Google Keywords: Should I rely on Competition ranking or allintitle?

[louisvilleweb]

I've been doing some google keyword research. I've noticed that some keyword phrases come up as being medium or high in the "Competition" category of Google Keywords. However, for these same keyword phrases, the allintitle numbers are low (sub 1000), which seems to indicate low competition. Which of these figures should I rely more on?

[goodroi]

Hi louisvilleweb,

I assume you are talking about the competition level in the Google Adwords tool. I would rely more on that than an allintitle search. Allintitle has issues with accuracy. Also simply being present in the title does not mean the keyword is in demand or being searched for by users.

For example let's say you search for a generic keyword like "the". There is not high competition to rank #1 for "the" and I doubt many real users would search for "the" but Google returns over 7 Billion results for allintitle.

If you are looking at the competition levels in the Google Adwords tool I would suggest you also look at the bid prices and the quantity of advertisers. The more people will to spend money, generally means the more potential there is for that keyword.

[louisvilleweb]

Thanks for the reply.

Yes, I am using the Google Adwords tool. How can I view the bid prices and the quantity of advertisers? I do not see those column options. All I see are the Keyword, Global Monthly Traffic, Local Monthly Traffic and Competition columns...

Would you recommend I rely on a different keyword tool, like Wordtracker?

[Robert Charlton]

IMO... Google's tool is by far the best. Wordtracker has too small a sample size to be accurate for Google traffic projections, particularly for seldom-searched phrases. It's not even good really for identifying seldom-searched phrases.