how to determine the true SEO competition of keywords?

For a while there I was using alexa to determine how competitive a website might be to outrank for a keyword. Its easy to find keywords....can anyone share some tips on the best way to understand just how much competition those keywords truly have?

I'm looking for a really solid way to gauge the competition of the keywords I'm finding and so far I've only found partially good ways to do so.

 

Hi
Use google Adwords keyword research tool. Other wise you can search in google for that. But in my point of view Google adwords keyword tool is best

 

google keywords and then traffic estimator along with that use traffic travis really helps gauging the competetion.

 

Google adwords is very nice tool for this and keyword tracker.
thanks

 

Google Adwords or SEOmoz tool. Alexa and Compete suck when it comes to that kind of stuff.

 

Competition numbers are useless. You're only competing for the 1st page in the SERPs, UNLESS (rarely) the numbers for page two can support it (only 10% will reach page 2)

You need to evaluate the first page of the SERPs (on page and off page factors) and determine if you can at least beat a few of the pages/URLs there. Download MarketSamurai (trial) or TrafficTravis (free version is enough) and it'll give you a better "snapshot" of what you're up against.

 

There are many factors to calculate.
SEO spyglass is a great tool along market samurai.