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19 Best Free and Paid Keyword Research Tools for SEO

Written by Brian Dean

This is a list of the 19 best keyword research tools in 2024.

These amazing tools have helped my organic traffic grow by 28.55% over the last year:

And in this guide, I’ll reveal the world’s best keyword research tools…

…and help you choose the best one for you.

The best SEO keyword research tools for SEO have one thing in common: helping users boost organic traffic and search engine visibility .

However, each tool approaches this goal differently. Some are all-in-one SEO platforms that specialize in technical SEO, backlink opportunities, and guest post outreach.

Others focus on niche SEO opportunities, such as finding underserved and easy-to-rank keywords or topic cluster research.

We’ve updated this post to account for SEO opportunities in 2024 and guide your choice of the best keyword research tools suitable to your needs.

Editor’s Note : Our recommendation for the top all-in-one SEO tool is Semrush . Keep scrolling for a detailed overview.

19 Best Keyword Research Tools

Semrush works a little differently than the other tools I will show you.

Instead of entering a seed keyword and getting a long list of keyword ideas , Semrush shows you keywords that your competition already ranks for.

(These are usually outside-the-box keywords that would be impossible to find using any other tool.)

Here’s how it works:

First, enter a competitor’s domain name in the field at the top of the page.

If you’re doing SEO in a country outside of the US (for example, in Google.co.uk), you can choose to see information about that specific market. Just choose that country from this menu:

Next, take a look at the “Organic Research” section:

Here’s what the different terms in that section mean:

• Keywords are the estimated number of monthly organic visitors that come from Google.
• Traffic is the estimated number of monthly visitors.
• Traffic Cost indicates how valuable this traffic is (based on Google Ads CPC).

So if you see a domain with a lot of Organic Search Traffic but a low Traffic Cost, you know that they’re ranking for keywords that don’t convert into buyers.

But the real value of Semrush comes from the “Organic Keywords” data:

This box will show you 5 of the top keywords that your competitors are ranking for. To see more, click on “View all [number] organic keywords”.

And you’ll get a list of all of the keywords that the site or URL ranks for:

This page alone will usually give you a handful of solid keywords for digital marketing .

But if you want more ideas, go back to the “Organic Research” overview and check out the “Competitors” in the menu bar.

And you’ll see that site’s first-page competition:

When you click on one of THOSE results, you can see the exact search queries they’re ranking for.

There will be some overlap from what you just saw, but you’ll also (usually) dig up some real gems.

You can also start your Semrush search with a keyword instead of a competitor’s site:

Semrush will show you a “Phrase match report”, which is a list of long-tail keywords that include the keyword you entered:

This is really helpful for finding long-tail variations of Head and Body Keywords.

For example, if you wanted to rank for the keyword “weight loss”, you’ll quickly find that it’s simply too competitive.

But Semrush will show you long-tail variations, like the “weight loss calculator”, that is MUCH easier to rank for:

My Favorite Feature: Keyword Magic

This tool pulls keyword suggestions from Semrush’s massive database of over 25 billion terms.

Semrush is my favorite keyword research tool. Not cheap. But if you’re serious about SEO, it’s a must-have.

2. Free Keyword Tool by Backlinko

For those just starting with SEO, it can be daunting to invest in expensive keyword research tools.

That’s why we’ve created this  free keyword research tool , leveraging the extensive database of keywords from Semrush.

This tool assists in pinpointing low-competition keywords, sparking ideas for blog content, and providing insights into monthly search volumes.

This is our first free tool on Backlinko and I already love using it for quick keyword research.

Scrape suggested keywords from multiple sources. Soovle gives you suggested keyword ideas from Google, YouTube, Bing, Yahoo, Amazon and more.

(All in one place.)

That way, you can find untapped keywords that your competition doesn’t know about.

My Favorite Feature: Saved Suggestions

Easily save your favorite keyword ideas with Soovle’s “drag & drop” saved suggestions feature.

Then, download your favorite keywords to a CSV file.

Soovle is one of the best free keyword research tools out there.

4. TopicRanker 

Discover keywords based on problems and weaknesses on the search engine results page.

TopicRanker is a fantastic tool for those who want to hit the ground running.

It’s meant for the SEO layperson — folks who don’t require advanced SEO features but are on the hunt for keywords that they have an immediate chance of ranking for.

The best part? TopicRanker does all the heavy lifting — all you have to do is input your website URL.

Once the app analyzes the topical depth of your site, it will suggest seed topics relevant to your niche.

Note that these are seed topics — groups of keywords that can be further broken down into related keywords.

Clicking into any of these seed topics is where TopicRanker really starts to shine through by showing you specific keyword queries with multiple problems on the search results page:

The tool combs through millions of search results to find only the search queries with an actual problem with the search results.

It then filters these easy-to-rank keywords ensuring relevancy to your niche by giving you search volume and specific problems it identifies on the search results with actionable ranking strategies.

Expanding ‘view details’ highlights specific problems spotted on the SERP:

• Title mismatch – the title of the page ranking does not contain search query terms
• Thin content – word count of pages ranking is very low,
• Old content – the search results page contains a lot of outdated articles
• Poor readability of the pages ranking high on search results
• Poor load speed of the pages ranking high
• Forums sites such as Quora, Facebook, and LinkedIn appear high on search results
• High spam score for sites appearing high in search results

Take these tips, produce better content, and you’ll start to see results quickly.

TopicRanker takes a unique approach to how it weighs its prioritization metrics, allowing it to surface opportunities other tools won’t find. This tool combines epitomizes efficiency and relevance in keyword research by finding problems and weaknesses in the SERP. TopicRanker will soon be launching its AI Writing Tools to generate content with AI and NLP; making it a must-have for anyone doing SEO. Plus, at just $47 it’s a great value.

