If you want to target specific keywords in your advertising campaign its essential that you know if they actually generate traffic before you decide to optimise an article, a Squidoo lens, or a page on your website for the search engines.

Although free keyword research tools such as Word Tracker and Good Keywords are useful if you want to find keywords that you can target to generate free traffic, you will sometimes find that the estimated search volume is inaccurate. There are certain keywords that will not receive the traffic that was predicted for a variety of reasons.

So if you were to target a specific keyword by optimising an article, a Squidoo lens, or a page on your website for the search engines it could be a complete waste of time if it turns out that it doesn't generate any traffic. Its therefore essential to check if the keyword you want to target actually receives a significant search volume.

Fortunately, there is a special free tool called the Google Traffic Estimator which you can use to accurately predict how many searches a specific keyword receives each day. This tool will give you the most reliable statistics which you can use to identify which keywords are worth targeting in your advertising campaign.

When you search for keywords using the various keyword research tools on the internet you will occasionally find massive differences in the statistics for a certain keyword. This can prove misleading so its essential to check how many times the keyword was actually searched for using the Google Traffic Estimator.

For example, if you use the free Word Tracker tool to search for the keyword phrase "treat baldness" you will notice that it receives over 500 searches per day but the free Good Keywords tool doesn't even list the keyword because it has so few searches per month. To prove how many times each day the keyword phrase "treat baldness" was searched for just use the Google Traffic Estimator and you will see that it receives an average of zero searches per day.

As Google receives the most traffic out of all the search engines of the internet its a good indication that this keyword phrase is not worth targeting in your advertising campaign. So before you decide to target a specific keyword its a good idea to use the Google Traffic Estimator first to accurately predict how much traffic it receives.

This article was written by Simon Akers who is the editor of the Marketing Oasis newsletter, a free internet marketing ezine packed with tips to help you succeed and increase your profits: http://www.MarketingOasis.com