Bloggers are abuzz with the news of Google’s recent addition to its free Keyword Tool: the tool now shows real search numbers instead of a little bar graph.

Now you can type in a word or phrase and see exactly how many people searched for it at Google the previous month as well as the average monthly searches.

The improved Google Keyword Tool is now much more useful for basic keyword research for PPC campaigns, websites or product research.

Google’s Keyword Tool
https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

How to use the Google Keyword Tool
http://adwords.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=25918

Info about Keyword Tool’s search volume statistics
https://adwords.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=96571&hl=en_US

So, how does this affect your keyword and market research?

Now you can be absolutely sure of the size of a niche because there’s no more need to make wild guesses about search volume. And, you don’t need to pay for services like Wordtracker because you can get the real results from the “horse’s mouth.”

Search and prosper!

Linda