This question will benefit many

I think the answer is in your qiestion!

The Google Keyword Tool is probably the best thing out there. Most other keyword tools just pull the data from the Google tool anyway...

Google keyword tool is my favorite, I don't know how accurate it is, but I trust it more than other keyword tools because Google is a search engine, and they know what people are searching for. I don't know where other keyword tools gather their data from. There are many other keyword tools such as wordtracker.com, keyworddiscovery.com etc.

Honestly, I think you have no way to determine how accurate the declared monthly traffic is until you ranked no.1 for that keyword and use Google Analytics, Statcounter or any other traffic monitoring tools to check out if the monthly hits really corresponds with the one declared in Google's keyword tools.

As for myself, I've used several keyword tools. Some say they derive not only from google but from other SE data (Google is not the only SE though it's the biggest).

After using several keyword tools I've finally found the best one in my honest opinion, however I'm just using a 30 days evaluation because the price of the software is almost my half month's earnings. However, just earlier I've found some very "low hanging fruit" already using the tool. If this evaluation copy makes me enough this month I'll surely purchase the tool.

Most Internet Marketers don't realize that the success of a campaign starts in the use of proper keywords. Discover keywords with almost no competition but with a decent reported traffic and you'll own that niche.

Find a hundred similar keywords with traffic but low competition and you'll be an authority in no time.

The only problem with keyword research is that it takes a lot of time to do. You have to look for seed keywords, generate related phrases, check the traffic of every phrase, check the competition, check the page rank of each competition and do the entire cycle for about 20 more keywords. This requires time and focus. But if you're able to do this, you'll dominate a particular topic.

Before I used to rank no. 1 on two extremely competitive keywords here in our local datacenter (Philippines) out of millions of competition. However the big mistake I made was I placed the property on a free web 2.0 site. After several months the site was shut down (I guess I made somebody jealous). But I owe to "keyword research" part of that accomplishment.

For those who don't have enough money to spare for keyword tools try webceo. it's free and It's a good one.

Do proper keyword research. It works.

All Success!

Omar Diaz

After taking the Stompernet 2 course, I've been using
the NicheBotx tool. It is only $17.5 a month and it is
integrated with wordtracker and a lot of other tools.

Igor