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Broad or Exact Search When Estimating Traffic

by colomedia1
13 replies
  • SEO
    • |
Hey all!

I did a search but could not find anything on the forum, when estimating probable traffic in keyword tool from google, do you use the broad or exact function? And why?

Thanks for your help
#broad #estimating #exact #search #traffic
  • Profile picture of the author Mike Anthony
    Originally Posted by colomedia1 View Post

    Hey all!

    I did a search but could not find anything on the forum, when estimating probable traffic in keyword tool from google, do you use the broad or exact function? And why?

    Thanks for your help

    Exact and sometimes phrase

    Broad is telling you all kinds of related words and any search with other words appearing. You are not going to rank for all of them by targeting the term. Exact is telling you what terms were entered in by themselves related to that keyword - no other words.

    Why phrase sometimes? In a long tail phrase the exact match might in fact give you an artificially low traffic for that term. In other words it can be TOO exact. The longer the tail (generally) the less competition there is for that term so ranking for say (off the top of my head)

    Sporty summer dresses

    will probably put you in good shape for

    White sporty summer dresses

    with a little variation in anchor text and on page. So you will get more traffic than exact alone would indicate in those niches (again just an example off the top of my head).
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    • Profile picture of the author colomedia1
      That makes sense, just so I know I am estimating this right. I am trying to find out how much traffic I can expect from the front page of google (#10 spot gets 2.99% of clicks)

      3 Keywords with Exact Traffic of 81,700 Global Monthly Searches
      3% of 81,700 = 2,451 views.

      NOT - 3 Keywords with Broad Traffic of 406,500 Global Monthly Searches
      3% of 406,500 = 12,195 Views.

      Is that correct? I am trying to distinguish my ROI on SEO and Backlinking.

      Thanks again for your help,
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  • Profile picture of the author Lucid
    > #10 spot gets 2.99% of clicks

    That's a mighty big assumption and probably wrong. Many variables to organic click rate. In a study I did, the fifth spot got 1.0%, and that's an average across all the Internet. You could get higher, you likely will get lower. In tenth, maybe you'd get one click in a thousand searches. Let's be liberal and see you could get 1% but not likely 3%.
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    • Profile picture of the author terryd
      Originally Posted by Lucid View Post

      > #10 spot gets 2.99% of clicks

      That's a mighty big assumption and probably wrong. Many variables to organic click rate. In a study I did, the fifth spot got 1.0%, and that's an average across all the Internet. You could get higher, you likely will get lower. In tenth, maybe you'd get one click in a thousand searches. Let's be liberal and see you could get 1% but not likely 3%.
      Ryan Diess did a break down of what percentage the top 10 clicks got and it was 3-4% for number 10 and it outperformed positions 4-9 at 2% so I believe those numbers to be right.
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  • Profile picture of the author bonusdays
    Think of it this way...

    How do you do most of your searches?

    Do you put most of them in quotes?

    Most people don't.
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    • Profile picture of the author terryd
      Originally Posted by bonusdays View Post

      Think of it this way...

      How do you do most of your searches?

      Do you put most of them in quotes?

      Most people don't.
      So what???...........you need to know how many people exactly are looking for your keyphrase!
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  • Profile picture of the author stellaremar
    I think, it is not only the position you must consider when estimating the rate of clicks per position before there are still some factors that can affect the behavior of the surfer, like title, descriptions and some other factors.
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  • Profile picture of the author D Baker
    I only use Exact due to the fact it provides you with the most accurate search volume numbers.
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    • Profile picture of the author McBrett
      Hi @colomedia1, it might be overkill at this point but I'll add my two cents and expand on the already solid responses.

      If you want to understand the value of ranking for a specific keyword like "summer dresses" go for the exact match search.

      Using exact match will give you a much more accurate idea of how many searches there are per month for summer dresses and whether or not it's worth going after the keyword phrase.

      If you're deciding whether or not to enter a niche, however, I like to use broad match. This will give you an idea of how many people are searching for related topics or variations of the term summer dresses.

      Also, if you're looking for a primer on Adwords I suggest Perry Marshall's guide. That's how I got started. Kept me from making a lot of newb mistakes and also helped me with online marketing in general.
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  • Profile picture of the author Jonhy13
    Exact can give you much more correct results. Broad are too approximate.
    And also if you want to advertise for "gadget" and sell them you won't be interested much in promoting yourself for "free gadget"
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  • Profile picture of the author D Baker
    I alway use EXACT. The Google numbers are not very accurate to say the least, but EXACT is the best you can get. You want to know exactly how many people are searching for your exact keyword so you need to use EXACT.
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  • Profile picture of the author Fraggler
    Don't ignore the broad searches if you are looking for room to expand at a later date. While you are promoting a long tail (with a reasonable amount of exact searches) you are also helping your page rank for other long tails. The amount of long tails available can be summarised by the number of broad searches for a key phrase.

    Use a bit of common sense while analysing and you'll quickly realise that you have to take both the exact, phrase, and broad numbers into account...

    Keywords with a large amount of broad searches are great as seed keywords.
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  • Profile picture of the author Marketing Ignite
    If you are using google keyword tool it will not tell you the whole truth as the data comes from their affiliate search partners as well. Also using exact option you will get the volume exactly from google and its partners..so yes, you will never get 100% accurate using it...
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