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Here is the list of Keyword research tools listed below:
- Semrush
- KWFinder
- Keyword Insights
- SE Ranking
- Ahrefs
- Google Keyword Planner
- AlsoAsked
- Keyword Surfer
- LongTailPro
- Serpstat
- Google Trends
Keywords are one of the most critical and important parts of SEO. We have already discussed this in detail here.
The basic foundation of SEO is keyword research.
Afterward, other factors like on-page optimization, Writing SEO friendly content, a good UX, content that satisfies user intent and a few other factors come into the picture. Once you have all this in place, you can expect a significant amount of organic traffic from search engines like Google, Bing, Yandex, and others.
Many companies invest thousands of dollars to pay for keyword research to get such targeted content.
But you don’t need to do that. Just follow this guide…
The keywords you choose to focus on for your digital marketing efforts are critical to the success of your website’s organic ranking.
Choosing the right keywords isn’t always easy or intuitive and you need a lot of data to know whether a given keyword will work for you.
If you are completely new to keyword research tools and the process of keyword research, here are some guides from the past which will help you understand the basics:
So now you know the basics of keyword research and you have an understanding of how valuable it can be.
Fortunately, there are many tools available that can help you figure out which keywords work best for your overall web strategy. There are mostly two types of Keyword research tools:
- Basic Keyword research: Use the seed Keyword to find profitable Keywords
- Competitor based Keyword research: Find proven keywords that are helping other sites to drive traffic.
Personally, I find Competitor based Keyword research to be more effective as the purpose of Keyword research is to find profitable Keywords. What could be more profitable than something which is already working for someone?
All you need to do after that is to create a page targeting that profitable keyword & reap the benefit of keyword research.
In this exclusive guide, I have covered both type of Keywords. Most of these keyword research tools are paid and only a few of them are free.
Best Keyword Research Tools: 2023 edition
1. Semrush <14-Day Free Trial (worth $199)>
“What is the easiest keyword research tool for a blogger?”
The answer:
- Semrush
Semrush is not a typical keyword research tool; it offers so much more than just researching keywords.
It let you perform keyword research in multiple ways:
For example:
- Find keywords using a Seed Keyword
- Find Keywords driving traffic to your competitors
- Keyword gap analysis
The simplest one that I like is being able to find keywords based on a URL. All you need to do is, add a URL (or your competitor’s URL) and it will show you all of the keywords that are ranking for that page or for entire website.
Along with Keyword data, you would be seeing the monthly search volume, Keyword difficulty, CPC for PPC.
Keyword suggestions is another handy feature of Semrush, where is shows “Keyword variations” and “Related keywords”. This helps you discover more search term that you could target.
This makes it easier for you to find short-tail and long-tail keywords that you can target and beat out your competition.
You can get in-depth keyword data such as:
- Keyword traffic volume
- Keyword difficulty score
- Search engine reports
- Adsense CPC
- and so many other details that you need to properly do Keyword research.
You also have an option to sort the keyword list based on keyword difficulty score, this helps you find the low competition keywords, and with one click you can add them to Keyword manager.
It also offers features like:
- Keyword manager: This let you add keywords in a list and see the updated data. It helps in better managing keywords when you are researching for profitable keywords.
- Keyword difficulty tool: To check the keyword difficulty score.
- Backlink analysis: It also recommends you the exact websites from which you should get backlinks to rank#1 in the Google search.
Semrush is highly recommended and the #1 keyword research tool.
- You can read a detailed review of Semrush here.
2. KW finder
If you are looking for one tool which is completely dedicated to Keyword research only, KWFinder is your best bet. They are new in the market yet they are one of the fastest-growing SEO tool companies.
KWFinder helps you get the Keyword that will help you drive highly targeted traffic. Using Questions based Keyword research option you can quickly find long-tail keywords that are related to problem-solving. It’s a no-brainer that problem-solving content helps us get more targeted traffic & conversion.
KWFinder offers both free & paid plans. For most users, the basic plan is the best.
However, use the 10-day free trial account to see the effectiveness of KWFinder keyword research app.
3. keyword Insights (Keyword research + Clustering)
If you are into SEO for a while, you might be aware that Keyword research is not only about finding profitable keywords. You also need to cleanup the researched keyword by using a technique called Clustering, and you should be following the hub and spoke model to attain the topical authority.
This new entrant called Keywordinsights is a one stop solution for pro SEO’s to do everything they need to do for reseraching keyword. With Keywordinsights, you could do following :
- Research keywords
- Cluster keywords
- Export keywords and get a report for hub & spoke model for your researched topic
- Create content brief and send the brief to your writer
- Use AI to generate content
If you are serious about levelling up your SEO game, I highly recommend you to watch below video which explains how Keywordinsights will help you in your keyword research process.