Get thousands of related keyword ideas within seconds.

This is a straightforward (yet powerful) tool.

So, what makes Jaaxy unique?

First off, it gives you LOTS of different keyword ideas.

(Including some that you won’t find in most other tools.)

Plus, you get helpful data on every keyword that it generates (including competition, search volume, and potential traffic).

My Favorite Feature: QSR

QSR stands for “Quoted Search Result”.

This is a fancy way of saying: “how many other websites are trying to rank for this exact term?”.

Obviously, the lower this number, the better chance you have of ranking #1.

Jaaxy is a decent freemium tool. Not nearly as good as something like Semrush. But at $50/month, it’s not a bad deal.

6. Google Search Console

Find hundreds of “Opportunity Keywords”.

The Google Search Console isn’t a traditional keyword research tool.

But it does have a feature that makes finding awesome keywords a CINCH.

The feature?

The Performance Report .

This report list out the pages on your site that get the most clicks from Google.

(And the exact keywords that brought them there)

So: how can you use this feature for keyword research?

It’s easy: use it to find “Opportunity Keywords”.

Opportunity Keywords are where you rank between #8-#20 in Google for a specific keyword.

And with little extra on-page SEO , you can find yourself with a nice rankings boost.

For example, my average rankings for the keyword “SEO tool” is 6.2.

That keyword is an Opportunity Keyword. And if I optimize my page around “SEO tool”, my rankings for that term should go up.

My Favorite Feature: Google Analytics + Google Search Console

Did you know that you can combine your Google Search Console and Google Analytics accounts?

Well, you can.

And it’s VERY helpful.

When you do, you’ll get more in-depth keyword data than you would with either tool by itself.

The Google Search Console is an underrated keyword research tool. No other tool can help you find Opportunity Keywords like the GSC.

7. Ahrefs Keywords Explorer

Make smarter keyword decisions.

Ahrefs recently rolled out a new and improved “Keywords Explorer”.

And what I like most about Keywords Explorer is this:

It gives you SUPER in-depth information on each keyword.

Sure, you get the data you’d expect (like search volume). But you also get a breakdown of the first page competition… and how many searchers actually click on a result.

My Favorite Feature: Keyword Difficulty

Most keyword research tools give you vague difficulty info (like “easy” or “difficult”). Or a score (like “89/100”).

But Ahrefs tells you EXACTLY how many backlinks you’ll need to rank on the first page of Google.

Ahrefs is mostly known as for backlink analysis. But I have to say: it’s got a killer keyword research tool. I find myself using it more and more every week.

8. SECockpit

Keyword research for SEO pros.

This a Swiss Army Knife of keyword research tools.

Like any other keyword tool, you give SECockpit a seed keyword… and you get a list of results.

But what makes SECockpit unique is the built-in features that allow you to get A LOT of depth on search trends, organic competition and traffic estimates.

Which means that it’s a tool largely designed for SEO professionals.

Sure, newbies can get value out of this tool. But there’s no doubt that SECockpit is targeted for people that sleep, eat and breathe SEO.

If you’re brand new to SEO, the sheer number of features in this tool might be overwhelming for you. But if you’re looking for lots and lots of depth, you’ll probably get your money’s worth.

With that, here’s how it works.

When you login you’ll automatically go to your Dashboard, where you can create projects around sets of keywords…or jump right in with a single keyword search.

To start the keyword research process, click on “Start a Keyword Search”:

Then, enter a seed keyword in the field marked “Keyword Phrase”:

You can get even more results by choosing to include Google Suggest, Related Searches and synonyms pulled from Google Ads:

When you’re done, click on “save and close” and the tool will get to work:

Here’s the report you’ll get:

If you’ve ever used the Google Keyword Planner , the data here should look familiar to you.

In fact, the columns “Phrase”, “Monthly Searches” and “CPC” are pulled directly from the GKP:

(The only difference is that CPC is called “Top of page bid” in the GKP)

So: what does the other information in SECockpit mean?

Well you’ll notice a bunch of green bars under the column labeled “Niche”:

This bar is a single metric that takes into account first page competition, monthly search volume, and commercial intent. In other words, whether or not that search query is a good overall choice. The larger the bar, the better the keyword.

Next to monthly searches you’ll notice a series of orange bars labeled “Top Results”:

This bar indicates the difficulty of ranking for that particular keyword based on the current top 10 results.

And when you click on a keyword, you get a breakdown of that keyword’s search results.

When you do, SECockpit will display important competition metrics for the top 10 pages in the results… including Moz Domain Authority and total backlinks:

This is a great way to quickly size up competition without having to look one-by-one at the SERPs .

And you go back to the keywords page, you can actually add at least 20 more columns to the results:

For example, you can see a ratio of the keyword’s competition in comparison to its search volume. Or you can get a comparison of the estimated traffic you’ll get from hitting the top 3 for that keyword. And lots more.

My Favorite Feature: Filtering

You can use over 100 filters to find the keywords that you want.

For example, do you only want keywords that get searched for at least 10k times per month? Done.

Or maybe you want terms that have the best ratio of search volume and competition. You got it.

Clunky? Yes. Intuitive? Heck no. Feature-rich? Absolutely. If you want lots of advanced features, and don’t mind a steep learning curve, definitely check out SECockpit.

9. Google Keyword Planner

Tap into Google’s massive keyword database.

The GKP is pretty vanilla compared to most other keyword research tools.

So why use it?

Because the data you get from it comes straight from Google.

