Diffrence Between Exact Match and Broad Match
-
Which one is better for SEO keywords in keywords difficulty tools,and why ,
-
Hi Nakul,
I agree that broad match can help you with keyword discovery, but the Adwords tool will also give you other suggestions when you search just with exact match. And It's important to know what you're looking at - with excel downloads, people sometimes get a bit mixed up at the source and nature of the data.
For KW discovery, there are lots of other great resources - I'd start with the engines themselves, with the related searches, with tools that mash up that data, like soovle or ubersuggest, and then branch out from there.
-
When targeting for SEO, always look at both the exact match and broad match. Here's why: Exact match tells you how many exact match searches are there for let's say "Cheap Widgets". When you look at Broad match, it will show other keywords like Cheap Blue Widgets. So it's important to look at exact match to figure out your primary keywords and broad match to identify any secondary / variant keywords that might have been missed. I hope that helps.
-
Whenever I do KW research, I also use exact match. For SEO purposes, you're trying to gauge search volumes for specific terms. (Of course, these numbers are way off in the AdWords tool, and certainly can't be trusted as precise numbers.) You want to know how many times people searched for buy batman comics in a month. When looking at the data for this term, or any term, broad match numbers will be drastically higher than exact match, because they'll include search volume for many other terms and not just the one term you are looking for.
Remember, it's important to always have in the back of your mind not to trust the numbers. And don't think you'll get 1000 visits a month for a term if you rank #1 and that's the search volume. According to the latest CTR studies (most recent one was published by Slingshot SEO and there was a post about it here on the Moz blog as well as their own detailed writeup), the top organic spot gets 18.2% of search volume.
You can also check out Bing's new Keyword research tool, built specifically in their webmaster tools suite to provide you with information about organic searches. Granted that Bing's user base is much smaller, it can still be a good additional resource to have in your KW research arsenal.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Keyword Planner not showing exact match
hi guys I'm currently trying to optimize a site for 'Recruitment Agency North West' when I enter his term into keyword planner it gives me no results for the exact match, but offers me figures for 'Recruitment Agencies North West' Am I to assume that nobody has ever searched 'Recruitment Agency North West'?!!! and that I should be focusing on 'Recruitment Agencies North West' as my main key phrase? Is there another site other than keyword planner that will give me results for 'Recruitment Agency North West'? cheers M
Keyword Research | | Staunton_Rook0 -
Exact match keyword phrases, are they still really important to search engines?
This has been bugging me for a while now and I'd like to know what you guys think. I often find what I can only described as 'oddities' in our rankings for certain search terms. For example, we might rank top 5 for 'A5 week view diary' and then second page for 'Week view diaries A5'. (Not an actual example, I just find stuff like this all the time across our various pages) They are basically the same query, so I don't understand why so often there is such a discrepancy. I can only put this down to exact match keyword phrase still being an important ranking factor. What do you guys think? Are exact match phrases still an important part of the SERP results? Thank you. Isaac.
Keyword Research | | isaac6630 -
Why doesn't Google show my site in the results when searching for my exact URL ?
I haven't done too much work with optimizing the site yet, but I was curious as to why the site doesn't even show up in any of the google results when searching on the exact URL. What could cause this behavior?
Keyword Research | | fryguy1 -
What's the difference between broad and exact match in Google's keyword research tool?
The exact match option shows you much smaller numbers. And Google's explanation of each isn't comprehensive. Can someone explain the difference between the two with examples? Also, which one is it better to target while doing SEO research?
Keyword Research | | davhad0 -
Whats the exact different between broad match and exact match. thnx.
Hey, On Keyword Difficulty Tool: pls explain, whats the exact different between broad match and exact match. Thx. Seb. 🙂
Keyword Research | | TheHecksler0 -
How to target very broad, umbrella keywords on the homepage
Hey there SEO Mozzers, I'm new to the SEO Moz community and would genuinely appreicate any advice/input on this topic. I'm part of the online marketing team for a UK-based site called Tendea.co.uk. We operate an introductory platform for enabling the connection between parents and families seeking care services (childcare, pet care, senior care, home & garden care, etc.) and individuals providing care services (babysitters, nannies, pet sitters, housekeepers, etc.). To take a US site for comparison, the services are very similar to those offered by Care.com I'm currently having a bit of difficulty as to what very broad, umbrella keywords we should be targeting for the homepage, primarily in the meta title/description. We've started with keywords such as "care, family services, care services, and family care", but I think these terms are almost too generic and aren't necessarily terms we really want to be ranking for. I suggested to our in-house SEO team that we just target some of our strongest keywords from each of the individual care categories for the homepage (babysitter, pet sitter, housekeeper, caregiver, etc.). They were against this idea, though, as we have separate subfolders that target the individual care categories and their specific keywords (tendea.co.uk/childcare, /pet-care, /elderly-care, etc.) Essentially the argeument is that we don't want to be targeting these terms on the homepage and on a separate subfolder page, as then the two pages would be competing for each other's keywords. Instead we're being encouraged to find some sort of umbrella terms to target for the home page that can encompass all of the care categories. For comparison's sake, I took a look at Care.com's meta data and it targets all their specific keywords for the various care categories "Babysitters, nannies, Child Care & Senior Home care - Care.com". Is this the right kind of strategy to take, or do you guys have any suggestions for much broader, umbrella keywords to target on our homepage? Thanks in advance for your input! -Mike
Keyword Research | | Tendea0 -
Broad match Vs Exact match
This may sound a little basic, but i'm going to ask anyway. On Googles keyword tool Ive always used broad match, knowing that they are never 100% accurate, and obviously inflated by other SEO's searching for their keywords, but used it all the same to get an idea of global monthly searches and potential targeted traffic. I have seen recently, on SEOmoz, and a post fromJill Whalen not long back, that unless you change the match to "Exact" your data is useless? Could somebody explain why this is the case? My initial thoughts were, a search for SEO on broad shows 6,120,000 per month Yet a search for the same keyword in exact match shows 673,000 per month. I had presumed that the broad match would include "learn SEO" "What is SEO" etc etc, where as 673,000 just search exactly for SEO. Is this correct? 3 points go to Richard Q&A answering animal dude Getz if he gets this first! Thanks in advance
Keyword Research | | Yozzer2