I am not completely understanding this. I have been doing keyword research to find some new niches. What I have been finding is...keywords/longtail keywords that have roughly 2,500-5,000 local searches (the range I'm looking for) and google is showing them at a low competition rate. Mind you that I AM searching in the "exact" not "broad". But when I go to google and type the "keyword" I get like 350k-2.5M pages/results? and some there are even big name or high ranking sites at #1. Am I missing something? how does google consider this low competition? Is it even worth the time and effort to go for these keywords? (I am new to keyword research)
The competition column in the adwords tool results shows how much competition there is for the adwords advertising space on the right hand side of the google search results, not how many sites compete for that keyword in the actual search results. If you need me to be more clear jut ask
It shows approx. competition but if you want to see exact competition then suggested keyword put on google in double quote . If you want know more about keyword research then reply me on my comment
There are different different options like : competitor search volume etc.. follow those and ahead if you have any more confusion then go for word tracker
Keyword tool is for analyzing competition for advertisement space not for search results. If you want to check out the competition for search results then you should count number of backlinks of top ten search results. This would give you a fair idea of the competition and how much backlinks you will need to get there.
Look there is a difference between the two. I was also confused at first. The keyword tell us about the number of searches people made using your keywords, and the Google Search Results show the sites that contain the keywords. See, that is why there is a difference