Good Monday morning to everyone. The last week of October is here and fall has kicked into gear. Living in Noth Carolina has many advantages, the great weather, low pollution, affordable housing, low stress, etc. But one thing I didn’t expect was the creative and humorous ways local ministers used to get more members for their congregations – or at least more attention. Check this sign out:
Classic.
Let’s use “the spoken word” as an example in understanding keyword competition, because it is still greatly misunderstood and many business owners are making key mistakes by testing for keywords which are getting far less traffic than they think.
For this exercise, we’ll use Google’s Keyword Tool and we’ll do a search for “spoken word.”
Notice how the search volume displays 135,000 searches and the Match Type in the upper right corner is set to “Broad”. This will return all searches with the word “spoken” and “word” but not necessarily together. This is the default setting and can throw you off.
Instead, use “Exact Match” as it will give you the real search numbers:
As you can see, the search numbers drop to 40,000. That is less than one-third of the Broad Match number – which is a huge difference.
So, when you do your keyword research ALWAYS use Exact Match so you have a more clear understanding of the estimated number of searches.
Rick says
Nice sign and great tip, as always. Another key, make sure that you find keywords that are really what your site is about, not on the edge. Bringing traffic for a keyword that does not really pertain to your site is not helpful. Example, if I sell “race tires” and I bring traffic for the term, “Nascar” it is not going to help me. True enough some people that search ‘Nascar” are race drivers themselves and they may need to buy race tires, but odds are not great and it will be mostly a waste of time to optimize for a term that will convert once every blue moon.
Santhosh says
Hai Jerry thanks for ur nice information u mention that abt Google keyword tool well can u plz mention what is the use of phrase match of that tool it will be great
Dave says
So but does mean there are a lot of longtails to be found there if the difference is that big between broad and exact right ?
Dave
Chris Evans says
Hey Jerry. Can you go into more detail on using prase match for keyword research? Do you use phrase match at all in your research?
Thanks,
Chris
Mike says
Wow! What a sign. I live in Houston and we have some very creative pastor’s here as well… We’ve seen some downright awful signs. I wish I made an album with all of them! Keyword competition is insane!
Abraham Birts says
Pretty interesting post. Couldn’t of written any better. Browsing this post reminds me of my old bud. He always kept speaking about this. I will forward this post to him. Am sure he will have a good chuckle. Thanks for sharing! :)