Google tool- Broad vs Exact

[mike3608]

I have Invested 2000$USD, after I was recommended by a SEO firm.
But now when i saw Google Tool it gave me 720 Searches in Google tools Exact Search Mode. which one should I trust?
Does exact search gives Unique Visitors.
please guide me?

[Landro]

Here is the explanation of what each of the keyword matching options are. What are keyword matching options? - AdWords Help

If you are interested in seeing estimated traffic for the top ranking spot for a keyword, use market samurai. Its a good tool for figuring out profitable keywords with reasonable competition.

Hope this helps.

[FitnessNut]

If your doing SEO than the Broad Search really means nothing..Don't use it!!

Exact search tells you exactly how many people are searching for that keyword monthly locally and globally which is what you need to know. Usually just focusing on locally though.
Definitely use "Exact Searches"

[Vcize]

What $2000 did you invest?

Regardless, while the google keyword tool is far from precise, it's the best estimator out there. It sounds like you were duped..

[thekaver]

broad = anything
eaxact = just that exact

only use exact

[John Romaine]

Originally Posted by Vcize

It sounds like you were duped..

Dude, calm down. Lets not scare the guy. Besides, you cant say that for sure, given the information provided here in this thread.

In response to the OP, and along with what everyone else has said, always use EXACT MATCH.

[I webs design]

Originally Posted by FitnessNut

If your doing SEO than the Broad Search really means nothing..Don't use it!!

Exact search tells you exactly how many people are searching for that keyword monthly locally and globally which is what you need to know. Usually just focusing on locally though.
Definitely use "Exact Searches"

Agree! The numbers might not seem as high as you will want them to be on some keywords, but this is a good think since you have a better idea of how many people are actually searching for that specific term of phrase.

[Alston]

I find that the actual searches often usually somewhere between the exact match number and the broad match number. I also consistently find that many queries that consistently show up in my logs have zero traffic per Google's keyword tool.

Exact match is the best way to compare two different keywords (at least without subscribing to a paid tool). However, it often is nowhere near the actual potential of that keyword.

Think about it. If you rank #1 for "Connecticut health insurance quotes" you will also rank for "health insurance quotes in Connecticut" and a bunch of other queries that use the same nouns without even trying. For basically the same reasons that broad match is inaccurate, exact match is also inaccurate.

You've got to use common sense. An exact match keyword that is almost the same as a highly competitive keyword, is going to be highly competitive no matter what the keyword tool says. The high authority sites that rank for the highly competitive keyword are likely to rank for that slight variation, again without even trying.

However, as stated above, it is the best cheap way to compare different keywords unless you have your own data to look at. At the same time it is a lousy way to predict the volume of traffic you can expect.

[kennykjtan]

I always use [Exact] as this is more accurate in term of keywords.
Broad can mean anything. eg. keyword "House" it can "wooden house" Who_e house" "house mate" "Mating House" and so on.

Hope this helps

[solutionspotlight]

Originally Posted by mike3608

720 Searches in Google tools Exact Search Mode.
Does exact search gives Unique Visitors.
please guide me?

No, these are 720 monthly searches for the exact search query. That does not mean 720 monthly unique visitors.

The point of SEO is to use your main keyword as the "theme keyword" of your site and then optimize your site for 4 related keywords (lookup linkwheel)

If you build a wordpress site, you could use these 4 related keywords as categories (just a sidenote)

you would add up all the exact match monthly searches of your 5 keywords and that gives you the total number of monthly searches done for the keywords you want to optimize for.

Just start with these 5 and build on them when you start getting traffic. Don't try optimizing for 500 keywords when your site is brand new.

Now, only about 60% of the total nr of exact searches will be SEO traffic to your site when ranking on the first page of google; spot 1, 2 or 3.

That is without using other traffic methods (video, facebook) seen as referring sites in analytics..

I hope this will help you a little

If you want to learn more, also try looking up Peter Garety here in the forum.
He's a super guy and knows a thing or two about SEO

[marimuda]

I am surprised how many suggest exact match.
I prefer Phrase matched over all other matches,
Then peoples can find your keywords for related terms,
Broad Match vs Phrase Match vs Exact Match
You can find some information about it there.
My personal preference is Phrase > Exact > Board because of it's efficiency since Phrase has a wider reach but targeted traffic.
Good luck

[jficarro]

I guess the keyword tool is really geared more for adwords campaigns and NOT determining traffic.

Cause I just made a mistake by centering all my efforts around a word that got 90,500 searches per month (broad).

I bought the perfect domain, wrote killer content, did backlinking campaign, ended up #4 on google yesterday.

But...... only 4 visits?????

So, I checked the "exact" match for the same term and it's only 22/month

WTF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Luckily it only took me 3 days to get it all done. And I guess now that it's set up, I can target better keywords.

But my question is - what exactly is "broad" and "phrase" for? It really makes no sense because the other search terms show up too and they each have the "visits per month (BS) next to them. So what does it really mean?

How can you have 90500 broad and 22 exact?

[furnicav]

I'm checking both broad and exact. From a big list of keywords I'll come with some release candidates (depends on list may be 20, 30 to 200). After that I'll run a google adwords campaign for 5-7 days. After checking the results I'll be able to know for sure what are the golden keywords. Hope this help.