The “Gurus” advise that the best way to use the Google KeyWord Tool is to target the searches that are exact searches only.
An “Exact Match” would look like this [the cow jumped over the moon]. This search will only bring in those people that have typed in the exact key word group the cow jumped over the moon, a mere 1,300 Exact Match and 6,600 Broad Match visitors. These two amounts should not be added together for a total of 7,900 visitors, rather the Exact Match of 1,300 is a part of the Broad Match so the Broad Match should be reduced by 1,300 for a total of Broad and Phrase Match of 5,300. There are 2,900 Phrase Match searches so the remainder of approximately 2,100 searchers are of the Broad Match variety.
This is what a search for the various Matches might look like:
Exact [the cow jumped over the moon]
Only the exact words between the brackets can be found. Although Google uses some fuzzy logic that shows whatever their search algorithm finds as relevant. Often this drives internet marketers crazy.
Phrase “the cow jumped over the moon” many marketers call this the Exact Match search. But it’s really different. All words between the quotes, must be present somewhere in the found page words exactly as they are written. An example of how a found page might look is like this In New Jersey, the cow jumped over the moon at 11:55 PM while the moon was at its brightest. We shouldn’t forget the fuzzy logic that Google uses to show relevant pages, its at work all the time.
Broad the cow jumped over the moon This search allows the searcher to find all the pages that contain any of the words in the search terms. It doesn’t matter where they appear. Googles fuzzy logic will show the pages that most correctly match the search term. With 2 or 3 word terms this becomes much harder to sort out. A 5 word search term is going to supply a much better chance to find what you are looking for than a 2 or 3 word search group. A page might be shown that has the terms like this: The New Jersey, cow decided the time was right so it jumped completely over the new moon at 11:55 PM while the moon was at its brightest.
The best way to see this is to Google the cow jumped over the moon and then cow the moon this will illustrate the significant difference between the searches. Note that cow the moon brings 41 million pages of results while the cow jumped over the moon brings only 1.19 million pages. You have to love Google’s fuzzy logic.
Each of the words in the phrase the cow jumped over the moon has search value. In fact a couple of the words have astonishingly large search volumes.
Check this out.
The following words were all searched in Google KeyWord tool using the broad match option:
The word the receives 1,380,000,000 Global Monthly Searches while the exact match the brings 673,000 Global Monthly Searches.
The word cow receives 9,140,000 Global Monthly Searches
The word jumped receives 301,000 Global Monthly Searches
The word jumps receives 1,220,000 Global Monthly Searches
The word jump receives 13,600,000 Global Monthly Searches
The word over receives 83,100,000 Global Monthly Searches
The word moon receives 37,200,000 Global Monthly Searches
The word the has 25,270,000,000 pages that contain that word. That’s 25.27 Billion pages, YEOW! The number one page on Google search pages is the “dictionary.reference.com/browse/the” Google, in its vast wisdom, awarded this page a PR of 5; this page has a traffic value of 22 Million unique visitors. Google says the Keyword the has an estimated Cost Per Click (CPC) of 0.10¢. The owners of this site aren’t even trying to make money with this page. If they converted an AdSense ad at a measly one half of one percent, they would bring in $68,200.00 per MONTH. Wholly cow, from 1 page. (22 Million visitors * .05 = 1.1 Million visitors; 0.10¢ * .62 = .062¢; 1.1 Million visitors * .062¢ = $68,200.00 per MONTH.)
I know that I have deviated from my subject matter, but really, look at the money left on the table. Yikes…
I, not being a “Guru”, figure that if I combine all of the traffic from the searches above there would be a total traffic pool of 1.525 BILLION visitors. If only 5 thousandths of 1% of this traffic were to click through to my site I would have 7,625,000 visitors per month to my site.
Google looks for word sets and try’s to send only relevant traffic to your site, and it would not be easy to rank for the KeyWord the. But that doesn’t change the fact that all of that traffic is there to try to entice to a site that is well optimized for its KeyWord group.
The “Guru’s” would have you believe the only GOOD rout to go would be with the “Exact KeyWord Match”. I would like to give a fishing example to drive home my point about trusting the “Broad KeyWord Match”. I know this is a little homey but it sure clears up the matter for me.
If I were a fisherman by the sea, and I fed my family from my catch, and supported my lifestyle by selling the fish I caught. What would I do?
Lets say that Salmon are my best sellers, but Flounder, Sea Bass, and Rock Fish are all in the same area. The Salmon might sell for $7.00 a pound, the Flounder might sell for $5.00 per pound, and the Sea Bass might sell for $11.00 per pound and the Rockfish for only $3.00. Where I go to fish there are likely to be 300 of the Salmon, 200 Flounders, maybe 50 Sea Bass, and 10,000 different types of Rockfish.
If I were to follow the Guru’s advice, I would only fish for the Salmon. So my fish catching pool is only 300 strong. If I can get 5% of the Salmon to my boat I will have 15 Salmon. If the Salmon averaged 20 pounds each I would have 300 pounds of Salmon for an earnings of $2,100.00 for the fishing trip. Now if that is all I did and my costs for the trip were $1,800.00 my total profit would be $300.00. Not a bad profit for a days work, right? All day long because I was fishing for Salmon I just threw all the others back, or just didn’t try to get them to the boat. Was this a wise choice?
Let’s see. If I use the same catching percentage, as the Salmon, on all the types of fish that were available in my fishing hole this would be the result. I still have the 300 pounds of Salmon, I would catch 10 Flounders at an average weight of 12 pounds each or 120 pounds of Flounder, I would boat 3 Sea Bass at an average weight of 25 pounds each or 75 pounds of Sea Bass, and I would have this pile of 500 Rock Fish at an average weight of 7 pounds or 3,500 pounds of Rock Fish. Whoa, what a load of fish. Sure hope I can sell all of these.
The Numbers:
300 pounds of Salmon @ $ 7.00 per pound $ 2,100.00
120 pounds of Flounder @ $ 5.00 per pound 600.00
75 pounds of Sea Bass @ $11.00 per pound 825.00
3,500 pounds of Rock Fish @ $ 3.00 per pound $10,500.00
Total Income for the trip $14,025.00
Less the costs of the trip ( 1,800.00)
Gross Income for Trip $12,225.00
My question to you is. Which fishing trip would you want to be on? For me I want to know that I have a huge pool of whatever I’m going after, in this case fish, which will translate into dollars into my pocket. If you are thinking about a niche and the total available pool of visitors is only 6,600 visitors. Why would anyone go after that niche if they could go after some part of 3 Billion visitors just as easily?
All of the words in your KeyWord group are important. All of the visitors for those KeyWords should be looked at, evaluated, and to every degree possible have your site optimized for them. Get the big picture; look at the entire visitor pool that is available. Don’t believe that you should only go check the Exact Matches, find the largest pool you can that will let you into the game.
Buckthorn