min

Wordstat 2026: how to calculate demand and seasonality without deceiving yourself

Wordstat does not show what it seems: the number in the main window is the sum of all queries that include the phrase. I analyze the operators, the history of requests for seasonality, the regional profile and three errors due to which the demand forecast is overestimated several times.

Wordstat is the most accessible source of demand data and the most misread. The main figure in it does not mean what is expected of it, and most inflated forecasts are based on this.

The number in the main window is not the frequency of your phrase. This is the sum of everything that contains it, along with any additives.

1. Main mistake

You enter “media plan template” and see a number. It seems like so many people are looking for exactly this. In fact, the amount included “media plan template download”, “media plan template for radio”, “media plan template excel free 2026” and hundreds of other options.

This is normal for assessing the topic as a whole. To evaluate a specific request - an overestimation, sometimes tens of times.

How we search	What counts?	When to use
without operators	Phrase plus any words around	Assess the scope of the topic in its entirety
in quotes	Only these words, in any form and order	Rate a specific request
in quotation marks with exclamation marks	Only these words in this form	Exact frequency under the page title

Rule of thumb: choose a topic based on broad frequency, and a page title based on specific frequency.

2. Seasonality: only history and only for two or three years

The main window shows the last month. For seasonality, you need a request history tab - there are monthly dynamics.

You can't watch for one year. The surge in March last year could have been seasonal, or it could have been news, the launch of a competitor, or a one-time news event. It is possible to distinguish one from another only if it is repeated.

Two or three years in a row give a stable shape of the curve, and it makes sense to continue working with it.

3. The region changes not only its volume

The obvious part: the demand in the country is greater than the demand in the city. Non-obvious: the shape of the curve is also different.

Seasonal peaks shift: what begins in April in one climate zone, in May in another. For a business that operates in one region, the federal curve means preparing a campaign for the wrong month.

This is especially important for local services: there the difference between federal and city demand can be not several times, but orders of magnitude, and it is simply impossible to plan according to the federal one.

4. How to transfer this to the media plan

Absolute Wordstat numbers are not transferred to the media plan. Transferred coefficient: ratio of the month to the annual average.

It's simple: add up twelve values, divide by twelve, and get the average. Then divide each month by this average. November with a factor of 1.4 means that demand there is forty percent higher than usual, and the budget for that month is multiplied by 1.4.

The finished sheet for this is in annual media plan: there is a coefficient column and a justification column, so that after a year it is clear where the figure came from. How events are superimposed on this curve - in material about the calendar in the media plan.

5. What Wordstat is not

Traffic forecast. Between the number of impressions in Wordstat and visits to the site are the position in the search results, the attractiveness of the snippet, the share of advertising units and competition.

Proper Use - comparative. Topic A is twice as big as Topic B, November is twice as strong as July, the region provides a tenth of the federal volume. All these statements are correct. The statement “we will receive a thousand visits” does not follow from Wordstat.

6. Check your data

The last step that almost no one takes is to superimpose the demand curve onto your own sales curve for the same years.

They don't have to be the same day to day. Demand outpaces sales by approximately the length of the transaction cycle: people first become interested, then buy. If the curves match perfectly, most likely you are looking at a brand query, and not at category demand - and a brand query follows your own activity and does not predict anything.

7. Summary

Broad frequency - for choosing a topic, precise in quotation marks with exclamation marks - for a title. Seasonality is only based on history and only for two or three years. The region always switches. The media plan includes coefficients, not absolute values.

And the main limitation: Wordstat answers the question “what more”, and not “how much will we get”.