How to use the Google AdWords Keyword Tool?

Selected answers from the Dumb SEO Questions Facebook & G+ community.

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  Justin Y: Personally I don't think using the keyword tool is the best option for targeting traffic, I've had better luck using related searches and Google trends.
  
  What I know, high competition means that people are paying for those keywords which makes it difficult to rank organically. I think your best bet using the keyword tool would be to target low competition keywords, small to medium size global searches, and research at least the top 10 results in SERPs for the chosen keyword to see what'll take to get you where you want to be. I think the keyword tool is great tool for determining the types of searches, but I do not trust the data 100%. I think other SEOs will have a different opinion on this topic because we all have our own strategies.
  Good luck with your research :)
  
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  Thomas Hale, Jr.: I am an SEM guy, but I do NOT use the KW tool for anything but generating obvious negatives for adwords campaigns. Don't trust those estimation tools at all. The more competition, the higher the bids, the more ads there tend to be on the page, the further down the page organic rankings get pushed, the more competition there is for those organic rankings. Why put in all the effort necessary to try and rank for those terms if you're just guessing that if you do rank highly, then there will be benefits. Is there any evidence to suggest that your competitors are generating a positive ROI for their efforts? What are the terms your audience is actually searching for? Forget about what the estimation tools claim, those are the terms you want to rank for. You may need a limited PPC budget just for SEO search query terms research, but if you can then rank organically for those terms you know have value, then the ROAS over time will continue to only get better.
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  W.E. Jonk: From the expert panel in this weeks SEO Questions hangout on air on 00:02:39 into the YouTube video: https://dumbseoquestions.com/q/how_to_use_the_google_adwords_keyword_tool