Make sure you are not global, as apposed to local. It will be more accurate for you. Also remember that you are very possibly competing with well established sites that are dominating those search terms, with respect to traffic.
That actually happened to me recently. I thought I found a holy grail when I found a keyword where it was getting 27,100 searches a month, and no competition so I got to the first page with ease but I got absolutely no clicks!
It may be designed for use with Google Adwords, but the information is good for those doing SEO. Google knows that people would create a site or page and use their tools for it, then try to advertise using Adwords, or earn via Adsense. The information can be used for either interchangeably. <edit> If you don't trust Google's tool, there are other free keyword tools and reports. I really like the Google and Wordtracker tools.
You need to learn how to use this tool effectively, adwords keyword research tool just give an estimate not accurate values.
One other thing to do is to clear out your cache. Sometimes if you search often for your keyword and you have located your site and clicked on it Google will actually have your site higher up in the search results. Google is really focusing on user experience and relevancy. Point is make sure you are really ranking #1.
I dont think that Google Keyword Tool is fake! after experiencing several other tools all of them some how using the concepts of Google Technology in premium manner! however Google displays raw results... You should need to work on how to extract Ideal Keywords for your site
Yeah, The last few months thats been my plan. I bought about 20 aged domains with low competition niches that supposedly get 30,000-90,000 searches per month. I'm now finding out that the last 3 months are about to be a total waist. It makes me wonder how far off the more competitive numbers are too. For example I'm on the top of the second page for keywords that are getting over 500,000 searches per month but I'm starting to doubt how much traffic I'll actually get from those once I'm on the top of the first page... which should be in about 2 months. In response to most of the replies. I'm not stupid. I have over 250 sites using adsense which has been my sole income for the last 2+ years. I know weather or not I'm ranked on Google to say the least. I'm in the top three positions for many keywords now that get 20,000 searches/month minimum. However, if the keyword tool was slightly accurate then I'd be pulling in A LOT more traffic then I am. Also, I know how to use the tool. For those of you saying that the tool works fine and I'm reading it wrong... are you actually pulling traffic on any major keywords or are you just assuming when you one day get to the top you'll be seeing the projected numbers? Thanks for the links to the other keyword tools. I'll check them out and post results. If there are big differences between the tools then I'll actually write up a review stating which keywords I'm at the top for, their traffic, and what the tools are saying about those keywords.
It took me awhile to find the 'exact' settings on the google keyword suggestion. So lemme just say its over on the left hand side and scroll down.
I can't just figure out why keyword/s ranking doesn't equal the way it receive hits? I believe if you get a good amount of traffic/hits for a certain keyword, keyword ranks should vary the same way.
Google Keyword Tool is usually very accurate. 3 Important things to remember while doing keyword research Use "Exact Match" while doing keyword reseach Use the Google Global SEO Tool plugin for firefox to check your true rankings Even if you are in the 1st position only 55% of the visitors will click your link. If you are in 5+ postion, you will get only 1-2% of the visitors