Watch Out When Using Keyword Tools

There are a lot of keyword tools you can use out there:

• Wordtracker
• Overture
• Keywords Analyzer
• Keyword Discovery
• etc, etc.

I was reading this article on KeywordWorkshop.com titled "Keyword Data Is Almost Always Wrong".
http://www.keywordworkshop.com/articles/41/1/Keyword-Data-Is-Almost-Always-Wrong

Basically, it states how keyword tools will always have varying results. This is because of the fact that you can't sample all of the searches for the entire world wide web! Even google doesn't have a complete sample of the world wide web. I believe that maybe half of the Internet Users you Google primariliy to search, but this means that the other half uses other search engines.

Quote: from KeywordWorkshop.com
"Wordtracker (one of the leading keyword research companies) samples around 2% of the total Internet search volume. This sample size will provide some relatively stable data for popular keywords, but will proportionally become less accurate as the keyword popularity decreases. In simple terms, the less popular the keyword, the more likely that keyword data source will be wrong."

This is kind of interesting since for most Internet Marketers, we will be targeting Long Tail Keywords which does have less traffic than popular keywords.

This brings up interesting questions:

• Which keyword tool should I use?

• Wordtracker is able to sample 2% of the total Internet Search volume, which can be a healthy sample, but keep in mind that the less popular keywords may reside in that 98%.
  
• How reliable can a keyword tool be?
• Keyword tools may not be reliable because of the fact that the all searches on the Internet cannot be sampled.
  
• If it's not reliable, what should I use if for?
• You should use keyword tools to generate ideas. Use the numbers as indicators of popularity rather than exact searches per day/week/month/whatever. I believe that the numbers can be used relatively to each other to determine their popularity.
• What else can I do?
• Use your head, Internet Marketers need to have creative angles in order to survive in their industry.
• Also, when in doubt, use 2 or more tools to verify your results. In the 30DC, they advocate using Google Trends and Wordtracker together to verify the search volume.

Just keep in mind that since you are looking for Long Tail Keywords, you may be passing on a niche opportunity if the Keyword Tools don't add up correctly but you feel that it may be a good niche.

Over time, you will start to understand what might work and not work. Trust your instincts and your gut feeling!

I would have to say that overall, the best keyword tool is your Brain!