Google Adwords Keyword Tool

[Ramesh Klinkert]

Hi all,

Is it true that the keyword tool of Adwords only shows numbers that are favourable to Google only? Are the numbers useless or can it truly be used for success?

Thanks.

[Richard Legg]

Hey Ramesh,

I'm not 100% sure what you mean by "favourable to Google only".

Personally, this is one of my main keyword research tools for SEO purposes, especially now they give the actual search volume numbers as opposed to the little green bar they used to have.

One thing I always make sure to do is sort results using the [exact match] option - this gives you a much more accurate view of the actual search volume for specific keywords.

For PPC it's also useful to activate the "Avg CPC" option too - though this should be considered more of a guide. Your actual CPCs will vary depending on your account, ads, quality score etc.

Don't be put off just because a keyword has a high CPC. In my opinion, this just proves it's a profitable keyword to go after ... particularly with SEO :-)

Hope this helps,

Richard

[Ramesh Klinkert]

Hi Richard,

Great reply. I can use this information. Thanks.

[thomasukm]

Hi Ramesh,

From my experience, this is one of the best keyword tool around.

And i believe what you mean by "favourable to google only" is when you have this keyword in your adwords account.

One of the thing i used in keyword tool is the "website content" option, which let me find keywords tag with their website. I always take note of the first 3 groups of the related results which will give me good QS.

Thomas

[global5564]

I used to work for an SEM provider and Google shows all adwords that are working for your campaign. However, Google is, in my opinion, over priced and over rated. I would use Yahoo instead if I were you- more bang for the buck. You may also want to longtail your adwords to cut the price and attract a more targeted consumer. Just suggestions but I would say the Google reports are valuable and legit.

[Graham Holmes]

Hey Joshua,

I take on board what you're saying about the pricing - I sometimes wonder whether to send my shirt as payment, as well...

A guy who's been trying to teach me suggest that it's better to start with Google first, just because of the sheer volume of searchers they attract; once you can get profitable on Google, then go after the smaller shares of eye-balls on Yahoo and MSN/Live, respectively?

I'm not sure if he's worked for an SEM provider though... you may have more insider knowledge.

[Teuku Zulkaryadi]

Hello Ramesh,

From my experiences, Adwords Keyword Tool is the best keyword research you can get for free. You can start getting valuable keywords with this tool and then develop (adding more or lose more) your keywords by actually test them in google or other search engine machine. You will then know for sure, which ones is favorable to google and which one for the others.

In my opinion there is no other way to know which keyword is the best for your campaign unless you test it and test it and test it again.

[Markus Allen]

Hi all,

Is it true that the keyword tool of Adwords only shows numbers that are favourable to Google only? Are the numbers useless or can it truly be used for success?

Thanks.

While the Google Adwords' keyword suggestion tool is the best free tool out there (bar none in my opinion), the numbers are WAY off.

Here's what I do... I use TraceWatch (semi open-source stat counting) to parse search queries... each search query has a count. Here's a snapshot from a client of mine:



See how TraceWatch shows you each search query along with counts?

That's the most accurate way to do it. Feed broad match keywords into Google Adwords, let it send some traffic to your landing page, and finally visit your TraceWatch account for EXACT stats.

John Saya has a nifty autoinstaller to put TraceWatch onto your site -- totally FREE... right here:
http://www.cgiconnection.com/tracewatch

TraceWatch is the best open source software I've ever used. The bad news is the developer no longer supports it (but that's okay because it's very stable).

[Kamran Chowdhury]

None of the keywords tool can be 100% accurate. This is common sense because these tools can tell you the search count for the past, but the number of times a keyword has been searched last month will definitely not be the same as the number of times it will be searched this month. That said, I believe Google Adwords keyword tool is comparatively the best one.