Google Search Volume Disparities

[mreisbeck]

Hello,

I have been researching search volumes for awhlie now for key terms related to my industry, as well as working towards better rankings for those terms that have higher search volumes using on-page optimization, external link anchor texts, etc. The only tool I use for this research is the Google keyword tool.

Today when I was looking at the keyword difficulty for a particular term (first time I
had used this tool in my SEOMOZ account), I saw how the search volumes are listed for both broad and exact match from Google's API.  As I said I've based my strategies around results from Google's keyword tool, but now I see that, for a particular term that I have been focused on, there are 15,000 searches for "broad" match and 91 for "exact" match.  I just checked the keyword tool at Google and there is apparently no way to set a keyword up to search for its "exact" match search statistics.  Is this only available using their API?

I'm on the floor here.  Does this mean I've been optimizing for a term that has less than
a hundred searches a month as opposed to 15,000?  If so, can anyone here reccommend any search volume tool that can deliver a higher degree of accuracy so I can make better
judgements regarding how I will spend my time and effort regarding SEO (and in fact,
to some degree, my budget for PPC)?

Any help provided will be much appreciated.

Mike

[AlanBleiweiss]

mreisbeck

In the Google Keyword Tool screen, below the "categories" choices, there's an option box on the left sidebar to choose broad, exact, phrase or a combination of those.

That being said, every situation is unique - so what Google reports as a low volume exact match may be highly valuable if the majority of people searching for that phrase do so in broad phrases or "long tail" phrases.  So don't be so quick to completely discount a phrase just from that data.  What do your visitor conversion statistics tell you? Call to action and conversion tracking data is vital in helping make the best decisions in this kind of situation.

[mreisbeck]

I found the section in the keyword tool were you can select the match type.  I use firefox/mac however and it does not show up unless you first enter something into the "include terms" section there in that left hand column.  I noticed on firefox/pc it is there automatically.  Thanks for pointing that out to me.  Analytics has always been a weak spot in my efforts, I shall work on that.  Thanks for the advice and the quick response Alan.

I also need to learn more about long tail phrases and their implications for SEO.  Can you recommend any good resources that could tell me more about that?

Mike

[AlanBleiweiss]

Glad it helped Mike.  Lots of theories and beliefs about long tail.  What I've found on several client sites is follow these rules to increase the number of long tail phrases you're found for each page:

• Designate two primary phrases, 2 or three words each
• Designate two or three highly related secondary phrases, 2, 3 or 4 words each
• Seed the page Title & h1 with the two primaries
• Seed the URL with one of the primaries
• Integrate each of the primaries into the content area descriptive text at least twice each in exact match sequence.
• Integrate each of the secondaries into the content area descriptive text at least once in exact match sequence.
• Use partials of those phrases at least once each in the content area descriptive text
• Of course the more content you write, the more you can seed phrases, but only where it makes sense to readers.
• Write the content in a high quality way that really sounds human
• Tightly group pages of content based on phrase relationships

When I follow these guidelines, I typically see 30% or more increase in total phrases a site is found for. Of course it's not exact science since there are so many factors in SEO. But doing it this way, where the content really comes across naturally written can result in exponential long tail phrases you didn't intentionally try to focus on figuring out beforehand.