(So you know its legit)

My Favorite Feature: “Top of page bid”

This is how much people advertisers are bidding on a keyword.

For example, of you see a top of page bid of $10, people are spending an average of 10 bucks per click.

Obviously, the higher this number, the more commercial intent that searcher has.

The data in the GKP is the most reliable out there. That said, because it’s designed for Google Ads, using it for SEO can be tricky. This Google Keyword Planner Guide shows you how the GKP for SEO-focused keyword research.

10. KeywordTool.io

Get boatloads of targeted keyword ideas.

Here’s another Google Suggest scraper (just like UberSuggest and Soovle).

What makes KeywordTool unique?

Two things:

First, KeywordTool gives you A LOT of keyword suggestions.

For example, I just did a search for “SEO”… and got 1,394 relevant keywords.

Second, you can easily filter, drill-down or expand the results to find the right keywords for you.

My Favorite Feature: Analyze Competitors

This is a very cool feature I don’t see in many other keyword research tools.

Just enter a competitor’s site… and the tool will generate a list of keyword ideas based on that site’s content.

For example, when I pop Backlinko into the tool, I get keywords that I’d expect.

(Like “SEO” and “blog”)

But I also came across terms that I don’t use anywhere on my site… but are closely related to the type of stuff that I write about.

(Like “digital marketing” and “how to check backlinks”)

One of the best overall keyword research tools on the market. Worth a try.

11. Moz Keyword Explorer

Find keywords that will generate the most traffic.

Moz’s Keyword Explorer does an awesome job of finding “lateral” keyword ideas.

For example, take a seed keyword like “weight loss”.

Like most other tools, you get a list of closely related keywords:

But what makes Moz unique is that it’s SMART.

This means you get outside-the-box suggestions that you probably won’t find anywhere else.

My Favorite Feature: “Organic CTR” and “Priority”

These two awesome features let you know how many clicks you can expect to get from your target keyword.

Organic CTR is the number of clicks you can expect to get if you crack the top 10. For example, if a SERP has a ton of PPC ads, news results, and a knowledge graph, your CTR is gonna be low.

Priority takesCTR, search volume and difficulty into account. It’s an “overall” score of whether or not you should target a particular keyword.

So if you’re overwhelmed by keyword data, you can use this single metric to find keywords that are going to bring you the most traffic from Google.

Moz’s keyword tool is pretty darn awesome. Unfortunately, it’s not a standalone tool (you have to pay for their entire suite of SEO tools to use it).

12. Keywords Everywhere

Get search volume (and more) wherever you go.

Keywords Everywhere is a paid keyword research tool that displays keyword data on top of 10 websites …including Ebay, Amazon and Answer The Public.

That way, you don’t need to copy and paste keywords into the Google Keyword Planner. The data shows up in your Chrome browser. Very cool.

My Favorite Feature: “People Also Search For”

Get a list of keywords related to your search term… in the Google search results.

What’s cool about this feature is that you can find keywords that your target customer searches for when they’re not searching for what you sell.

For example, when I search for “SEO Tools”, I see terms like “Google Keyword Planner SEO” and “”Free SEO analysis”.

(Both of which get decent amounts of searches every month)

If you’re serious about keyword research you NEED to install this extension. It rocks.

13. Keyword Snatcher

Find 2,000 keyword ideas with a single search.

If you want a lot – and I mean a lot – of keyword ideas, Keyword Snatcher is a dream come true.

In fact, you’ll usually generate at least 2,000 keywords from a single seed keyword.

Just open up the tool and choose the sources that you want Keyword Snatcher to pull its suggestions from:

I recommend keeping them all checked so you can generate as many keyword ideas as possible.

Next, enter a seed keyword into the field and click “Get Suggestions”:

And after a long wait, you’ll get an insane amount of suggestions:

The big downside of this tool is that it doesn’t give you any data on the keywords that it generates (like search volume and keyword competition). It’s simply a keyword idea tool.

To get that information, you need to extract the list of keywords by clicking on “Download Suggestions” and saving your keyword list as a text or CSV file:

Then, copy and paste those keywords into the Google Keyword Planner.

My Favorite Feature: Word Count

This nifty sorting feature lets you focus on keywords that are a certain length.

(Like terms that are at least 4-words long)

This makes finding long tail keywords MUCH easier.

Not the best keyword tool ever made. But it’s one of the few out there that don’t require a monthly subscription.

14. Google Trends

Find new keywords and search trends.

There are two ways to use Google Trends for keyword research:

First, you can search for a specific keyword…

…and take a look at the “related queries” section.

Second, you can see if whether or not a keyword is growing in popularity.

Why is this important?

Well, let’s say you’re debating between two keywords:

“Content Marketing” and “Inbound Marketing”.

As you can see, interest for “Content Marketing” is growing fast… and fewer people are searching for “Inbound Marketing” than ever before.

This isn’t to say that “Inbound Marketing” is a bad keyword. But the fact that it’s trending down is one factor to keep in mind as you decide on your next keyword.

My Favorite Feature: YouTube Search

See whether a given keyword is growing on the world’s 2nd most popular search engine: YouTube.

If you write lots of evergreen content , you NEED to use Google Trends. That way, you can see if a keyword is going to bring you traffic over the long haul… before you write a word of content.

15. KWFinder

A powerful keyword tool that’s also easy to use. KWFinder is quickly becoming one of my go-to keyword research tools.

Because it has lots of the features that other tools have. But unlike most other tool, KWFinder is VERY intuitive.

As you might expect, this tells you how hard it will be to rank for that keyword.

But unlike most other tools, KWFinder automatically shows a Keyword Difficulty score next to every keyword.

