Google Traffic Does Not Add Up

Question

I have just done a search for two different keyword phrases.

When I look at both of the results, they have the same number of "Local Monthly Searches" according to the Keyword Tool in Google Adwords which is 90,500. This is an "exact" match for the keyword phrases.

I currently and have ranked in the #3 spot for both of these keyword phrases for almost a year now.

TRAFFIC RESULTS - One site gets 2500 visitors a day and the other gets 100 visitors a day.

WTF?

Why such a disparity in the number of visitors per day when both sites are ranking #3?

It doesn't make me trust the numbers from the Keyword Tool in Google Adwords when they are so ridiculously off like this.

Answer 1

Are the 2500/100 visitors from google using that exact keyword? Or is it total traffic?

Without examples it's difficult to judge, but if the sites ranked 1 or 2 are really strong brands then it's quite reasonable to expect them to get a lions share of the traffic.

If you are selling products, maybe your competitor has a "show stopper" deal included in the description meta tag, a site I help with experimented by adding "2 year guarantee" to our description where our competitors were trying to stuff more keywords in, our traffic increased by around 15%

Maybe one of the phrases attracts a lot of advertising and the other doesn't, so although you appear 3rd organically, you essentially appear 5th (the top 2 being paid for places)