Can You Finally Solve The "In Quotes" Google Long-Tail Keyword Riddle Once & For All?

[Terry Kyle]

Hi Fellow Warriors,

Quick question and hopefully the answers will help many warriors:

When researching long tail keywords, let's say a phrase like Best Buy Metal Detector.

Here's what I don't get and have never seen a good explanation for (though I may have nodded off and missed something):

When a normal netsurfer searches for Best Buy Metal Detectors, they DON'T ever use quotes and get a result of (let's say) 9,500,000 sites.

So isn't my Best Buy Metal Detector site competing with 950,000,000 sites and not the 16,222 sites with quotes?

Those 9,500,000 sites are the ones that Google is returning on the SERP to a normal user, not the completely different (smaller) set in quotes.

Or, will a highly keyword-targeted page/site easily outrank virtually all of the 9,500,000 sites from an 'open' or 'no quotes' search by a prospect and then just be climbing over 16,222 to Page 1 of Google?

Plus,

If 30,000-50,000 is a good ceiling or maximum limit for a profitable long tail keyword using quotes, what is a good profitable maximum for long tail keywords without quotes (as part of the same research process) and maximum healthy number for the phrase intitle and inurl?

Many, many thanks in advance Warrior gurus.

BTW, Jack Duncan, Steve Wagenheim and Chris Rempel rock.

Best regards

[onera]

First, those 950 million pages contain all those words. A highly targeted exact match and SEO optimized page with a decen amount of backlinks can indeed compete with those pages and be on the first SERP.

[Steven Wagenheim]

Here's the bottom line. The ONLY sites that you have to worry about
jumping over are the ones that have EXACTLY that keyword phrase and
are optimized for it.

That's why you get the number of sites WITH quotes to see what the TRUE
competition is.

[.cg.]

For the most part, you're competing with those 16,222 pages. For example, I have a site based on a two word key phrase. Without quotes it returns 30 million results, and my site is listed 6th. With quotes, there are 60,000 results, with my site ranking 5th. This site is only one page with a couple hundred words, however, it's targeted specifically at that key phrase, and therefore easily outranks the millions which are not.

With a little SEO, you'll fly by 99.9% of those sites.

[Warrior Markets]

I think the mistake here is that people think "I don't use quotes when making a search, so why would my prospects?" But the reason you use quotes is not to "trace" the steps a prospect may take; you use quotes solely to find how many sites are competing with you for those specific keywords together, ie, your REAL competition.

-WM

[discrat]

This is extraordinarily pathetic but after doing Affiliate marketing and Blogging and extensively studying and implementing SEO with a lot of Luck in the last 8 months, I did not know about the quotes around keywords and what they meant.

Im so damn clueless but thanks for sharing this with me !!

[Garrett Aren]

Sounds like you don't know anything about SEO. PM me and I'll get on the phone and explain it to ya'

[Mary Gallivan]

Hi Terry

I'm so glad you posted this question as I didn't realise the significance of the quotes either and would not have even thought to ask the question.

I'm learning something new about SEO, keywords etc more or less on a daily basis, especially longtail, low competition keywords.

Mary

[Andyhenry]

Terry,

Here's a definitive answer.....

YOU ARE COMPETING WITH ALL OF THOSE RESULTS.

You're not stupid and you know this just by the fact that when you do the search your market does - all of those results come up, so obviously you have to compete with them all.

The search with "" is just one way of using Google to narrow down what comes up. If you use the quotes it just tells Google - only show results that have the stuff inside the quotes just like what I'm asking for.

Therefore - you use quotes - anything that doesn't have all those words in that order won't be shown.

It doesn't mean you don't have to compete - because as you rightly said - your market don't use quotes.

What is does mean is that those are the only pages where those words appear together exactly like that, so if they do on your page then you're likely to do better in the search results if those exact words in that order are on your page.

So - yes you're up against them, but unless they also have a lot of links, only the ones in quotes will take more effort to beat.

Andy

p.s. Best buy metal detector is NOT a long-tail keyword phrase.

Long-tail does NOT mean multiple words..... Long tail refers to the narrower sub-niches within a market which are less competitive because of their more unique nature - the number of keywords in the phrase has nothing to do with whether it's long-tail or not.

[Terry Kyle]

Many thanks for the feedback - outstanding!

[Greg Cooksley]

Originally Posted by Andyhenry

Terry,

Here's a definitive answer.....

YOU ARE COMPETING WITH ALL OF THOSE RESULTS.

You're not stupid and you know this just by the fact that when
you do the search your market does - all of those results come
up, so obviously you have to compete with them all.

The search with "" is just one way of using Google to narrow
down what comes up. If you use the quotes it just tells Google
- only show results that have the stuff inside the quotes just
like what I'm asking for.

Therefore - you use quotes - anything that doesn't have all those
words in that order won't be shown.

It doesn't mean you don't have to compete - because as you rightly
said - your market don't use quotes.

What is does mean is that those are the only pages where those
words appear together exactly like that, so if they do on your
page then you're likely to do better in the search results if
those exact words in that order are on your page.

So - yes you're up against them, but unless they also have a
lot of links, only the ones in quotes will take more effort to
beat.

Andy

p.s. Best buy metal detector is NOT a long-tail keyword phrase.

Long-tail does NOT mean multiple words..... Long tail refers
to the narrower sub-niches within a market which are less competitive
because of their more unique nature - the number of keywords
in the phrase has nothing to do with whether it's long-tail or
not.

Hey Andy,

Wouldn't it benefit the Warriors a whole lot more if you actually
gave examples of what constitutes good longtail keywords rather
than just saying what they aren't???????

Just a thought....

Regards

Greg

[Andyhenry]

I'm out in Korea, between hotels and airport and using my Blackberry - I don't have time right now and it wasn't the point of the thread so I didn't see the need to detract. I've explained the difference here several times before. I mentioned it so Terry could go and read more about it if he wants.

[Greg Cooksley]

Hey Andy,

No criticism intended.....

Just thought that it would have been a valuable addition the
the thread....not a detraction at all....

Enjoy the travels...

Regards

Greg