In short, phrase matching is an exact keyword phrase search and broad matching is an open search including variants. Most searches are broad matched so the money lies in broad matching. Phrase matched searches are important when looking for niches and discovering low competition phrases.

It’s much easier to increase phrase matched rankings. However, as a site raises in phrase matched rankings typically it’s broad match rankings also slowly increase.

In Google, to do a phrase match search just add a quote at beginning of the phrase. The trailing quote isn’t necessary. Google will then look for that exact phrase with the words in that order. For example: “isaac suttell

Broad matching, ie no quotes, searches for all of the keywords anywhere on a particular page in no particular order. So, if we were to do a search for my name, Isaac Suttell, the search could find someone else with the first name Isaac and another person with the last name Suttell on the same page but the result might have nothing to do with “Isaac Suttell.”

If a site is properly optimized for a keyword phrase, overtime it will build it’s reputation and increase it’s broad match ranking.