Simple Keyword Question Probably For You Veterans, Please help a newb!

Yes you are right - you should use the exact match on the keyword tool if you are using that particular method.

To understand this a bit more you should learn about the different match types and what they mean in terms of search.

Exact - does what it says on the tin - if the keyword "Make Blue Candles" says it has 500 searches then there are 500 searches per month for that exact keyword with no other text before or after it.

Phrase - On a phrase match, the keyword "Make Blue Candles" may receive 1500 searches per month. This is because any search phrase that contains the term "Make Blue Candles" in it will be classed as a search. These could include phrases such as "How do I make blue candles" or "make blue candles at home". So obviously there will be more searches on a phrase match than an exact match. and you have to remember that if you target the keyword "Make Blue Candles" on your site then there will be more competitors targeting longer tail keywords such as "How to make blue candles at home" that will probably pick up that traffic over you (especially in the short term until you're site gains some authority)

Broad - Broad match results contain searches for all the keywords that Google thinks are associated with your keyword. So in our example "Make Blue Candles" Google may think that searches such as "make candles" or "candles for the home" or "candles shop" etc should be associated with your keyword. If you use broad match (particularly in PPC) you really need to think about the keywords and all the different meanings and associations they can have when determining the size of the market.

I should add that to answer your question more clearly when you say cast a bigger SEO net - that is a very difficult thing to do because the broader range of keywords can differ so much from your original keyword that you would need to optimize for so many different keywords that it would be nigh on impossible. Think of it this way though, when you have optimized for "Make Blue Candles" you may be showing up for that exact search phrase on the 1st page, As your site gets a higher PR and becomes more trusted in Googles eyes, and new content is added, Google will probably start to place more weight on what it associates your site with when ranking you rather than just showing you for your highly optimized keywords.

It's like when you search Google for a keyword and a site comes up in the 1st spot but it doesn't really contain what you were looking for but contains info on similar areas, because it is a trusted site Google assumes that because the other keywords it is optimized for are associated with your search term it will most likely contain that info. This is of course much more of a feature of high PR sites.


Hope that helps you with your research.

Ross

well i'm no expert but i do know the answer to your question. You should always search using exact and not broad and also know that even if you do research on a keyword and it says 10,000 a month if your at position 5 on the first page of google you may still only see just a few hits a day, in order to see close to 10,000 you need to be number one, so remember to factor that in, instead try ranking for long tail keywords first that way you will at least see some traffic until you reach the top spot for your main keyword.

Hey guys thanks for your responses it was really helpful. I guess I was doing things wrong, back to the drawing board as they say!