(So there’s no need to click on every single one to see its difficulty score… which gets old fast)

At $29/month you really can’t go wrong with a KWFinder subscription. Great value.

16. QuestionDB

Find lots of question-focused keyword ideas (for free).

QuestionDB pulls question-focused keywords from threads on Reddit.

So if you’re looking for an alternative to Answer The Public, QuestionDB does the job.

My Favorite Feature: Popularity Sort the results by popularity. That way, you can create content that answers these burning questions.

When it comes to finding question-keywords for blog content, QuestionDB can’t be beat.

17. Serpstat

Analyze the first page competition. Serpstat is a SEO software suite with tools for content, link building, and more.

Which means Serpstat doesn’t specialize in keyword research.

Even so, it still has a VERY decent keyword research tool.

My Favorite Feature: Competitors Graph This lets you visualize the sites that are competing for a given keyword (and related terms).

So if you see big bubbles for “Wikipedia” or “Amazon” it’s probably time to look for a different keyword.

Is Serpstat one of best tools on the market? No. But at $19 a month, you get a lot of pro features for your money.

18. AlsoAsked 

AlsoAsked a fantastic tool for topic cluster research.

Seasoned SEOs understand that the best way to rank for head keywords is to create topic clusters — multiple pages that talk about the topic in-depth.

AlsoAsked helps you map out these clusters and visualize how people ask questions on the topic.

For example, let’s say you wanted to rank for ‘home security cameras’ – a head keyword that has a 100,000 monthly search volume.

Plugging this keyword into AlsoAsked gives us four distinct cluster topics, divided into specific questions around each cluster.

Answering these questions in your content is an excellent method of building authoritative topic clusters — and driving tons of SEO traffic.

With API access coming soon on Alsoasked, and with an affordable pricing, it could be a tool for SEO veterans to use while undertaking massive SERP analysis across different niches and regions.

19. KeywordTool

Great app for bulk keyword research.

Rounding up our list is Keyword Tool. It’s a great app for bulk keyword research, although the free plan is somewhat limited.

Plugging a generic keyword into the tool gives you a massive list of keyword suggestions, sorted by search volume, trend, and competition.

Generate lots of relevant keywords by using this tool. However, the tool needs complimentary insights to get the most out of its output. Plus, it integrates data from other search engines besides Google thus opens more ranking opportunities.

So greatfull for this info thanks!

No problem Carlos

There is no better SEO Keyword Research tool other than Google Keyword Planner and Ahrefs. Other give more keywords but they are more effective (according to my keyword research experience).

Thanks Alan. Have you tried SEMRush? It’s also pretty awesome.

How do you feel about mangools?

KWfinder is pretty cool

Mr. Dean I wanted to drop in and personally thank you for everything you do for us rookies in the online marketing field. I have learned so much from your lessons/guides/articles/videos you name it! I also been using Raven Tools and find it pretty helpful as well in regards to keyword research, what say you? Look forward to all your future posts! Also, it says a lot about you that you actually take the time and respond to the comments that users leave you in your articles, don’t really see that too often these days! All the best!

Thanks Daniel. Raven Tools is great, but I haven’t used it for keyword research.

Great stuff Brian! Any recommendations on prioritizing different iterations of keywords within broader keyword themes? Keyword difficulty, search volume etc.

Really good question, Haley. I’d check out this guide that walks you through some of the steps to figuring out the best keywords on a list: http://www.backlinko.com/keyword-research

Brian, thank you for all of these informative guides! I started out as a digital marketing intern and everything that I learned from your site has helped me land a job as a marketing specialist. I’m truly grateful and enjoy everything that you published so far. If you have a chance, I’ve started using this tool called SEOClarity, I was wondering what’s your take on it? Have you used it before or know anyone that has?

Thanks again!

You’re welcome, Nathalie. I actually tried to review SEOClarity a few years ago for my big SEO tools post: https://backlinko.com/seo-tools . I sent them a demo request but never heard from them.

Brian, I´m beyond grateful with this article. It´s really complete and very, very useful, and specially your hint on Google Search Console. I’d like to suggest an article: how to index on Bing? And is it worth it? Thanks!!

Thank you for this fab article! I use Jaaxy (I’m at Wealthy Affiliate, so it comes with the membership), and I like it a lot. However, now that I see you recommend the SEMRush – it will be my next investment in keyword research tools.

Thank you for the amazing info you share with us! Best, Alenka

P.S. Love your YT videos 🙂

You’re welcome, Alenka. Happy to help

SerpStat or Kwfinder (and the mangools suite)? Which one is the better value?

In my opinion, KWFinder

Thanks for the information. Have you tried Wordtracker keyword tool before? What do you think about it?

You’re welcome. I have tried it actually. Solid tool.

Thanks for the very comprehensive keyword tools list.

I am trying to find out anyone tools that can search, generates or suggest alphabetically any keyword *before* the seed (main) keyword.

any keyword + usa (main or seed keyword)

Anyone that I missed?

Again, thanks a lot for your effort 🙂

I think Keywordtool.io does that.

Great list indeed. Which tool do you use often?

Probably SEMRush.

Hey Brian, just to let you know – ‘Suggestion Keyword Finder’ is a non secured site. Personally don’t think non secure websites are value.

Thanks. I’ll check it out.

Thanks for the post. I use Ahrefs myself, but now looking for other tools. Have you tried Windsor keyword optimizer? They have invite-only mode, so looking for the code right now.

You’re welcome, Thomas. I haven’t seen that actually.

Awesome stuff, I’ve tried one or two from the list and settled for Keywords Everywhere Chrome Extension. It works like CHARM for me.

