Does Adwords Use Broad On Results?

[LukeHutchinson]

Hello,

I'm a 'noob' when it comes to adwords and have never really used it before. I'm about to run my first campaign and have a question that I surprisingly cant seem to find the answer for.

If for example my campaign was targeting the keyword 'flowers' and as a result the long tail keywords that went with that keyword would adwords show my advertisement to those searching black flowers or flowers for sale?

A further question is if I limit my area to say my state if it was in the US would the word flowers include flowers statename or statename flowers?.

If google does count and show to the above does it count these when it provides results in the traffic estimator?

If anyone has any good adwords resources I would be extremely appreciative.

Thanks,

Luke Hutchinson

[OlegKorneitchouk]

If for example my campaign was targeting the keyword 'flowers' and as a result the long tail keywords that went with that keyword would adwords show my advertisement to those searching black flowers or flowers for sale?

Yes. If you target 'flowers' broad match, you would be part of any query that contains the term 'flowers'

A further question is if I limit my area to say my state if it was in the US would the word flowers include flowers statename or statename flowers?.

Interesting questions. I know selecting a state means G would serve the ads to people who have a IP/GEOlocation that is within the selected area. But if someone search 'NJ flowers' from outside of NJ and you select to only display ads to NJ, I'm not sure if they will appear.

If google does count and show to the above does it count these when it provides results in the traffic estimator?

Broad counts all queries that contain the keyword you selected so yes, 'statename flowers' would be included in their estimates.

[LukeHutchinson]

Thanks for the reply. Is the broad option automatically applied? or do I need to specifically tell it to be broad?

Thanks

[activitysuper]

Broad match will show anything Google feels is relevant to your broad keyword.

You can use a + sign at the front of the words which must come up in the query, so for example if I had - +Cheap Red +Flowers.

Both words Cheap & Flowers must be in the query in any order so you could come up for - Cheap Flowers, Cheap Red Flowers, Cheap Flowers For Sale etc.

Match Types - http://support.google.com/adwords/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=2497836

Once your campaign has been running for a few days, you can enter the search query report and view the keywords being generated off broad match keywords and either add them into the campaign or negative them out so they don't show again - This tab would be at keyword level then go -> keyword details -> all

Location wise, which location option have you selected in the settings of that campaign?

[activitysuper]

Broad will be default, once you add the keyword, you can click on the keyword at keyword level and change it's match type.

[danatanseo]

Hi Luke,

I am an in-house SEO but I also manage Adwords campaigns for one of my company's niche sites. I just wanted to chime in a word of caution regarding broad match keywords. Unless you have a fortune to spend, I'd completely stay away from broad match and use only exact and phrase match. For exact matches put your keywords in [brackets] and for phrase match put them in "quotes"

But, here's one important caveat that anyone doing Adwords needs to know and this is something that changed within the last 6-9 months. This is a setting that you can control under Campaign Settings - scroll to the bottom and click on "Keyword matching options" - here you need to select either "Include plurlals, misspellings and other close variants" or "Do not include close variants." If you want to maintain more control over your keywords and ad spend I would suggest selecting the latter. Here is additional info (the following quote is cut-and-pasted directly from Google):

"Exact and phrase match

How it works: Your ads can show for close variants of your exact match and phrase match keywords. Close variants include misspellings, singular and plural forms, acronyms, stemmings (such as floor and flooring), abbreviations, and accents. We won't show your ads for synonyms of your exact match and phrase match keywords.

Example: If you have the exact match keyword designer wedding dress, we might show your ad when customers search for designer wedding dresses.

Good to know: You can edit your exact match and phrase match options only for "Search Network only - All features" and "Search & Display Networks - All features" campaign types. Keep in mind that keyword matching options are available for ads and keywords that target the Search Network."

In other words, if you opt for the Keyword matching option to "Include plurals, misspellings and other close variants" your [exact match] keywords, in essence, are not necessarily exact match at all and Google will decide what actually triggers your ad or not. In my experience, it is costly to allow Google this much control over your campaigns.

Just a word to the wise!

Dana

[john4math]

A further question is if I limit my area to say my state if it was in the US would the word flowers include flowers statename or statename flowers?

It didn't look like anyone else answered this part so I'll jump in.  If you target a specific state with the keyword "flowers" (and you're using anything other than exact match), Adwords default campaign settings will target people within that state that search for your keyword, as well as people around the world that search for that state with the keyword.  For example, if your targeted location is California, if people in New Jersey search for "California flowers", they may see your ad.  This option is in the campaign settings under location options (advanced)> Target.  The default is "People in, searching for, or viewing pages about my targeted location (recommended)", but you can change it to "People in my targeted location" or "People searching for or viewing pages about my targeted location".  Here's the Google help article talking more about these options.