Hello, I'm very new to webmasterworld, so sorry if this is a stupid question, but is there away to get cpc estimates by keyword without setting up an adwords account first? And, how accurate is the cpc estimator? They have screen shots of it at the adwords website but they don't say how to actually access the tool. Thanks for any input.
Interesting screen name you have there coma_toast. ;) And welcome to WebmasterWorld!
I am sorry to say that, at present, there is not a true 'Stand Alone' Traffic Estimator available - independent of either the sign up 'Wizard', or an actual AdWords account.
However, you can access the Traffic Estimator during the "Set pricing" step of the sign-up process without creating an actual account if you wish. Just stop short of the actual "Sign up" step.
You'll find varying opinions of the Traffic Estimator's accuracy, and a lot of folks on this Forum don't care for it, to be quite frank.
It's designed to give you a ball-park estimate that is accurate in the moment you're checking, but it will never be as accurate as your actual statistics once you start an account and set it running.
One thing to consider is to start a really small scale 'exploration' account, give it a budget and Max CPC you are comfortable with, and then let it actually run in the real world to get a true feel for keyword pricing, your competition, etc.
Hope that helps.
AWA
