How important is it to use a keyterm word-for-word to rank for that term?

[dbcooper]

I need your help to settle an argument here in our office. It boils down to improving our ranking for “driver education course Michigan.”

One guy is convinced that if we want a site to rank for a multi-word keyterm like that, we need to use those exact words, in that order. He keeps creating pages with really awkward H1 titles and H2 subheadings using that exact phrase. H e claims appeal to search engines, but I think the cumbersome syntax is off-putting to any potential people who come to our site.

Another guy claims that search engines are more sophisticated than that. He says we don’t need those exact words; it’s enough that the text on the page include “Michigan,” “driver education,” and “driver education course” a few times each. Even related terms like “drivers ed,” “driving school,” and “driver education classes” will help us to rank higher for “driver education course Michigan,” according to this guy.

Neither of them can convince the other, and meanwhile I don’t know which to believe. Can you help?

[RobCairns]

Hi there,

Easy answer here - Google has moved well beyond Exact Match Keyword Targeting. I believe it's been going downhill since 2012, and very few SEO's use it as a ranking mechanism any more.

Additionally, don't overuse any particular phrase. Just write as if you were speaking normally to someone describing your service or business. You don't need individual pages targeting each specific keyword either. Semantic keywords (phrases that are similar but not the same) are a much better way to go.

For example, for "driver education course michigan", semantic keywords are:

michigan drivers ed
drivers ed michigan
driver course michigan

and so on. Use each of these semantic phrases sparingly in your content on a page you wish to rank for your chosen term, and you are well within best practices.

The guy suggesting you should use exact match keywords is probably hurting your ranking capability and is living in the past. Exact-match means practically nothing any more and anyone who claims it is the way to go is not aware of the changes search engine algorithms have been undergoing in recent years.

Long story short, if you read your H1's and H2's and the inner grammar nazi in you cringes, you are probably SEO-ing wrong.

Hope this helps and good luck convincing him!

Cheers,

Rob

[ViviCa1]

I agree. It's more important for your text to be natural sounding than to squeeze in every keyword. Use topics rather than exact match keywords in your copy and make sure it reads naturally so your users aren't put off. Guy #2 is right, guy #1 is potentially hurting your performance and CTR.

I do believe I've read somewhere that Bing still places more emphasis on exact match keywords.

[matt.nails]

If you are dealing with people who are passionate and opinionated, quoting to them from something you read on an internet forum is not going to help much.

Here comes Rand to the rescue with 8 Old School SEO Practices That are no Longer Effective.

https://moz.com/blog/8-old-school-seo-practices-not-effective-whiteboard-friday

Hopefully, after watching that, they will be better informed and more convinced.

Matt

[Martijn_Scheijbeler]

Well if the title isn't good enough to read for the user then just don't use the exact keyword match. Because that will only make the page suck more when it's not good for the user it's probably also not good for the search engines in the end.