Broad Vs. Exact Match
-
My question seems basic in nature but some recent keyword research has caused me to re-think broad vs. exact match.
I was taught to focus on exact match for the short term and broad match for the long term prospects of a keyword. Today I was researching a niche of keyword phrases where the local search volume (broad) was, for example 33,000. The local search volume (exact) was only 500. What I know about broad vs. exact doesn't help me to determine if this keyword is worth going after. The keyword difficulty score by the way was 35%
Yes, I do know that I will probably go after this keyword anyway but to refine my question, how do I get an idea of how "big" this keyword is? Is it more on the broad or more on the exact match of things? How do I determine the various derivatives of the phrase that occur under the broad match?
-
If you're doing on-page SEO, you can't focus on broad match, you can only optimize for the exact keyword phrases you use on your site in H1 tags, titles, and all the rest.
You could try to find all the broad match synonyms and stuff them into your title and H1 etc etc but then you're diluting the SEO value for any given page by doing so. Best to focus on 1 or 2 keywords per page and optimize for that.
My suggestion is to take the large volume you get from broad matching, and find the exact phrasing that takes the lion share of that volume and go with that.
As Dan mentions you must be careful though... within a set of related keywords that broadly match a phrase, some keywords are at the beginning of the buyers funnel and others are at the end. Make sure your site is optimized to take people along that funnel. Don't only optimize for the biggest search phrases that only people not actually buying use.
-
Phrase search is when the keyword is surrounded by quotes "keyword example". The two keywords must be together such as "big keyword example" or "keyword example number two". But it can't be "keyword bad example".
-
Very attractive if:
Your site and what you offer is aligned with the intention and desires of the searcher.
It gets good CTR and converts.
I wouldn't worry about the low number - 500 well converting visits is way better than 50,000 poorly converting visits.
-Dan
BTW, what's phrase search volume?
-
I'm coming from the keyword research perspective. If a keyword has a search volume (exact) of say 20,000 and the search volume for broad match is only 500 is that keyword still as attractive (purely from an seo traffic perspective). Which do you focus on the broad or exact match?
-
I assume you're talking about PPC because broad vs exact match doesn't really make sense from an SEO perspective: you can only optimize a site for the exact phrasing you use on the site and hope SE's match it with broader phrases.
Whats striking is the large difference here between the broad and exact volume of searches.
- 33,000 for broad phrase is somewhere in the middle of the curve. Its not highly trafficked, but its nothing to sneeze at either.
- 500 for exact phrase match is very low.
The difference means that the exact phrase you chose isn't what most people are searching for, even though the topic is mid-sized volume wise. You'll want to try using keyword research tools to find the phrases people are using for this topic.
In terms of getting an idea of how big the keyword is, compare it to others that you've had success with. Its all very relative because some companies will have an easy time capturing large popular keywords that a company with a smaller budget couldn't touch,
There was a trick in the Geddes adwords book that talked about finding related keywords and I can't for the life of me remember his tactic. It had to do with using operators in regular searches. Anyone remember that?
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
How to work my keywords - should I use exact, broad and phrase match in the same adgroup?
I'm looking at my adwords, and am looking to strengthen them, improve quality score by making the wording more appropriate, and ensuring they link to a more relevant page rather than just my home page. In an AdGroup should I be using all three (broad, exact and phrase) or does this just confuse Google. What are the advantages/disadvantages? When I was doing the keyword research, for some of my phrases, there was little difference in price (sometimes as low as a 3p difference) between a broad match (with large potential numbers) and an exact match (with a tiny target group) so it would seem best that I target the broad match - make sense?
Keyword Research | | Gordon_Hall0 -
Best site/tool to get exact rank of a site
Is there a site/tool that will give me the exact google rank of a site for a specific keyword?
Keyword Research | | JML11790 -
Organic vs Places (Maps) Searches
I realize one can use the google adwords keyword tool to get rough organic search volume, but Is there a method to see how much a keyword is searched within specifically google places? That is, seperated out from the organic search? Ideally i would like to see how often certain keywords are search for in google, v.s. in google places/maps directly. maybe it is not possible. cheers, storwell
Keyword Research | | adriandg0 -
Search Volume vs. CTR
Is it better to optimize based on search volume or click through rate? For example: If a keyword has a CTR of 19% and only 3,000 monthly searches, while another keyword that is relevant to that page has a CTR of 0.7% and 20,000 monthly searches, which keyword should that page be optimized for for better natural results and the bottom line?
