Broad Or Phrase Match For One Word Keyword

Hi I would never use in broad match, because your broad match type is going to run irrelevant queries. Always use phrase, exact or broad match modifier.

Never ever use a broad match for any no.of keywords. Broad match keywords has maximum chances to trigger your ad. But it brings irrelevant traffic to you hence you can waste money.
Whereas phrase match and exact match are more relevant to your keyword and brings the traffic you want.

Bid amount is decided on the avg monthly searches, so higher the bid higher is the traffic for that keyword.

I don't know what your product or service is but one-word keywords are not recommended. You just end up doing what you are doing: adding negatives. That's just inefficient and you end up keeping adding negatives instead of doing real optimization.

But if you must use a one-word keyword, I'd use phrase match as well as exact. The problem with broad is that it might get expanded into terms you don't want. For instance, chiropractor may trigger for searches containing the word doctor. Beatles may trigger on beetles. The BMM version should be OK but in practice, for a one-word keyword, it should be the same as a phrase match.

Hi AlphaWarrior,

As usual, Lucid is spot on. It is generally not a good idea to use a single word keyword. There might be some exceptions where it makes sense to use a single word keyword, but those rare cases are few and far between, and usually involves a word that typically is only used to describe the product or service you are marketing.

Try to remember a keyword is just a tool used to target search terms. It is the search terms that you are targeting and your ad groups need to focus on a singular intent to perform well. A single word keyword is usually too vague or ambiguous to accurately target as narrowly as needed for your ad message to be highly effective.

In those rare cases where you do need to target a single word keyword it is usually best to use only exact match keywords. If you are trying to get your impressions on phrases then you should be targeting those phrases explicitly, and a single word keyword is not explicitly targeting anything except that single word search term. So, my advice is to only use exact match for any single word keywords you need to target.

Don't try to get away with using single word keywords for broad or phrase match keywords, that's just being lazy, and it is going to cost you a lot in performance. Do the upfront work of setting up proper targeting by explicitly targeting search terms and your wallet will thank you.

HTH,

Don Burk

Thanks Lucid and dburk. My kw is somewhat unique and since I am using local targeting, I had thought about using exact match for the kw only. However, exact match leaves out searches for kw town and kw town state and all of those possible phrases. So I thought about using broad or phrase match with a ton of negative kw. I did not think about broad match triggering a similar, but possibly different meaning kw.

Glad I asked and thank you for your responses.

I think you are misunderstanding something. You are using [kw] only. But why not [kw mytown] and "kw mytown" or even +kw +mytown? You are saying you are not using those and only sticking with the one-word keyword in exact match. There's no reason you can't have those other keywords.

I've heard many times that their keywords are unique or that their business is different. It doesn't take long to disprove that. You can almost always expand the keyword. For instance, one does not sell shoes. You sell running shoes. But you don't sell running shoes, you sell women's running shoes. There's almost always qualifying words to the base word - in this case shoes. It's much easier to find these than to use only the base word and add a ton of negatives. With precise keywords, you don't need as many negatives and often you don't need them at all.

But if you think your keyword is truly unique, use the phrase match "kw" and see what comes up in the search term report. You may be surprised.

In my suggestion you should use keywords in Phrase Match. According to Google Phrase Match & Broad Match details are:-

Broad Match - A keyword setting that allows your ad to show when someone searches for that keyword or a variation of it. The broad match keyword "bicycle bell" can cause your ad to show if someone searches for variations like "bicycle bells," "buy a bell for a bicycle," and "bell reviews for bikes."

Phrase Match- A keyword setting that allows your ad to show only when someone's search includes the exact phrase of your keyword, or close variations of the exact phrase of your keyword, with additional words before or after. The phrase match keyword "bicycle bell" can cause your ad to show if someone searches for "bicycle bell," "buy bicycle bell," and "bicycle bell reviews."

I just ran a campaign in Michigan. First I try broad match keywords, and I am getting a lot of traffic but irrelavant, my clients are getting a call, but they are asking for services which they don't offer.

so I modified keyword search term to phrase match, and now I am getting low calls but the quality one.

if your goal is just to get traffic at a minimum, cost them a broad match is a good option.