Adwords Phrase Match
One thing not really made clear in the Google help about Phrase Match is whether it uses whole words as the basis for whether a search will activate your adverts.
Here is a snippet from https://adwords.google.co.uk/support/aw/bin/answer.py?hl=en-uk&answer=6100:-
Phrase Match
If you enter your keyword in quotation marks, as in “tennis shoes”, your ad would be eligible to appear when a user searches on the phrase tennis shoes, with the words in that order. It can also appear for searches that contain other terms as long as it includes the exact phrase you’ve specified.
Phrase match keyword: Ads may show on searches for: Ads won’t show on searches for: “tennis shoes” red tennis shoes
buy tennis shoes
tennis shoes photoshoes for tennis
tennis shoe
tennis trainersPhrase match is more targeted than broad match, but more flexible than exact match.
This is easy to follow. No Problems.
BUT
What if I want to target people who are searching for something “Northern Ireland” related.
There are a lot of different ways for someone to indicate they are looking for something specific to Northern Ireland.
For example, they could type in
“N.I”
“N.I.”
“N.Ireland”
and a lot of other similar phrases.
So say I sold blue widgets in the Northern Ireland area, and wanted to be lazy, and catch each of the 3 combinations above, it might be logical to assume I could use phrase match and just put in my keyword list:-
“blue widgets n.i”
I’m afraid not…. Google reckons that “blue widgets n.i” is NOT a phrase match for the search term “blue widgets n.ireland”. This seems a bit counter intuitive to me – but that’s how it works.
So if you do want to catch as much ‘Northern Ireland’ related search traffic as possible, it looks like you will have to build a big keyword list, or else rely on ‘broad match’….
In fact if you do live in Northern Ireland, here is a good starting point for your keyword list (Just replace the ‘Keyword’ text with ‘Blue Widgets’ or whatever is relevant to you:-
NI Keyword
N I Keyword
N.I Keyword
N.I. Keyword
N.Ireland Keyword
N. Ireland Keyword
Northern Ireland Keyword
Keyword NI
Keyword N I
Keyword N.I
Keyword N.I.
Keyword N.Ireland
Keyword N. Ireland
Keyword Northern Ireland
“NI Keyword”
“N I Keyword”
“N.I Keyword”
“N.I. Keyword”
“N.Ireland Keyword”
“N. Ireland Keyword”
“Northern Ireland Keyword”
“Keyword NI”
“Keyword N I”
“Keyword N.I”
“Keyword N.I.”
“Keyword N.Ireland”
“Keyword N. Ireland”
“Keyword Northern Ireland”
[NI Keyword]
[N I Keyword]
[N.I Keyword]
[N.I. Keyword]
[N.Ireland Keyword]
[N. Ireland Keyword]
[Northern Ireland Keyword]
[Keyword NI]
[Keyword N I]
[Keyword N.I]
[Keyword N.I.]
[Keyword N.Ireland]
[Keyword N. Ireland]
[Keyword Northern Ireland]