Question about keywords

ok. I am trying to set up a new niche site. I have found a keyword that I like that has no competition for back links(easy enough to beat so it seems if done correctly). The question I have is:

When looking in adwords under the broad terms this keyword gets 5400 global searches a month with a little competition. When clicking to go the "exact" route, it ends up only being 170 a month. So, my question then is, do I look at the broad and then still go check out the competition or do I stick with the exact and expect that not as many people will be searching for that term? If I use the exact term though, and get to the #1 spot on Google, do I not only get access to the 170 exact phrase searches and a piece of the 5400 searches from the broad?

Sorry if this sounds a little confusing, maybe I am making this out to be harder than it is? OR perhaps I am looking at this all wrong?

Anyways, thanks to any who can help.

hello,

I think I understand what you're asking and I will try to explain in a way that makes sense. Your broad term is normally going to have more pages returning in Google and in turn you're going to have more competing pages because the search is taking all the words in account. When someone types in a search term in quotes Google is only returning that phrase.

So for example if you search exposure unit without quotes I get about 10 million pages in Google. When I search the same term in quotes Google returns about 650,000 pages. so I just did a quick search for both and I have the number two position in Google. It's hard to outguess Google I usually just go with the keywords that are relevant to my content and let things happen as they will. if you over think this too much you'll drive yourself crazy. I never set out to get the number two position for this keyword it just happened that way.

For a highly competitive keywords it's going to be more difficult to rank on the first page with broad search where is exact match is usually easier to rank for but in turn the searches are less and more targeted I personally will take more targeted traffic even though the search term is lower than broad.

for what it's worth I hope this helps based on what I've experienced

Steve

thanks Steve, that helps. Good luck to you and your endeavors. Hopefully I will get something ranking well soon enough too.

I like to use phrase match to get a better viewpoint. Typically searchers don't use quotes in the search box. Exact match is really a feature for AdWords users who don't want to pay for untargeted clicks.

As for the competition, I would wonder why there is little competition. That usually means it is more of an informational keyphrase and therefore AdWords users don't believe it would make them money.

Perhaps your niche site could target a slightly broader term and then optimize blog posts or other pages for the longer tail phrases.

I did all mistakes in keyword selection.. make sure you check exact which means [] only for the keyword you gave in the keyword tool.. broad and generic confuses and you will not see the traffic you think you will achieve....

thanks for all the help. I think I understand a little more.

When I do keyword analysis, I both consider the broad match and exact match, but pay more attention to the exact match.

You need to make sure when you going to select a keyword that keyword has a good number of searches per month.Personally I always prefer to choose a keyword with medium competition.

that was very helpful information and very detailed Manchito, thank you. The only thing I was not sure about is the "only get .com, .org or .net" I did some research and came to the conclusion that when doing the right seo for both on page and off page, you can rank just as fast or easily with a .info especially if the sites are information based(ie for adsense sites). It is the general consensus of marketers and some searchers that think those are spam urls but according to the search engines, if they have good links and such, they can still rank well enough for a first page(although it may be true that a .com, .net or .org may place above them). I bought a couple to try out to test that theory myself so it will be interesting to see.

thanks again for the helpful post.

Hi kdbbiz

for a kw that usually only has 170 matches in exact match, I would tend to make a squidoo lens rather than an entire website.

I would use Squidoo so I can still get the traffic for that keyword and not have to waist time spending money on a domain name and making a website from scratch.

To your Success,
Martin