What tool’s Keyword Difficulty would you say is the most accurate? As I understand Ahrefs use a KD score based on the links profile, however that is not always the case. While other tools look more if the keyword is in the title, the number of words of the article etc…

For me, the most important feature is Keyword Difficulty accuracy.

I say most use links to estimate KD. Which tool uses keyword in the title etc?

It’s a great list. I use Keyword Planner and Keyword Everywhere most of the time, I’ll definitely give a try to other tools. Thanks Brian, your content is really helpful for me.

As always great information. Have you tried StoryBase? What do you think about it?

Ubersuggest is also a good tool. I have been using this for a long time. Thanks for this awesome list.

Great list, very helpful. Thank you Brian! Do you happen to know of any free tool for monitoring keywords for your website? Thank you.

You’re welcome, David. I usually use paid tools for that so I’m not 100% of any free ones that work well.

Hi Brian! Thanks for this awesome list… very comprehensive! But I have a question for you… As a small luxury retail business I am of course very keen to get our SEO for the website spot on. My assumption is that one should choose a few options for keyword research and SEO and stick with them. What would be your SEO software bucket list that you would use on a regular basis? Thanks! Nisa

Hi, Brian What about Seobook.com keywords suggestion tool. Is It Good For Researching keywords.

Thanks a lot, this is awesome.

Would also recommend KeyworX if you get chance to look at it ( https://keyworx.org/ )

Not sure if it would factor in your list or not but it’s certainly worth being aware of

Hi, Brian 14 th keyword tool showing 404 error. I am following your guides for a long time thanks for your big knowledge sharing.

Thanks. I’ll replace that ASAP.

is there a tool you recommend for seeing how many words of content the top 10 competitors are using?

I know clearscope does that. I’m surprised it’s not a feature in more tools.

Absolutely great guideline. But each one will not able to pick several tools. So if anyone asks to recommend only one among all, what will be your recommendation?

Hello Brian, We really need a tool that can support every language for a keyword research. More local – based. And even better if that tool, is a freemium one! Do you have any suggestions?

Hi Brian, great piece as usual. I used the Alexa tool for about 3 months. It was steep at $149 a month. Based on your recommendation I cancelled Alexa and subscribed to SEMRush. Is the Alexa tool without merit entirely? Why didn’t you list it? Just curious I geuss. Thanks, Dave

Hey Dave, thank you. I actually haven’t tried the Alexa tool in years. I haven’t really needed to thanks to SEMRush.

Man I’m just eating up your content more and more I read from you. Such an amazing blog.

I’m the owner of a relatively new keyword tool called Keyword Supremacy. We give away free accounts so you can get as many keyword suggestions as you like for free, but getting the search volume, CPC and comp metrics are what cost money.

However, we don’t charge monthly or annually, we sell non-expiring credits as a way to keep our customer VERY happy. Buy some credits, when they are used up, buy some more kind of thing.

We also have a very unique “Local Search” only keyword search that cross references the populations of all towns and cities in USA, Canada & UK. So you can put in a search like “plumber” then choose to see all the cities in “California” with a population of between 50k – 100k and it will spit out plumber suggestions attached to the locale. Pretty neat.

Would I be able to give you a personal tour to make it onto this list possibly?

Informative content Brian Dean. I appreciate the time and energy spent to make this article exist. But I’m still curious! Could you recommend the top three keyword tools in both paid and free versions (3 free & 3 paid). Thanks in advance.

What about Ubersuggest it is good and accurate?

No Long Tail Pro anymore? I know it was in a previous list of yours.

Hi Phil, LTP is solid. But not in my top 15 at the moment.

Hey Brian, really great work, as usual. Just the best :-). I’d like to add another great keyword or better ‘question tool’ called “answerthepublic”. Just google it and check out if it fits. Best regards from Germany, Udo

Thanks Udo. I’m also a big fan of that tool.

Hey Brian, Keywords Everywhere just became a paid chrome extension. Is there a substitute that is free. I simply want to see how many searches per month for a keyword if I check a keyword on google. Very simple.

Hi Eran, I just read that. I plan on updating the post with a new tool. In the meantime, your best bet for figuring out search volume is the Google Keyword Planner.

Hi Brian! Thanks for this awesome list… very comprehensive! But I have a question for you… As a small luxury retail business I am of course very keen to get our SEO for the website spot on. My assumption is that one should choose a few options for keyword research and SEO and stick with them. What would be your SEO software bucket list that you would use on a regular basis? Thanks!

You’re welcome. The thing is, the “best” tools depend on each business, your marketing budget etc. That said, I list my favorites here: https://backlinko.com/seo-tools

Great Article very helpful. What are your views about Longtail Pro? I’d be interested in your opinion.

Have you ever tried Marketing Miner? It has more click-stream data than SEMRush, and Cyrus Shepard uses it on Keyword Research.

Hi Tomas, I haven’t tried Marketing Miner. I have to check it out!

Hi there. What’s your take on Keysearch?

Thanks! Lori

You are not just the backlinko you are also the bosslinko 😀 :*

Again Great post but you missed the https://answerthepublic.com/ It is also one of the best keyword tool.

Great list. I personally use Ahrefs, Google Search Console and Senuto.com

Great list but I can’t believe you left out Ubersuggest which is simply the best free SEO keyword finder tool right now. Or was that intentional…

Thanks. Ubersuggest is great. I’m actually working on a post that dives into how to get the most out of that tool right now.

Wow! Can’t wait to read that post.

Great list…do you think Google Keyword Planner is really that accurate? Search volume of 10-100,000 seems very broad. Hearing many conflicting views on accuracy of this keyword tool for SEO

Heyy Brian, Looking at your blog post has always inspired me to create quality content. Thank you for not being a generic blog post popping up on Google.

