Why Exact match?

Initially when you are starting a site and looking to rank well in the search engines you are probably only to be going to focus on few select keywords (obviously that will change if you start building out an authority site) so you want to know those keywords have some volume of traffic.

By using exact match you will get a good idea if the keywords you are targeting are the right ones. If you are trying to rank for 'blue tail widgets' and exact match gives you a very low volume then you may want to switch your keyword selection to something a little better.

Exact match doesn't mean using quotes. It means they type exactly that query, with or without quotes.

I always use exact because it will underestimate the traffic. It's awesome when you find a keyword that has potential greater than you think it has. You'll still be choosing good keywords, but when you're wrong, they'll simply be better than you thought.

If you go for a keyword and you find out there really wasn't anything there... all the traffic was for something closely related (but not close enough that you rank for it), that can be a big blow.

The exact match keyword gives you a better idea of the possible searches for your keyword per month. It is about the possible number of visitors you might get when someone types in the exact keyword in Google. Do not confuse checking for search volume (number of searches for your chosen keyword) with checking for competition (number of websites using your chosen keyword).

Checking for number of searches per month for your keyword is the "demand" side of things. In other words, are people looking for products and services using your chosen keyword. If you find that there is a high search volume for the keyword then all other things being right, you may consider using it to rank your website. You use the exact match to more accurately assess the number of searches for your keyword and you do so by using the Google Keyword Tool, for example.

The competition side of things is when you conduct a search in Google and surround the keyword with quotation marks ("xx"). When you surround the keywords with quotation marks Google will only return results for websites that are using your chosen keyword exactly as it is with no variation.

So even though people search Google normally without surrounding the search terms/keyword with quotation marks, the reason why you surround your keyword with quotation marks during your keyword research is to get a better idea of how many websites are using your chosen keyword in the same manner and order as it is written.

The smaller the number of websites the better. If you don't surround the keyword with quotation marks you will get millions of other websites which are not really your competitors included in the results.

It's not possible to do an exact match search. If you use quotes, it is a phrase match search.

The reason you want to use the exact match figures when doing keyword research, is that will it give you a more realistic idea of the actual traffic you'll receive.

Yes, it's true the vast majority of searches are broad match, but that doesn't mean if you optimize for a particular keyword phrase that you'll pick up all the broad match searches as broad match is so...well....broad.

Let's take an example. Say your keyword phrase is:

antique coffee table

and your page is optimized for that term.

Now broad match includes those words in any order, spread out in a sentence and also includes synonyms.

For example:

We had a lovely cup of coffee and then went shopping for an antique table.

He slammed down his cup of coffee on the old table.

So let's say someone searches for:

old style coffee bar

Google is going to display a page that is directly relevant to that search term rather than so a page optimized for "antique coffee table".

The answers in here were spot on. I will say though, that sometimes broad match CAN work in your favor if the competition is low enough. I have several niche sites that rank well across a large number of similar keywords, even though I have put no focus on them.

I don't totally agree with RyanLB. Though i am sure it is possible to do what he suggests successfully, it is a lot harder than going for exact match or even phrase match.

If you want "broader" results you can try targeting phrase match. If you find a keyword with low competition this way, that has plenty of phrase match searches, then you have a great opportunity to go after long tail keywords.

This doesn't mean you should go after something like "acne" which has a huge phrase match. You should pick a keyword that is 3 words long, at least 2, with very low competition and high phrase match searches. You can then collect a list of long tail keywords that contain your keyword in them and create posts/pages targeting each of them. It's a pretty cool way to suck up all the possible organic traffic from a keyword that might not have the highest exact match searches per month.