Depending upon your needs, you can use any of the above features. Since I already have a keyword research tool called Semrush, I typically use Keywordinsights for keyword clustering and generate a report for hub and spoke content strategy.
Unlike other SaaS tool, here you will not be paying monthly subscription. Rather, you can buy credits and pay as per your usage.
4. SE Ranking (Budget friendly Keyword research tool)
If you are looking for an alternative to Semrush and Ahrefs for Keyword research, you are in luck today – Meet SE Ranking tool.
SE Ranking offers everything you might expect from a modern Keyword research tool, and it also offers extras that you will not find in popular tools like Semrush or Ahrefs.
What are those features?
Let’s have a look.
With SR Ranking tool, you can do the following :
- Single keyword research
- Bulk keyword research
- Keyword grouping (Clustering)
- Find Keyword difficulty score
- Keyword search volume
- Global volume for a keyword (Helps in gauging the traffic estimation)
- Keyword manager
- Historical data
And once you are done identifying keywords you wish to rank for, you can use the SE Ranking Content marketing tool to write and optimise the content.
SE Ranking offers all the features you need from content research to content production. They offer multiple plans which is ideal for individuals, freelancer SEO’s and agencies. As an agency, you will find premium support from the SE Ranking team to help you migrate or get started with them.
Overall, if you are in budget and looking to start a fresh, SE Ranking got you covered.
5. Ahrefs Keyword Explorer tool
Ahrefs is one of the most popular keyword tools out there.
What I really like about them is extensive detail including the keyword difficulty. Ahrefs uses clickstream data to also show how many clicks you will get from the search engine. You can use the Keyword generator tool to generate ideas for Google, Bing, Amazon, YouTube, and a few other search engines.
This is very useful after knowledge graph integration, as many keywords may have huge traffic but they hardly get any clicks from the search engine. The reason is, that they get answers directly from the Google search result. An example of one such query is: “birthdate of any celebrity”
Another thing that makes Ahrefs Keyword research tool stand out is the great UI & the amount of data they provide. There are many more features offered by Ahrefs, such as Backlink analysis, and SEO site audit, to name a few. You can read a detailed review of Ahrefs here.
You can also create a list of keywords to target directly from the Ahrefs dashboard. You don’t need to use excel & this is a huge time-saving.
6. Google Keyword Planner <Free>
The Google Keyword Planner tool is one of the most used and popular keyword research tools out there.
The only reason for it being so popular is it’s free and is directly integrated with Google AdWords.
To start using this tool you need to have an AdWords account (which you can create one for free).
- Features: The biggest feature of the Keyword Planner tool is the deep information it offers on Google (the largest search engine).
- Limitations: In some ways, that’s also a limitation. If you want to know how your site or a given keyword is doing on other search engines, you won’t get it here.
- Pricing: Free to use.
The Keyword Planner tool is a good, basic tool for the early stages of a website’s SEO.
This is my favorite free tool, but if you need more detailed and competitive analysis, I would recommend going for one of the advanced tools that I have listed in this Keyword research tools resource.
7. Also Asked: People Also Ask keyword research tool
Also asked increases the breadth of topical research. Using this tool, you can discover a ton of people also ask questions that are related to your main keyword. These questions could be further used to create a new post/page for your business or you can use this as FAQ to improve your content.
This is a freemium “People also ask” keyword research tool, where you could get free research every day, or you could pay to buy credits for more research.
8. Keyword Surfer
Keyword Surfer is a chrome extension that let you see the keyword volume and keyword CPC right on the SERP page. This is a free keyword research chrome extension that is brought to you by SurferSEO, which is an SEO content optimization tool.
It lets you take advantage of the auto-complete feature of Google search to discover new search queries. As you will be able to see the monthly traffic volume, and related keywords data on the SERP page, it gets easier to create the list of keywords for your project.
For your content marketing effort, this free tool could be a great addition to other more feature-rich tools.
Here is a video that explains how this free KW research tool works:
This extension also shows more keyword ideas based on your search and enables you to discover more profitable keywords.
9. LongTailPro <$30 Discount>
LongTailPro is a cloud-based software for keyword research and one of the most popular in this list.
This is a paid keyword research tool that will help you find amazing keywords for your niche/micro-niche sites. With their “platinum” version, you can get a really amazing and really detailed keyword analysis feature.
They also have a competition checker, which will make it easier for you to pick the right keyword.
You can see a detailed review of LongTailPro here.
10. Serpstat
Serpstat is another comprehensive keyword research tool that I discovered recently. They have done some really good work when it comes to helping us identify winning keywords.
The Serpstat keyword tool gives you the following details:
- Search volume
- Competition
- CPC
- Keyword difficulty score
You have the option to search in Google.com based on the country or also in the Yandex search engine. The Keyword trends section helps you to understand how the keyword search trend has been.
