According to the Google keyword tool, prevent rust has 18,000 searches 8,100 of those coming from the United States. I assume all US searches are done through Google.com. On Google.com I rank #2 for "prevent rust" yet receive almost no traffic (maybe 1 person a day) through that search term. How is this possible? I know personalized search is off and I get the #2 result on other computers, what gives...
Rub, There you can see only PPC estimated date. The Google tool does not shoes exact searches. I had a keywords for my magazine site that which does not shoes much more result in google external tool but that keywords came 1/2 visits of whole site individually. So, don't worry and ignore the search tool data....
So the Google search tool only shows estimates? Do you know what these estimates are based on, cause I don't think it was even close to accurate in this case
You have to understand the difference between Broad Match, Phrase Match and Exact Match to use this tool properly. 'Prevent Rust' has 18,100 broad match queries. This means that there are 18,100 searches (approx) that are related to or similar to 'prevent rust'. If you turn on exact match (these options are in the left hand column) you will see there is an estimate of 170 people searching that exact phrase on a monthly basis worldwide. Which would make your 1 hit a day about right. Read up on the difference between these 3 match types and really understand them. Although the results are just estimates they are pretty darn accurate in my opinion, and if you understand the tool properly it will be a great asset.
This is where most of the people starting IM fail. In Google keyword tool by default the selection is broad match and you have to select exact match. it is on the left side of the page. This will show you how many searches are made by typing the exact same keyword in the search engine box. Fail Keyword research = Flop business Keyword research is the most important thing in any business.