Do you generally shoot for normal or exact match rankings?

[sackboy127]

When doing KW research, we usually look at the exact search count to determine traffic, but I'm not sure I understand it completely.

Because I think the grand majority of people just simply type in their keywords, and not use "..." when searching for something.

So when you set your goals like get into the top 3, 5, or 1st page etc, do you refer to the SERPs with normal, or exact search?

Thanks!

 

[Autumn]

Normal only, 99% of people don't even know that you can put a keyphrase inside quotes just like they don't know about all the other search engine operators you can use.

"Exact match" can mean different things depending on what keyword tool you're using.

 

[madoctopus]

Broad, phrase and exact are only for keyword traffic estimates. They are not a measure for rankings. This is what they mean:

1. exact - means the user searched for exactly that keyword without anything in front or after it. It does not mean the user used quotes during the search.
2. phrase - means the user searched for that keyword with another word before or after it
3. broad - means the user searched for that keyword or a related keyword.

If you are looking at "digital camera":

1. exact - the user searched for exactly digital camera and no other words in the query
2. phrase - the user searched for digital camera reviews, digital camera, best digital camera, etc.
3. broad - user searched for any of the examples in exact and phrase or maybe digital dslr camera, digital compact camera, etc.

That is why the root keyword (e.g. digital camera) always has a huge volume in broad search. It is the sum of all search volumes for that keyword family.

If you aim to rank for the exact match it means you aim to rank for only that keyword. If you aim for phrase match you aim for the entire family of keywords that include it (best). You can't really aim for the broad unless you plan to dominate the entire market of that keyword. This happens because sometimes keyphrases intersect each other. For example smartphone reviews and cell phone reviews though in the same broad family, are in distinct phrase families. Then you have cell phone plans review and cell phone review which are about different things (though related).

What i like to do is look at the exact match volume estimate and phrase match and compute phrase_match/exact_match = keyword_family_richness which shows me what kind of volume i can expect to get from keywords (usually long tail) that I do not optimize for specifically. If you rank #1 for "cell phone reviews" and "cell phone plan reviews" and "best cell phone" you will automatically rank high for longtail combinations like "best cell phone plan reviews".

Broad match figure is only useful to determine the size of the market.

 

[florflor]

I use exact. Broad is useless and picks up many irrelevant terms. Exact underestimates so anything else is a bonus.

 

[biks]

As stated above, you want to shoot for EXACT match. You want to find out if somebody...ANYBODY is searching for your exact keyword phrase. This doesn't mean that if somebody wants to find your optimized page, they'll have to use "quotes" in the Google box. You'll pop up for that specific keyword, but hardly any others. (until you get more authority for whatever page you built)

This is better than having your ALL your pages show up in the 100's in the Google SERPS. If you can get at least ONE (exact match) to rank, it's a start.

 

[crowly]

As stated above, you want to shoot for EXACT match. You want to find out if somebody...ANYBODY is searching for your exact keyword phrase. This doesn't mean that if somebody wants to find your optimized page, they'll have to use "quotes" in the Google box. You'll pop up for that specific keyword, but hardly any others. (until you get more authority for whatever page you built)

This is better than having your ALL your pages show up in the 100's in the Google SERPS. If you can get at least ONE (exact match) to rank, it's a start.

+1 Exact Match

 

[GhostVision]

Only exact match

 

[Autumn]

You might want to make sure you know what you're talking about before giving advice to people.

This is complete and utter crock.

The OP specifically mentioned quotes, which I interpreted as meaning he was checking his serps using non-quoted and quoted versions of the keyphrase, and was using the phrase "exact match" in this instance to talk about searching with quotes and his relative serps for each of the two types of query rather than talking about specific search volumes.

So my answer makes perfect sense in that context, and you in fact repeated my sentiment in your last post:

So when doing your keyword research it's important to check the pages ranking for both "your keyword" and your keyword. Otherwise your traffic will be less since you'll miss out on people not quoting.

What a pointlessly abrasive post! If you check my post history then you will see that I most definitely know what I'm talking about and that I have answered a lot of people's technical and theoretical questions. I really don't see the point in talking to people that way.

 

[Autumn]

Rather than get all defensive about pretend you mis-read the question perhaps you could just learn from my post and make more money.

Well I'm obviously not going to get into a bitch fest with a moderator, especially if you're one of those moderators. But I would have thought it was obvious what I meant when I mentioned quotes, and having re-read the initial post, I'm still not convinced that that wasn't what the OP was actually asking. Suffice to say it was an ambiguous question.

 

[bullseye123]

exact match is better as you don't know what the person will search. if he search dog food, there will be a lot of competition, but if he search for dog food for poodle, then the competition might not be that strong.

you have to do keyword research and see what type of dog food people are looking for, and from there get an exact match keyword string,

like the "dog food for poodle" after that you will have a much more targeted audience and you will outrank all the dog food site's, because you have an exact match to what the person is looking for.

Obviously the traffic for dog food for poodles will be less then that of dog food, but on a start up you wont be able to compete with the top site's out there, except if these site's have a low adword competition, then you can try and get the first place with a cheap adword advertisement.

But in the meantime for you to start seeing traffic in just a couple of day's, find an exact keyword with low competition, and focus on that don't try and start huge, because it will take years, but start small and build until it is huge and huge with traffic.

First you take the 10 searches a day from someone, then 30 from someone then 200 from someone else and then 500 here 1000 there, until you have a viral growing traffic drawing website.

Good Luck!!

 

[Autumn]

No one's trying to get aggressive here for precisely the reason you just stated - you've got the ban hammer and that makes having that particular discussion impossible. I'm not moralizing about it, it's just the way it is - I enjoy posting here and helping people out during my breaks from development, and so I'm not going to fight a battle I can't win.

Now thank you for your lengthy post on the matter, and I'm sure many readers got value from it, but I myself do actually understand the mechanics of broad and exact match (which I might add aren't specifically Adwords terms and are used in other keyword tools and PPC platforms). The only point I'm trying to make is that the OP specifically asks

do you refer to the SERPs with normal, or exact search?

which sounds to me like he's talking about looking at the way his sites are ranking with and without quotes for the keywords he's interested in, rather than asking a question about search volumes in the Adwords tool. That's all.

Since he hasn't posted again in this thread, we can't know either way.

 

[madoctopus]

@hexalor That is exactly what I wanted to say, I just didn't had the patience to explain thoroughly as you did. There is a connection between broad/phrase/exact and how you plan your keywords and what to optimize for. That is why I said keywords intersect eachother. Sometimes ranking high for most longtails in a family will get you to rank high automatically for the root keyword. Same if you rank high for the root, you might rank high for all longtails (if you're an authority).

 

[sackboy127]

Hi, thanks to everyone for all your help!

And yes, I was mainly asking that when you do a search with and without quotes, you generally get different results, with you having lower rankings in the latter case. I was just wondering how much it matters for you to have great rankings with quotes. Or do you just shoot for being in the top 3 (for example) without quotes, and don't care about your place with quotes?

 

[JesusBack]

hexalor = unbanning unfairly banned members

 

[ramcivguru]

glad got stumbled on this thread.. I really have a clouded idea on this two terms in keyword research..