There is a detailed keyword difficulty score section that shows the top 10 web pages that have taken ranking for the keyword along with details like page rank, external backlinks, and referring domains. This type of data is very useful when you need to evaluate if you can rank them for a specific keyword or not.
For those who are in PPC, the Serpstat keyword research page also shows which all domains are advertising for your target keyword in Serpstat the search and what kind of ads they are running. Something that is uncommon in this list of best tools of Keyword research.
Small businesses use Serpstat to research keywords, build new links, and develop a strategic SEO platform.
- Pricing: Serpstat includes free data just for registration.
Monthly pricing is $19 per month.
I would not recommend you pick up all of the tools listed above, but instead, stick to one or two Keyword research software and get used to its system.
If you have been using the Google Keyword Planner tool for a while, you have a good basis for getting started with any of the paid and professional tools listed here. Take a look at some of these tools and decide which works best for your business strategy.
11. Bonus: Google Trends
Google trends is a free keyword research tool that offers great data of data directly from Google. You can trust all the information such as keyword popularity, Interest by region, and related queries.
You can also compare two or more search queries to see the traffic trend. This is the only tool that let you see the keyword popularity in different countries.
Once you know in which region/country your target keyword is popular, you can use other keyword research tools to measure the keyword search volume. Overall, this should be part of your keyword strategy as a free keyword tool.
My recommendations:
- If you are looking for an easy yet brilliant solution, go for Semrush.
- If you are researching keywords for micro-niche sites, use KWFinder
Whatever you choose, use these SEO keyword generator tools to supercharge your website’s organic traffic.
Here are some of the top FAQs related to this topic:
Typically your SEO guy or your content strategist should be using the tool to mine and generate new profitable SEO keywords. However, since these tools are easy to use, and you know your business well, you can consider using these tools yourself.
Free KW tools give limited data and do not paint the true picture. If you are serious about your business growth, you should pick one of the paid tools, and see the benefit yourself. Most of these paid KW research tools offer 7-14 days of a free trial, which is good enough for you to try out before you spend money on them.
Using any of these keyword tools, you can check the traffic of any keyword in any geographic location. Here is a quick guide for you to check the traffic of a keyword using the Semrush tool.
Login to your Semrush account
Click on keyword overview under keyword research
Add your keyword and select the location
Hit search and it would show you the keyword traffic for your target keyword
(See the screenshot for better understanding)
There are many techniques for keyword research, and in my opinion, “Keyword gap analysis” is perhaps the best technique for researching keywords in SEO.
For more on SEO, check out:
Are you using one of the keyword research tools from the above list? How has your experience been so far? Share your thoughts in the comments!
Did you find this guide useful? Share it with your friends on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn!
The cost of Keyword Planner is $0. To get search volumes, you must run an advertisement for three to four months. Prior to that, it displays just useful ranges.
The truth is that paid tools always offer something better than the free ones. They could be expensive, but when maximized to their potential, these tools return your investment well. The best ones out there are SEMRush and Ahrefs due to the many things you can apply to your business.
Longtail pro has always been my recommendation. But i still use answerthepublic
though
Hi, Harsh.
Great article.
I’ve been using SEMRush in managing SEO. It’s true that it is so much easier to find short tail and long tail keywords. Also it has a lot of features that can be used not just in researching keywords. It’s pricey but it’s worth it.
Thank you for this review. These are very good tools, but most of them are quite expensive.
I’m also using a very good free extension for Chrome that is called Keywords Everywhere. It’s really easy to find your keywords with it, and it gives you the monthly traffic with the proposed keywords.
Semrush is good SEO tool but its costly for some beginner blogger. I am using Google Keyword Planner, Ahref for the Keyword Research it will surely help you to find Good keyword for your Website or Blog.
Thanks for this article in my email list. 😉
I mainly use Google Keyword Planner because it is having all key statistics which one should need for keyword research.
Apart from it, I recommend Semrush premium version for advanced filtering and analysis options for Enterprises to scale up their business to extend.
Keyword Planner is not free. You need to have an ad running over 3-4 months in order to get search volumes. Until that it shows only meaningful ranges.
Moreover, that means you can’t just activate an ad for a sake of having a Keyword Planner because it will not show anything until you spend a lot of money on your ongoing ads.
Nice post . Great list of Keyword Research tools. Really helpful this article. I am using google keyword research tools and Kw finder it perfectly work for me. Thank you for this article.
Wow!
Obviously, everyone has their unique reason for going with whichever Keyword research tool they prefer. But, all you’ve mentioned are good.
I Use semrush, google keyword planner, they work great for me!
Thanks for sharing!
Very nice post buddy. I use SERP to do my keyword research. If I decide to choose one from the above list, which one would you recommend?
@Nishant
Pick SEMRUSH or Ahrefs.