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    4. Should I optimize for broad or exact match in this case?

    Should I optimize for broad or exact match in this case?

    Intermediate & Advanced SEO
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    • corp0803
      corp0803 last edited by

      Best to illustrate with an example: the term "do girls like chest hair?" has a volume of 210 for exact match, 390 for broad. The term "do girls like hairy guys?" on the other hand, has an exact match volume of 73, but a BROAD match of 8,100. Assuming either is a suitable title for a piece of content and all other things being equal, which page title should I use? As a sort of follow-on, when should one care for broad over exact match?

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      • Brian-M
        Brian-M last edited by

        Well, you can't really optimize for broad match, because broad match includes synonyms  of your keyword, similar ideas, etc. Broad is very broad. I don't think there is ever a situation where it makes sense to optimize for broad because you just don't know what "broad" is.

        Google's broad match is meant to give Adwords users an estimate of the volume of traffic that is out there in a very broad meaning of the keyword that can exist in all sorts of uses, most of which are likely not to be your customer.

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        • applesofgold
          applesofgold last edited by

          Agreed. You should pretty much always focus on exact match for SEO. The best thing to do is to create unique content for both. If you have a blog, those could both easily be two different blog posts. Or if you have a product page only, then put one of those words on your product or category page and the other phrase on your blog pointing back to your category page, since it is relevant and legitimate to do so for both your customers/visitors and search engines.

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