No one is better than Ahref and Google Keyword Planner(According to my experience). Ahref is my primary choice if we come on Keyword Research. SEMRush’s Writing assistant is also a good tool. I always use Ahref, Keyword Anywhere to know all the keyword on any particular page and SEMRush.

Thanks, Brian,

I always appreciate your thorough information. It’s very helpful!

I personally use Jaaxy and love it. It gives me everything I need, and many great ideas for future articles.

Cheers, Suzanne

Hey Brian, What do you think about https://answerthepublic.com/ as a KW research tool. – It’s pretty in-depth! All the best, Tom

Thank you Brian, you did a great job but nowadays I am finding it difficult to get to know about keyword difficulty. Although Ahref has some cool features regarding KD, but from my personal experience, I don’t think the data is as much reliable as it should be. I have tried many keyword difficulty tools and ahref estimation is better than other tools but still, it needs improvements. So here my question is, can you please recommend us a way to find out KD of keywords that would be exact and super accurate. I would really appreciate if you can refer us any resource. Keep rocking…

Hi Furqan, the only real way to estimate KD is to publish a page. Every tool calculates KD differently: https://backlinko.com/keyword-research-tool-analysis

Hi Brian, this is some great information. My blog is pretty new so I’ve been learning as I go, but I decided to start with using KeySearch as it was in the ‘budget’ category but seemed to offer some good features. Overall it seems to be decent, and I certainly can’t justify the price tags on SEMrush or AHRefs quite yet, but they look really tempting! What would you recommend to be the next step up from KeySearch that I should aim for as my next upgrade? Thanks! Matt

Thanks Matt. I’d look at SEMRush or Ahrefs next. They both have excellent keyword tools.

Hi there! Thanks for providing such valuable and useful information! These tools seem really useful!

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The 4 best free keyword research tools

There's no shortage of tools purpose-built for keyword research (literally hundreds of them), and they run the gamut from beginner-focused to highly advanced. They also range from totally basic and unhelpful to super valuable.

When done right, the best keyword research tools simplify and streamline your workflow—they make it easier to find the right keywords to target and give you the data you need to actually rank for them. But they shouldn't require you to empty out your bank account and sell your first-born child in order to access that data.

After years of working with multiple clients who use all different tools for keyword research and SEO content optimization, I've seen the best (and the worst) of them—and I know how important it is to choose the right keyword planner tool. To help, I considered over 70 tools with a free option for keyword research. After in-depth testing, here are the four best free keyword research tools, including the all-around greats and apps built for more specific use cases.

The best free keyword research tools

Google Keyword Planner for researching paid keywords

Ahrefs for simple SEO tools

Semrush for advanced SEO professionals

What makes the best keyword research tool?

How we evaluate and test apps.

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The features that make for a great keyword research tool are pretty straightforward: you search for a given keyword, and the tool tells you about it. But there are so many different ways to use keyword data, so I wanted to find tools that could handle a variety of use cases, along with a few designed for some of the most popular uses for keyword research.

During testing, I looked primarily at the factors below to determine which apps made our initial list.

Data included. The best keyword research tools give you all the data you need to rank for your chosen keyword. All of the apps we selected include, at minimum, traffic, keyword difficulty, and competitive SERP analysis .

Data sources. You should be able to trust that your keyword data is free of errors and biases, so considering where the data in each keyword research tool comes from was an important step for us. Every tool we included pulls data in from Google Analytics or Google Search Console at a minimum.

Keyword optimization guidance. You shouldn't have to be a 10-year SEO industry veteran to use keyword research tools—the best tools offer simple, straightforward suggestions to optimize for your keywords. There are tools (like Ahrefs, Semrush, and Moz) that do complete SEO analysis on your site, checking for everything from site speed and technical details to domain authority and topic clusters. That's not what we're looking for here. We're looking for tools that any business owner or marketer can use to quickly understand their target keyword and optimize their site to rank for it.

Free plan allowances and upgrades. Some tools include super limited results for free and call it a "free plan." Or they put time limits on the free plan, effectively making it more of a trial. I only included tools with evergreen free plans generous enough to actually be useful—and they won't break the bank when it's time to upgrade, either.

Standalone functionality. Since you're looking for something free, your keyword tool should be a one-stop shop—without requiring any additional tools or extensions to work for you, especially not ones you'd have to pay for.

To find the best of the best, I put each tool that checked those boxes to the test by running through an in-depth protocol. Here's what my testing workflow looked like:

If needed, I created an account and went through any provided onboarding or guided tutorials (many of these free apps don't require account creation or provide any onboarding).

I searched for a few different kinds of keywords—e.g., "free keyword research tools," "chocolate cake," and "best white sneakers"—to see the results for different search intent .

I checked which related keywords, metrics, and other data were offered. I also made note of the source, whether information was pulled from Google, included non-search engine websites (like social media or forums), or was drawn from the tool's own native data.

I verified allowances for the free plan—whether limited by time, number of results, metrics included, searches per day or month, or something else—and the cost to upgrade to a paid plan if needed.

Where available, I tested out additional keyword research tools like competitive gap analysis, content optimization features, and more.

After spending over a dozen hours with these apps this year, I landed on the four best keyword research tools—each with a manageable free version—below.

The best free keyword research tools at a glance

The best free keyword research tool overall, moz keyword explorer (web).