Keyword Research | | Motivators0 -
Niche Research: Broad Match V.S. Exact Match
Hey SeoMozzers, Do you guys use broad match or exact match to gauge whether or not there's enough volume to be worth your time? Take the freelancing niche for example. These are the results for broad match: <a class="aw-ti-resultsPanel-details">how to be a freelance writer [2,740,000]</a> how to freelance [165,000] In exact match however: <a class="aw-ti-resultsPanel-details">how to become a freelance writer [1,000]</a> how to freelance [480] In this niche in particular, there's not really any keyword that gets more than 20,000 exact match searches a month. However, the broad level keywords have more than 2 million searches. Here's my thinking: Instead of targeting highly specific terms to optimize for, I'm just going to optimize for broad terms and aim to capture the long tail. It seems there's a lot of people searching for things, but they're all spread out across different keywords. So my instinct is to go with the broad match results, assume there's enough traffic to support a profitable website and ignore the low exact match results. Your thoughts ... ?
Keyword Research | | DerekP0 -
On Page Optimization vs. Anchor Text
Is it hard to get a page to rank for a particular term if the majority of the anchor text pointing to that page is different from your chosen term?
Keyword Research | | kylesuss0 -
How to target very broad, umbrella keywords on the homepage
Hey there SEO Mozzers, I'm new to the SEO Moz community and would genuinely appreicate any advice/input on this topic. I'm part of the online marketing team for a UK-based site called Tendea.co.uk. We operate an introductory platform for enabling the connection between parents and families seeking care services (childcare, pet care, senior care, home & garden care, etc.) and individuals providing care services (babysitters, nannies, pet sitters, housekeepers, etc.). To take a US site for comparison, the services are very similar to those offered by Care.com I'm currently having a bit of difficulty as to what very broad, umbrella keywords we should be targeting for the homepage, primarily in the meta title/description. We've started with keywords such as "care, family services, care services, and family care", but I think these terms are almost too generic and aren't necessarily terms we really want to be ranking for. I suggested to our in-house SEO team that we just target some of our strongest keywords from each of the individual care categories for the homepage (babysitter, pet sitter, housekeeper, caregiver, etc.). They were against this idea, though, as we have separate subfolders that target the individual care categories and their specific keywords (tendea.co.uk/childcare, /pet-care, /elderly-care, etc.) Essentially the argeument is that we don't want to be targeting these terms on the homepage and on a separate subfolder page, as then the two pages would be competing for each other's keywords. Instead we're being encouraged to find some sort of umbrella terms to target for the home page that can encompass all of the care categories. For comparison's sake, I took a look at Care.com's meta data and it targets all their specific keywords for the various care categories "Babysitters, nannies, Child Care & Senior Home care - Care.com". Is this the right kind of strategy to take, or do you guys have any suggestions for much broader, umbrella keywords to target on our homepage? Thanks in advance for your input! -Mike
Keyword Research | | Tendea0 -
Broad match Vs Exact match
This may sound a little basic, but i'm going to ask anyway. On Googles keyword tool Ive always used broad match, knowing that they are never 100% accurate, and obviously inflated by other SEO's searching for their keywords, but used it all the same to get an idea of global monthly searches and potential targeted traffic. I have seen recently, on SEOmoz, and a post fromJill Whalen not long back, that unless you change the match to "Exact" your data is useless? Could somebody explain why this is the case? My initial thoughts were, a search for SEO on broad shows 6,120,000 per month Yet a search for the same keyword in exact match shows 673,000 per month. I had presumed that the broad match would include "learn SEO" "What is SEO" etc etc, where as 673,000 just search exactly for SEO. Is this correct? 3 points go to Richard Q&A answering animal dude Getz if he gets this first! Thanks in advance
Keyword Research | | Yozzer2