Google Keyword Research Tool - Monthly Totals for Similar Keywords?

[garney]

Hi!

I am doing some Google keyword research using the Google Adwords Keyword tool to decide what content to create for the masses. That is, to find opportunities to create content that is in-demand where the current offering is not satisfying the need effectively.

Here are some keywords I picked out. I hope to produce a single piece of content optimized for some or all of these keywords.

(See attached imgur link)

The first thing I notice when doing this kind of work is that many similar-sounding keywords are showing the same sum of average monthly totals. This suggests to me that they may not actually be unique. For instance, the first two searches "guitar strings order" and "guitar string notes" each have ~5400 monthly searches. Does that mean 5400 each, or 5400 total between the two?

So does anybody know if these are individual numbers or part of a bigger total? And if they are part of a bigger total, how could I estimate the average searches for a piece of content that targets all 8 keywords? If I tally all of the searches, I have over 23,000 potential searches per month. But if some of them are being counted more than once, so to speak, then the number could be much lower.

ghmFYOZ

[garney]

Patrick,

Great answer!

I think the fact that certain numbers in the "Avg. monthly searches" field appear repeatedly can be a bit confusing. Now that I know this field means Exact Match, I guess it follows that the numbers in that field are rounded coarsely, or in such a way that tends to produce similar numbers. For instance, the two keywords in the set which each have 5400 searches.

Anyways, thanks for the great answer. It is very helpful and encouraging to know that the result I am chasing after may yet offer good potential.

Warmest regards,

Greg

[WhiteboardCreations]

Greg,

Great question. Because I have been asked this very same question many times by clients, the answer, to be short and sweet, is Google shows you the data per individual keyword as Exact Match. There are some other threads in this community discussing this same idea. The new keyword planner is showing exact match, as of now at least. So we don't have to go through all the "Broad" or "Phrase" data and as SEOs can focus on this new tool to help our businesses and client's businesses.

Hope this helps!
Patrick