Kobashi Computing

When it comes to keyword analysis and search engine marketing (SEM) with Adwords, understanding the three different types of Google's search matching comes into play. Here I look at these match types and explain what each means.

The Google Keyword Tool is for Adwords customers. These users can specify matching criteria to trigger the display of their ads in Google search and the content network. There are three primary match types:

1. Broad
2. Phrase
3. Exact

For the sake of this discussion, lets assume our keyword phrase is "dog training".

Broad keyword matching

In broad phrase keyword matching, if both words are in the search specification, the ad will be displayed. The words can be in any order. Here are some examples:

• dog training
• training dog
• urgent dog training
• dog training urgent
• dog urgent training
• training urgent dog

Broad phrase matching will generate more clicks to an Adwords users' site. However, the likelihood of converting these clicks into revenue is low because of more patterns that are irrelevant. If you got deep pockets to run an ad campaign and are looking for volume, this is the one to use.

Phrase keyword matching

In phrase keyword matching, the order of the keywords must be intact for the ad to be displayed. Words can appear before or after the phrase. They cannot appear between.

Here are some examples:

• dog training
• good dog training
• dog training classes
• dog training for dummies
• dummies for dog training

Most users will type in their searches in this type of pattern.

Exact keyword matching

In exact phrase matching, the words must be in order. No words can appear before, after, or in between. Very simply, it is this:

• dog training

If you are a small website owner with a very limited budget, you will want to use this type of matching. You will likely not get a lot of clicks, but your conversions will be higher because they are more relevant.

Keyword Analysis

The Google Keyword Tool can also be used to do keyword analysis. When you are using this as such, you should consider the data from exact keyword matching phrases and not the other two.

Lets take an example. I took the data from GKT as of January 22, 2012 for "dog training". Naturally, people are going to use those two words in that order rather than "training dog". The picture looks something like this:

This makes sense. The broad match data is the same. The volume of searches in phrase matching for "dog training" should be higher than "training dog". And lastly, the exact phrase "dog training" should have more searches than the little used "training dog".

When you do keyword research, use the exact match to get a sense of how much real volume there is for that keyword phrase. You certainly would not want to waste time building a website for the phrase "training dog" because it gets so low search volume. Notice that you shouldn't use broad matching as a criteria because, the global and local search values are the same and it is including words in different order and being pre and post appending to them. It is not an accurate measure of traffic or use for the keyword phrase. Many people are not aware of this, and proceed to create websites based on low keyword volume and then scratch their heads and complain they are not monetizing well for all their hard work.

Summary

You now have learned the three types of matching performed in Adwords - exact, phrase, and broad. You also learned that by using the exact phrase matching, you will get a better picture of demand for that keyword phrase.