So what is a keyword type, especially in regards when we’re discussing Google Ads or Google AdWords? Today we’re going to talk about the differences between broad, modified broad, phrase, and exact match keywords.
This is the second video in our PPC Q&A series. And we’re talking about keyword match types. When you’re inside a Google Ads campaign, there are four different ways that you can add keywords to the system.
There Are Four Different Ways That You Can Add Keywords
And those different ways will determine what type of search results you are going to get. So I want to hop right in and show you some actual examples inside an account and what the different types of searches that you want to see are.
All right, before we jump into an account, what I want to show you is exactly what we’re talking about in a little bit more depth.
So there are four keyword match types. They are broad, broad match modified, or sometimes what we call modified broad match, phrase, and exact.
Now the further you work down the chart, the more narrow the search gets.
So what I mean by that is, down here when we talk about exact match keywords, fewer impressions will be shown. Because you are basically saying to Google, “I only want people that type this exact keyword in.” And we’ll get into that in just a second.
What Is Broad Match Keyword
So if you have this keyword, blue trucks, as a broad match keyword, inside of Google, and essentially what you do is when you type in your keywords, you just type in the word blue trucks without anything with it.
And what I mean by anything, it doesn’t have a plus symbol, it does not have quotes, and it does not have brackets. It is just plain. You write it in as blue trucks.
If you type in blue trucks, what that’s telling Google is we want you to make some variations with this. So for instance, you’re allowed to use synonyms.
You can use misspellings, maybe somebody types in blue, just B-L-U. And you’re saying, “You know what? That’s okay as well.” And it relevant variations. And I’ll get into this a little bit more in just a second.
So if somebody types in the keyword buy royal SUVs, you are saying, all right, that’s close enough to my keyword. I want to show my ad.
And the reason is is because Royal, Google knows is a shade of blue. So it’s kind of like a synonym. SUV, same type of thing. It’s kind of a variation of truck.
It’s a type of a truck, some people would say. But this is obviously a broader scope.
Modified Broad Match Must Contain Close Variations But Not Synonyms
Now I’m using a very simple search term just specifically for these examples, okay? So if somebody types in modified broad, so they put the plus symbol before those terms.
What you’re telling Google is, “All right, I want a search that brings up blue and trucks, and the search must contain those keywords or close variations but not synonyms.”
So it cannot be Royal, it cannot be Navy, it has to be the word blue. And same thing with trucks. It can’t be SUVs or semis, it’s got to be trucks.
Now close variations are essentially if somebody types in the word blue truck as a synonym instead of the plural version, that saying, “Okay, Google, you’re allowed to show our ad for that.” But this doesn’t have to be in this order.
So if somebody types in trucks with blue tunnel covers, you can see the keyword trucks is here and blue is here. So it doesn’t have to be any specific order.
Now modified broad is the same thing as broad. It can get you into some trouble because it might show, if we’re selling blue trucks, we don’t, if somebody types in trucks with blue tunnel covers, we don’t want our ads to show up for that.
See what I mean? Most of the time when people want to use one of these two categories, is at the beginning of a campaign when they are looking to get some more information very, very quickly.
So they may basically for a day or two run some ads with some broad or broad match modified keywords.
With that said, we have campaigns still running to this day with some broad match keywords in them. And I know a lot of people would say don’t ever do that.
However, those particular keywords have been extremely profitable. But we keep a very close eye on them. So just because it doesn’t work in all instances does not mean that you don’t want to try these out.
However, if you’re looking to get more information such as what types of keywords people are typing in, I would probably stick with modified broad over broad match just to basically keep your budget under control.
But either way, if you use either one of these keywords, you need to keep a close eye on the search terms. And I’ll show you where to find that in just a second.
All right, now the two most common use types in search are phrase and exact match. Phrase is, it has these little quotation marks around the phrase.
Phrase Match Explained
So what you’re saying is, “Google, you’re allowed to use, when somebody types in anything with blue trucks, in this order, you can show it.”
So if somebody types in blue trucks for sale, there is your key term. It’s in the same order and it allows close variation. So if somebody types in blue truck for sale, you’re saying, “That’s okay, Google, you can show this.”
And last we have our exact match keywords. So we say blue trucks right here with the brackets. So that exact term and close variations.
Essentially somebody has to type in blue truck or blue trucks with nothing else. No other keywords like for sale or tunnel covers or anything. We want that exact term.
So you can see why, as you move down the chart, the fewer times your ad will probably be shown. But when you are doing search marketing, that’s probably where you want to end up. Because you want very specific examples.
So if somebody types in plumbers near me, that’s a much more specific keyword than just having the word plumbers. Because plumbers could be plumbers union, plumbers helpers, it could be plumbers tools. See what I mean?
The more exact you are, the more control you’re going to have over your campaign.
Now when we talk about keeping an eye on keywords and the search terms, if we go into this campaign, this is a floor refinishing campaign.
As you can see, this is a broad match keyword that says floor refinishing. But this also has 42 conversions for a cost per conversion of $50.67.
That may seem high, however, I do know that the phone calls are not included on this, which brings this down by quite a bit. But you can see it’s a broad match keyword and this keyword has performed extremely well.
But you can see we have hardwood floor refinishing. That’s an exact match keyword. Because it’s very exact, it might not get the impressions of the other one or as many clicks.
But when people do click on it, the conversion rates are quite high, 15% versus 10. The cost per conversions was only $26. So you can see the different types.
Here we have floor refinishers as a broad match keyword. Now this one converted at $52.19. Here’s floor refinishers as a phrase match, because it has the quotations.
This one had three conversions at $23. So you can see the difference between the two.
Now when I talk about putting in a keyword like floor refinishing and then seeing what people are searching, when you get into your campaigns, this is the search keywords.
These are the keywords inside the campaign. But if you go to search terms, so these are exact search terms that people are actually looking for.
So you can see hardwood floor refinishing, St Paul, Minnesota. You might want to, maybe that’s a keyword you want to add. You can see a hardwood floor refinishing MN.
How Exact Match Keyword Works
We actually added that as an exact match keyword. Cost to refinish wood floors. We excluded that from this campaign because we have it running in another campaign. How much does it cost to refinish wood floors?
So you can see, you can go through here and pick up specific keywords that you want to add to your campaign and it will show you what match type it’s pulling.
So wood floor refinishing Minnesota, we like, “Oh, we want to add that as an exact match keyword.” You can click on there and you can go add as keyword.
So we might not have all of these keywords nor do we want to add all of them to our campaign. We want to be very selective and we want to be selective of the match type.
We want to make sure that these keywords are pulling in and converting for us. Because if they’re not, they’re just going to drag the rest of our campaign down.
So do you have any questions about keyword match types? Do us a favor, leave us a question in the comments section below. Or if you have any other questions, we are actually going to be continuing the series for a while.
So if you have any other questions about Google Ads, leave them down there as well.
So if you like videos like this, do us a favor, hit the light button below and the subscribe button and hit that little bell icon next to it so you’ll be notified of when we release new videos each and every week.
And if you want to see some more videos like this, over to the right hand side, you’ll see some other links to our PPC Q&A series as well as some other related videos.
Thank you for checking our post on: Keyword Match Types In Adwords
Check Out Some Of Our Other Great Posts:
Difference Between Search And Display Ads