How accurate is Google Keywords tool??

I was doing some research to try and get a good keyword to target and found one which it says had 550,000 searches in December with around 380,000 average per month.

It also had very little competition from other advertisers so i thought this is going to be a no-brainer.

Built a site around those keywords and i thought i would check out the search rate using adwords before i did all my SEO.

I have had adwords running for a day and so far there have been 14 impressions for that keyword.

That isnt the 12,666 per day (380,000 per month) that the keyword tool said?

Has anyone else found this?

I am targetting the UK only BTW

 

I think checking also the exact and phrase search numbers can give a better idea of the potential traffic - since there is usually a big difference between broad and exact search numbers

 

I find the keyword tool to be a bit untrustworthy on the numbers, but will usually give you a good idea of which keywords are used most.

Also, you must ensure you are looking at search volumes for exact match, not broad.

 

I guess it's pretty accurate.

 

I think the Google keyword tool is a reasonably good indicator of traffic volumes, that said i would avoid the 'broad' match and instead get some stats on the 'exact' and 'phrase' match.

If you're still unsure you could always check your target keyphrase trends with some of the other keyphrase tools around but i wouldn't expect any of them to give exactly the same figures. Use multiple tools to confirm overall trends for a given phrase(s).

 

Ahhh i have just changed that and it now shows 74 lol

that explains it.

Didnt know it makes a difference.

Thanks very much that is a big help!! Now for more research...