still can't do keyword analysis in seo - what am i missing?

Usually intent. Before you pick a keyword, google it and look at what's ranking. If it's all product pages and you're planning a blog post (or the opposite), you won't rank no matter how good the volume looks. Also don't take the volume and difficulty numbers too literally, they're estimates and every tool calculates them differently. Use them to compare keywords against each other, not as facts.