Broad Vs. Exact Match

[leaseman]

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?

[AdoptionHelp]

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?

[leaseman]

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?

[evolvingSEO]

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?

[leaseman]

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".

[AdoptionHelp]

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.