More approachable data presentation than many other tools

"Priority" score makes it easy to find the keywords worth chasing

Broad set of tools available for free

Less data than more robust tools

Free plan only includes 10 queries per tool per month

Moz 's SEO platform offers several different tools designed for keyword research. While Moz doesn't include as many data points as some of the other full-featured SEO tools (like SERP position history or the total number of keywords a competing result ranks for), I'd consider that a benefit. It makes for a less overwhelming user experience for those who aren't professional search marketers, without skimping on the metrics you really want.

With the Keyword Explorer tool, you can search any keyword you choose and see its monthly volume, difficulty, and organic clickthrough rate (CTR). Scroll down from there to see an analysis of current results ranking for it and suggestions for similar keywords.

My favorite feature: Moz includes a "Priority" score that simplifies keyword research by giving you the bottom line on whether a keyword is worth chasing for you. Moz automatically calculates the score based on the keyword's volume, organic CTR, and difficulty, along with your "My Score"—a metric you set yourself, designating how important a given keyword is to your business, based on your own expertise and knowledge of your business and industry.

Plus, with the Keyword Gap feature (part of the Competitive Research tool), you can find all the keywords your competitors rank for that you don't.

Moz pricing: Keyword research features are available for free for up to 10 queries per tool per month with up to 1,000 keyword suggestions and 10 SERP analyses per query; Moz Pro plans start at $99/month for 150 keyword queries per month

The best free keyword research tool for paid keywords

Google keyword planner (web).

Google Keyword Planner pros:

Completely free forever, even if you don't use Google Ads

Helpful forecasting features for budgeting if you do use Google Ads

Can pull keyword suggestions from just your website

Google Keyword Planner cons:

Not helpful for organic keyword research

When it comes to PPC keyword research, Google Keyword Planner is one of the best tools out there. It's completely free (even if you don't buy Google Ads), so you never have to worry about running into limits or expensive upgrades.

Google Keyword Planner includes two main features: one for exploratory keyword research and discovery and another for more in-depth research on search volume and forecasting.

The "Keyword ideas" feature is similar to many of the tools on this list: you search for a seed term, and it generates other keyword ideas, along with details on monthly search volume, change over time, competition, ad impression share, and bid ranges. You can refine your keyword list by brand or non-brand keywords, source website, and more. If you're also using Google Ads, the "Forecast" feature makes it easier to plan ahead for your paid ads and budget in advance.

Keyword Planner can inform your organic strategy, too, by showing you where ranking organically may help you save on PPC costs.

Google Keyword Planner pricing: Free

The best free keyword research platform for a broad suite of SEO tools

Ahrefs free seo tools (web).

Ahrefs pros:

Free tools cover a broad array of SEO use cases

Super simple to use

Includes keyword research for non-search engines (YouTube, Amazon, Bing)

Ahrefs cons:

Limited amount of data available for free

While you can't access the full Ahrefs suite for free, the company offers a surprisingly robust set of free SEO tools that are perfect for doing simple keyword research. The free suite includes a Free Keyword Generator, Keyword Difficulty Checker, Keyword Rank Checker, and keyword research for YouTube, Amazon, and Bing, among other tools.

The keyword generator includes up to 150 keyword ideas for free (100 phrase match keywords and 50 question-based keywords), along with data on monthly search volume for each and keyword difficulty for the top 10 results. The keyword difficulty tool includes a difficulty score, estimated number of backlinks needed to rank, and SERP analysis for the top 10 results.

None of these tools will give you the depth of data you'd get from a paid account, but the suite's breadth is a strength. Taken together, Ahrefs free tools can handle just about anything a basic SEO operation needs—keyword research, yes, but also link building, website audits, ranking and traffic monitoring, and more. And if your budget changes, you can upgrade to a tool that rivals the best of the best.

Ahrefs pricing: Free Keyword Generator includes up to 150 keyword suggestions with limited data, and Keyword Difficulty Checker includes difficulty score, backlink estimate, and basic SERP overview; paid plans start at $99/month for 500 search credits per month, additional data, and up to 5 keyword lists.

The best free keyword research tool for advanced SEO

Semrush (web).

Semrush pros:

Tons of granular keyword data

Wide range of specialized keyword research tools

Pretty generous free plan

Semrush cons:

Can be overwhelming for those less experienced with keyword research

Most expensive upgrade

If you're looking for something more advanced, Semrush shares a ton of keyword data and makes it easy to dig into the details, like SERP features (featured snippet, reviews, site links, image pack, and so on) and granular analysis of current results. Semrush offers a broad range of keyword research tools, too, from the standard traffic and search volume data to content-driven keyword research and competitive keyword gap analysis.

That range is what really sets Semrush apart, including the standard Keyword Overview, the Keyword Magic Tool for exploratory keyword research, a Keyword Manager and position tracking, competitive Keyword Gap analysis, and Organic Traffic Insights, which—when connected with your Google Analytics or Search Console account—can uncover those famously tricky "not provided" keywords.

As an added bonus, the SEO Content Template tool lets you automatically create a content brief and optimize content as you write by grading your content in real-time for readability, originality, tone of voice, and SEO: it uses a handy bullseye graphic to help you strike the right balance. Plus, the tool visually checks off SEO recommendations (like using your target and related keywords and adding relevant links and images) as you go.

All of this means that upgrading will cost you a pretty penny—but you can use it for free at low volumes to start.

You can do more with Semrush by connecting with Zapier to keep track of SEO tasks across Semrush and your project management tool, automate site audits and re-crawls, connect with Google Analytics goals, and more. Here are some examples:

Re-crawl site audit campaigns in SEMrush when new site audits are completed

Create SEMrush overview reports for new Google Analytics goals

Semrush pricing: Free plan includes up to 10 Analytics reports per day and 10 tracked keywords; paid plans start at $119.95/month for up to 10,000 results per report and 500 tracked keywords per month.

