Is Google Keyword External Tool Deceptive????

[hatem]

Hello everyone...

First I apologize for my weak English, it's not my native lang.

I'll try to get to the point with my problem with Google KET and hope anyone from seo experts in this respected forum explains what's happening wrong with me.

- I made a keyword research using Google KET and picked one long tail keyword with about 40.000

monthly SV (broad match) and 12.000 SV phrase match.

- I created a sub page under my website optimised for this keyword.

- I started a backlinks campaign for this page using article directories, social bookmarking and rss directories. I did not use any other methods.

- 3 or 4 days later my sub-page ranked #2 on google for this keyword (broad match) and still until this moment (2 weeks now).

- The problem here is that this page got exactly 4 visitors from this keyword along the past 10 days!. Is this normal?

- My question: Is Google Keyword External Tool Deceptive?, and gives VERY over-inflated search volume values? or am I missing something with google kwt?

I hope find the answer here....

[Rod Cortez]

You're forgetting two very important things:

1. You're probably not the only one trying to get traffic from that keyword.

2. You're not accounting for what your CTR (click through rate) might be.

This particular Google tool is sometimes accurate and sometimes it's way off. It should only be one of several tools you should be using.

RoD

[Tom Ryan]

No keyword tool is going to be completely accurate. I have had keyword that were reported to give me thousands of searches a month only give me a handful, but on the other hand I've gotten thousands of visitors from keywords that stated only a few hundred searches a month.

[hatem]

Thanks Rod,

Originally Posted by Rod Cortez

You're forgetting two very important things:

1. You're probably not the only one trying to get traffic from that keyword.
but as I'm said my web page is now # 2, why the traffic is BIG zero.


2. You're not accounting for what your CTR (click through rate) might be.
What do you mean by CTR, if you mean # of visitors from google searchin by this kw, it's ZERO

This particular Google tool is sometimes accurate and sometimes it's way off. It should only be one of several tools you should be using.

RoD

[hatem]

Thanks Tom,

That means that keyword tools are useless and a waste of time, and one should only focus on content without focusing on optimizing for just one particular kw.

[Bruce NewMedia]

For a long time I've questioned the accuracy of Google's keyword tool...

Now, I think it's more an estimate, than a reliable number, mostly for the same reasons already noted. I get vast differences in actual results, both higher and lower from G's kw tool. So, I use other confirming tools, to see if there's at least broad agreement.
_____
Bruce NewMedia

[Rod Cortez]

Originally Posted by hatem

Thanks Tom,

That means that keyword tools are useless and a waste of time, and one should only focus on content without focusing on optimizing for just one particular kw.

Keyword tools are extremely helpful. Remember, this is a business and you're going to come across a lot of obstacles. Just because you're not getting the desired results means that these tools are not worth anything.

CTR is click through rate, meaning the % of visitors that are actually clicking to get to your website. And remember, this is only one keyword out of a potential hundreds or thousands. Just because you are in the #2 spot doesn't necessarily mean anything. There are many other spots that you are competing with.

RoD

[Rod Cortez]

Hatem,

I checked out the first 3 URLS in your signature. To be blunt, there's part of your problem. The websites:

1. Take a long time to download, you're losing a lot of visitors because of that.

2. You're getting multiple "webpage not found" errors on your websites, that's also going to scare people away.

3. The websites are unfocused, unappealing, and are way too scattered. You need better design and much better copy.

RoD

Hello everyone...

First I apologize for my weak English, it's not my native lang.

Don't worry, you're doing great.

RoD

[Tom Ryan]

Originally Posted by Rod Cortez

Keyword tools are extremely helpful. Remember, this is a business and you're going to come across a lot of obstacles. Just because you're not getting the desired results means that these tools are not worth anything.
RoD

HateM, I'm quoting what Rod said here. Rod is right, keyword tools are extremely helpful, even though at times they might not give accurate numbers. I still use these tools for all my research. These tools will give you an overall picture of the traffic in a particular niche. You just need to get content out there and test. The more quality content targeting many keywords in your niche the better.

[KenFighter]

Originally Posted by hatem

- I made a keyword research using Google KET and picked one long tail keyword with about 40.000

monthly SV (broad match) and 12.000 SV phrase match.

Why dont you try exact match..

[thecableguy]

- My question: Is Google Keyword External Tool Deceptive?, and gives VERY over-inflated search volume values? or am I missing something with google kwt?

Do an exact match rather than phrase or broad.

And the search volume can still be confusing. To see the actual monthly search volume do an exact match search and download the csv file, if not just viewing the keyword tool you'll get a 12 month AVERAGE.


Google's keyword tool uses a 12 month average (so does Wordtracker). They take a 12 month total and then divides by 12 to get the monthly average.

