Is phrase match traffic important? Broad one is awesome :)

[Techfreak]

Hello guys!
I have some simple questions, but just can't solve it in my mind

As I got from first lessons, niche should have following criterias:

minimum of 80 visitors for the first page in Google broad match results and maximum of 50,000 pages in Google's phrase match ("bla-bla") search result.

Is it right?

I have found a good 2-word phrase. It consists of widely spread simple words and therefore broad match traffic is about ~1500, which is 630 for first page, very good if we compare to minimum of 80! And competion for phrase match is only ~12,000 pages.

630 and 12,000! Considering, that 80 and 50,000 are already good for starting. Looks awesome, isnt' it??

But, if I search for phrase match traffic, it is only 60, which is 25 for first page (strictly < than needed 80). Exact match is almost 0.

So, what do you think? According to 30dc, it is a true "gold niche" (if we do not check SEO competition at that point), but all this "broad", "phrase", "exact" matches are making me crazy and confused )

[Isha]

Gosh, no, Techfreak. You really need to go more thoroughly through those early videos again (and print out the pdfs to study). You've got so many figures wrong that I'd be doing you a disservice if I told you which ones are wrong and why. The figures and teachings in the videos are kind of more than "bla-bla"

Sorry to disappoint!

[Techfreak]

Actually, I do not have much time to watch all videos . But I have read first PDFs for 10 times already and, unfortunately, this topic is what I got from them

I found very similar questions (even exact ones) here - Is This Keyword Worth Pursuing??

and here - Trying to Figure Out Word Order, But All Traffic Disappears « Noble Samurai

And realized the root of this issue - that good stats for broad match let's say "speed reading" can sometimes mean 1% for phrase match "speed reading" and other 99% for "reading with a high speed", for example. Which is unacceptable for us, as we are going to use exact phrase ("speed reading"), while optimising.

To be honest, I could not find that thought in any of the first 3 lessons PDFs
Also, seems like phrase match stats from MS tool would be more useful as phrase match should be checked later anyway (because of such case, like mine).

User "ishabluebell" (looks like it is you Isha? ) said -

I use the same criteria as the training, ie >200 searches, BUT it's >200 *phrase-matched* searches I'm looking for.

By the way, quote "confirms", that it was said "in other way" in the training.

But overall method seems reasonable, will take it for myself - 80 SEOT phrase-match

[Techfreak]

Onе more question persists here - "How much traffic should I still expect"? ) Will it be 42% of broad-match searches or 42% of phrase-match searches?

[JasperEliot]

Unfortunately, I am not the "expert" in this field either. I hope that whoever does provide you with advice will also comment on one of my big areas of confusion: Exact Match. Sometimes I find that the "phrase match" is high (say, around 14,000) but the [exact match] is only around 200. So, I'm wondering if this is even remotely important, or whether the goal is really to find a broad match and a "phrase match" that are: 1) high, and 2) aligned near each other. Any experts out there?

[Techfreak]

In my personal opinion, Exact match is not SO important, but should be considered as well.
I think this way - let's take the same "speed reading". If there are 100 phrase-match searches, they can consist of 1 for "speed reading" and 99 for "speed reading guide". Both of them have phrase "speed reading", as you see.

Now, if your website is optimized for "speed reading guide", rather than just "speed reading", then it will get a lot higher traffic as it matches 99% of such searches more precisely, than just "speed reading".

The issue here is to find this exact phrase with the highest traffic within this phrase-match array

---

Experts, please correct me if I am wrong somewhere!

[BrentH]

Here's another thread that goes into a lot of detail about this:

importance of exact match, and ... "where'd all the searches go?" « Noble Samurai

(Note: This thread is only a few hours old)

I choose phrase-match because it's more broad than exact match (which often means you pick up a little extra traffic around the edges). Plus, because of the nature of phrase-match, I find it's easier to work out word order using Phrase Match.

There's certainly no harm in checking keywords using Exact Match though - it serves its purpose too.

Brent

[JasperEliot]

There's just something terribly wrong about the SEOT broad search of 'cat underwear' getting 2279 hits ;-)

[Isha]

Yes, Techfreak, ishabluebell is me.

Please do note that one of the errors (IMO) in your first post was the 50,000 competition figure. The 30dc SEOC criteria is <30,000.

[Techfreak]

Hi Brent! I've read it, thanks for info. But there is still one question.

Is it better when broad, phrase and exact match number are close to each other or is it better if there is a big disperancy and why?

I am thinking about it and answer is almost caught in my head, but just can't figure out the whole logic.

Also - is MS planning to include phrase/exact match numbers? As we see here, there is not much point of considering just broad traffic.

@Isha, I know, that the fewer the better, but was just referring to Ed's words -

If you are really interested in a particular market and you can’t find any keywords
that are less than 30,000 but you can find some of them in the range of 30,000 – 50,000 then you may relax the filter to that level.