Search Query vs. Keywords: What’s the Difference?
When I talk to my students, clients, and entrepreneurs in general, the terms “search query” and “keyword” are often used interchangeably and misunderstood. I want to provide clarity that there is a difference between the two and what that difference is.
Think of a keyword in terms of the transcendent ideal of a search query (or search term) – it’s an abstraction that we extrapolate from multiple search queries.
Think of a search query as the actual word or string of words that a search engine user types into the search bar. Imagine a search query as the real-world application of a keyword – it may be misspelled, out of order or have other words tacked on to it, or conversely it might be identical to the keyword.
As digital marketers, what we target are keywords.
In SEO, we target these abstractions by optimizing on-page content (i.e., using the keywords in URLs, title tags, body copy, image file names, meta descriptions and so on), by building inbound links with keywords in the anchor text, etc.
In PPC, we target keywords by bidding on them and using them in our ads and landing pages.
Search queries (or terms), on the other hand, are the real-world terms that people use to find those pages through paid and organic search.
For example, you might bid on the keyword “sundress.” By looking at your search query report in Google Ads, you can see all the queries that visitors typed in to trigger your ad – assuming you’re using broad match, these queries might include the exact keyword as well as endless variations like “strapless sundress,” “women’s sundress,” “boho sundress,” “sundress size 0” and so on.
If some of those search queries fall into a clear, repeating pattern (for example, “women’s sundress”), you might go on to create an ad group and corresponding ads for that search query, at which point the search query would become one of your keywords.
Search queries are a larger set than keywords, and by looking at search queries we can find new keywords to target in our search marketing campaigns. (Search query mining is also a good way to find negative keywords).
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