This can throw out some really strange numbers for seasonal and trendy items. For instance the exact match for - mothers day gifts - shows over 27,000 searches right now in October. However common sense and the "Local Trends" will tell you otherwise. Download the csv file and you'll see what I mean:

May - 201,000 searches
September - 0 searches

Yet Google's keyword tool is saying 27,100 searches is being done right now, it'll probably say around the same thing next May when there's 200,000 searches being done. Do a search for - 2010 - and some of the terms return similar results. Or do a search for electric heaters in August, air conditioners in December, etc. and you'll get some weird search results.

For evergreen keywords like Christmas gifts, Valentines day gifts, Halloween costumes, etc., it'll even out throughout the year. But for other items like electronic products, trendy toys, etc., which tend to have a short shelf life it can make a major difference depending on if you catch it on the upswing or downswing in the trend.

[hatem]

Many thanks for you guys, I really appreciate your priceless responses and help...

"Rod": thanks for checking out my websites in my seg. and I already face some troubles with hosting slow performance for the hosting server for the few last days, and I'm checking now with the hosting company about this issue. and will take your advises into account.

"thecableguy" and "FendyAziz"": I now totally agree with you, my mistake is that I focused on broad match and made my descsion on that number, but when I checked the phrase match it was 12.000 so I used that kw, but now when I rechecked the phrase match and exact match it was 170!!!! the kw I used is not trendy, it's evergreen kw, so why is this variance in sv values over this very short time (10 days).

Any way, all replies in this thread has opened my eyes for many things related to the proper kw research mission.

Just one final question:

Which keyword tool you can recommend to me. I hear a lot about traffic travis, market samurai, kw elite.... which one of those is recommended?

Once again, many thanks

[thecableguy]

The keyword tools I'm familiar with (MarketSamurai, MicroNicheFinder, NicheFinder, TraffifTravis, etc.) uses Google's data it just has more filtering options. There are some other tools that builds your keyword list, but 99.9% of the keywords it generates won't have enough search volume.

I have the above mentioned tools (they help to skew the search results by the way), but I use Google's free keyword tool. It gives me a good guesstimate of the popularity and value (CPC) of the keyword. Just don't cut the numbers to close. BTW the numbers only reflect searchengine numbers, article directories, facebook, bookmarking, etc. will add to the total.

As for generating keyword lists there are a few WSO's that run occaisionally (KeywordSniper, KeywordNinja, etc.), or you could the Google suggestor (hit search and keep repeating with the search results). And just run the list through Google's keyword tool to get the volume and CPC.

Google Suggestor 1.0 – Scrape Google Suggest for 1000′s of keywords | AdSense tricks

[NEseO]

Originally Posted by FendyAziz

Why dont you try exact match..

Well done fendyaziz!! I was reading this thread thinking someone must mention exact match and eventually it came!!

This is an error a lot of newbies make. It really is one of the most important part of the process, if you get it wrong a lot of time and money is easily wasted.

[dburk]

Originally Posted by hatem

Thanks Tom,

That means that keyword tools are useless and a waste of time, and one should only focus on content without focusing on optimizing for just one particular kw.

Hi hatem,

No, there is nothing wrong with the tool, as you obviously realize by now you were using irrelevant data. The exact match data is the only data that tells you the search volume of an individual keyword. The Broad and Phrase match data includes an unknown number of other keywords and aren't applicable to your type of keyword research.

Originally Posted by brucerby

For a long time I've questioned the accuracy of Google's keyword tool...

Now, I think it's more an estimate, than a reliable number, mostly for the same reasons already noted. I get vast differences in actual results, both higher and lower from G's kw tool. So, I use other confirming tools, to see if there's at least broad agreement.
_____
Bruce NewMedia

Hi Bruce,

Don't waste another minute wondering about the accuracy. It is the most accurate data available anywhere on the planet. Instead focus on the proper use of the tool so that you can take advantage of this wonderful source of free data.

It isn't an estimate, it is actual data, and it is reliable.

Keep in mind that it is statistical data from the recent past, and past data cannot always predict future performance. More importantly, the data is aggregate data for all searches on their search network. Their is no way that you could ever attempt to try to make a direct comparison to your own website data because your website isn't the only result returned by the search engine.

A significant portion of all searches result in an abandoned search, then of those that do click on something it could be any of up to 1000 search results plus potentially dozens of sponsored listings. You have to take all that into account when looking at the data and using it to predict the results of your lone website listing.

[TheFBGuy]

Out of all the answers only, one person got it right? Lol...

FendyAziz is correct. You screwed up at keyword research and analysis, the most important step. Screw up this step and everything else is either going to be a waste of time or going to be very difficult.

The most important one is [ Exact Match ], then "Phrase Match", then Broad. But only focus on [ Exact Match ].