Of course google adwords tool is the best keyword tool,because came from Google ...but it's not enoguh in my opinion,there are a lot of other parameters which need to be considered when you want to target a keyword:
EX:
- Competing pages
- The
PR of sites from first page
- Real number of competing pages
- COmmercial Intent
- Number of paid ads for that word ...
all of this are very hard to determine mannualy.Below are some steps to follow(for free,and a tool which deliver and solve all of this keyword research problems)
Free alternative :
- Use
seo quake plugin for Mozilla Firefox to determine
PR of sites from 1st page(if they are listed in major directories: DMOZ,YAHOO,etc,number of backlinks,social network popularity,etc)
- use spyfu :
SpyFu Keyword Spy Tool for Keyword Research | SEO Software & AdWords Tools to determine the number of ads,number of click/day,advertisers and search volume
Paid alternative:
A tool which covered almost all of this aspects mention is SCKA :
Stealth Competition Keyword Analyzer
This amazing tool will use the csv list generated by google adwords tool and will analyze each keyword with all details,and give an qualificative at the end,about how easy or hard is to go after that keyword(good,great,amazing,bad,terrible,etc.)