Google keyword research exact or phrase match?

[Vanquish]

When doing keyword research I was always told that it was better to use the exact phrase match as it wouldnt show any variations of the keyword and would show a true count of it. However in another article i read that it is better to use the phrase match because it will show the exact phrase people are searching for. Being a newbie i dont know which one is more accurate and better to use in my keyword research. Can anyone help?

This is confusing because i have the following keywords

keyword a) yields 720/590 in a phrase search and only 58/58 in an exact search
keyword b) yields 210/170 in a phrase search but 140/110 in an exact search

Which one do i go with?


Thanks

[Aaron Moser]

I'd say go for both!

The answer to your question really depends on wheather this is for PPC or SEO?

[Vanquish]

Originally Posted by Aaron Moser

I'd say go for both!

The answer to your question really depends on wheather this is for PPC or SEO?

Which one would be better to use as a domain based on those stats? Also im using it for SEO. Thanks for your help, you have alot of insight and i apprechiate all your previous posts always something new to learn.

[Aaron Moser]

I would logically go with keyword (A) to use as a domain because it gets more searches. If this keyword is available in .com and has no hyphens than ranking for this will be a piece of cake. Even if it did have hyphen it would still be better than any other TLD.

Here some pointers for your SEO keyword research that may help clear your confusion...

When searching for search volume on keyword tools just use broad match (with no quotes no brackets). This is because the average searcher doesn't search in quotes.

When searching for the competition for your keyword on Google use the phase match (in quotes). This will give you the most accurate results for how many competing sites are using your keyword.

[ohgworld]

If you would ask about my opinion, I definitely would do both!

[Austin Delaney]

It depends on how longtail the keyword phrase is.

If you're looking towards the top (2 keywords etc) then exact match is more useful as an estimation.

The phrase match volume will include all those below it too.

eg;

"dog training" 5400

will also include

"dog training tips"
"dog training classes"
"dog training collars"

If I was going for 'dog training collars' I'd be more interested in the phrase match volume and look at targeting the surrounding keywords too.

As for domains, it helps to have the keywords in the domain name but good content and links are more important (imho).

Austin.

[Trieu]

If using ppc, then wouldn't it be better to use exact phrases? Atleast you know the traffic you get is targetted

[lcombs]

I've never seen or heard a definitive answer to that question.
The closest I've seen says use the phrase match.

When doing keyword research the general rule of thumb I use is...
A broad search on long-tail KWs. Looking for at least 15,000 searches and less than 1,000,000 competing. So far that has worked well for me.

I've compared phrase to exact and the competing has gone from
250,000 competing to 48,000.

My personal belief is that using an exact match carries more weight for SEO than phrase.

Hope this helps.

LC

[zoelka]

From my experience, go both..
and agreed with Aaron.. depends on what you're gonna use your keywords..
If you would like to use PPC campaign, then it's better that you start phrase, exact and also broad match.. test them all.. and see which are the winners..

[Allen Graves]

Sit down with a cup of coffee and check out the first 10 or 20 pages of each of those keyword phrases.

With a little thought and common sense, your question will be answered...and it could quite possibly be both. But if one of them appears to be "wrong", then you will not have wasted your time.

Allen Graves