The 4 Keyword Match Types in Google Adwords

This post is mainly for those who are new to Google Adwords and those who would like to know more about the different search types used in Adwords campaigns. As we all know that Google Adwords is a paid tool is mainly used for running pay per click (PPC) advertising campaign to drive more relevant traffic to a website. Google Adwords are helpful for those who want instant flow of traffic and cannot wait for the site to get organic traffic.

Extensive and clever keyword research is necessary for getting better results from your Adwords campaign. While selecting keywords for your PPC campaign, there are mainly 4 types of keyword categories that you would come upon. These different keyword types are mainly based on the requirement of the site, the keywords competitiveness etc. Here i would like to shed some brief intro on the 4 keyword types that you would be using while managing your Google Adwords campaign.

1) Broad match
Broad match allows to show ads for keywords which have similar phrases and for the relevant variations of keywords. This is the most common and default keyword type that is used in Google Adwords campaign. Consider that you are bidding on a keyword “buy toys”. The ad will show for keywords such as toys, purchase toys, electronics toys etc. In this case your ad would be displayed for a broad range of keywords and there is always chance of irrelevant ads showing up.

2) Phrase match
Phrase match keywords show ads for keywords that contain the phrase that you have mentioned. Phrase match keywords helps in displaying more targeted keywords, but at the same time it is more flexible. As a result it helps you in showing up more relevant keywords and thereby saving your money. For eg. if you keyword is “leather shoes”, Google will show ads for keyword phrases such as “but leather shoes”, “best leather shoes”, “leather shoes for men” and so on.

3) Exact search
Exact search is the most effective of the keyword types and shows ads for only the exact keywords that is mentioned in the Adwords campaign. This is helpful in showing up the most targeted ads and helps in optimizing your Adwords budget to a great extent. For example if you keyword is “buy shoes”, ads would be displayed only for the keyword “buy shoes”

4) Negative Search
Consider that you do not want to show ads for any search that includes a particular term, e.g your keyword is “leather shoes” and you do not want to show ads when someone searches “italian leather shoes”, then you can use the Negative search option.

These four terms are just the basics that you need to know while you start doing Adwords campaign. There are more stuffs that you need to know which I would be covering later.