Can you use AI for keyword research?

You can ask AI chatbots like ChatGPT and Bard to do keyword research for you—but should you?

The main benefit of going the AI route is simplicity. You can ask for straightforward, simplified results and get a simple, streamlined answer.

The results are clear and actionable, and Bard did a great job of synthesizing data from a variety of sources and planning for both high-traffic and long-tail keywords. (Assuming it's not lying to me .)

ChatGPT isn't connected to Google Keyword Planner, and it did a slightly less impressive—but still kind of helpful—job.

But both ChatGPT and Bard struggled with anything more complex than the prompt above, offering super generic advice…

…or not answering at all:

Bottom line: AI chatbots aren't built for keyword research. They don't allow for building keyword lists, saving analyses and keyword reports, tracking your rankings, competitor gap analysis, or robust content optimization. Not yet, at least.

If you're in a bind and need simplified, bottom line-style information on a keyword quickly, an AI chatbot may be of some help. But as of today, I wouldn't recommend using AI chatbot as your primary keyword research tool—especially given the number of truly helpful dedicated free keyword research tools you can use instead.

Related reading:

The best SEO content optimization tools

The best WordPress SEO plugins

How to find low competition keywords that drive traffic

How to do keyword research on a budget with Keywords Everywhere

The best SEO rank trackers

The best SEO audit tools

This article was originally published in June 2021. The most recent update was in June 2023.

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Kiera Abbamonte

Kiera’s a content writer who helps SaaS and eCommerce companies connect with customers and reach new audiences. Located in Boston, MA, she loves cinnamon coffee and a good baseball game. Catch up with her on Twitter @Kieraabbamonte.

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15 Best Keyword Research Tools (Free & Paid)

These are the best keyword research tools to find the right keywords to drive more traffic & sales to your site.

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15 Top Keyword Research Tools

Free vs paid keyword research tools, methodology.

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Keyword research is the cornerstone of digital marketing, and good keyword research tools can help you find lucrative keywords to target in your campaigns.

In this post, we’ve reviewed and rated the market’s most popular keyword research software to find the best keyword research tools in 2023 .

1. SEMRush Keyword Magic Tool

SEMRush Keyword Magic Tool has a comprehensive database with billions of keywords used on Google. With the tool, you can search this database to uncover search terms and gather valuable insights on those keywords.

Main Features

With the Keyword Magic Tool, you enter any phrase to have SEMRush instantly return a list of matching keywords accompanied by the following metrics:

• Search volume
• Keyword density
• Advertising cost per click (CPC)
• Competitive density
• Intent (that’s a unique and extremely helpful feature of the Keyword Magic Tool)

The keyword research software includes various filters that allow you to refine the results according to your criteria, including the ability to sort the results by the keyword search intent. This is a unique feature provided by Semrush that is particularly useful when doing keyword research for finding commercial and transactional keywords.

There is also keyword grouping based on phrases that share the same words. You can select these groups to have the results only show terms that match or add them as an exclusion filter.

You can easily save your research by selecting keywords and adding them to the SEMRush Keyword Manager when you find good keyword targets.

Best Keyword Research Feature

Keyword Magic Tool’s standout feature is its filtering system. You can filter by match type, volume, keyword difficulty, search intent, and competitive density to find highly specific search terms.

• How to perform keyword research – a detailed guide on how to perform keyword research with Semrush.
• Semrush Vs Similar Web – a comparison review between Semrush and Similar Web.
• Semrush Vs Ahrefs – a detailed review comparing Semrush and Ahrefs.

Expert Tips

Review the Last Update column and refresh keywords updated over two weeks ago.

Use the Questions filter to only see keywords in the form of a question. These terms provide great ideas for blog posts and targeting featured snippets.

Keyword Magic Tool lets you search keywords for free but with limited results. Full access to the tool requires you to sign up for a paid SEMRush plan. There are three plans with varying levels of features:

• Pro: $119.95 per month ($1,199 paid annually)
• Guru: $229.95 per month ($2,299 paid annually)
• Business: $449.95 per month ($4,499 paid annually)

SEMRush offers a 7-day free trial of their Pro plan.

Our Verdict

SEMRush Keyword Magic Tool is one of the best keyword research tools in the market. We use the platform daily to find keywords for our SEO and digital marketing campaigns quickly.

Try SEMRush Keyword Magic Tool

2. Ahrefs Keyword Explorer

Ahrefs Keyword Explorer is a keyword research tool that pulls data from the largest third-party database of search queries.

With Keywords Explorer, you enter a search term to see its key metrics like search volume, keyword difficulty, SERP features, average CPC, and traffic potential.

The software also shows the current ranking pages along with the domain rating and backlinks for each page so that you can quickly assess the competition for the term.

With each term, the platform provides a list of keyword ideas related to the term. You can filter this list by volume, traffic potential, and other criteria. There is a section specifically for terms phrased as questions and a list of keywords for which the top pages also rank.

The standout feature of Keyword Explorer is its data quality and support for multiple search engines. You can research terms on Bing, Youtube, Yahoo, and other platforms besides Google.

• If you see a term with higher traffic potential than the monthly search volume, it is because users often click more than one result when searching the term.
• Entering a list of multiple keywords only counts as one report against your monthly allowances.
• Use the Terms match mode to find additional queries when viewing matching terms.

Keyword Explorer is a paid keyword search tool that requires you to sign up for an Ahrefs subscription. Below are the prices for the different plans:

• Lite: $99 per month
• Standard: $199 per month
• Advanced: $399 per month
• Enterprise: $999 per month

You can get two months for free by enrolling in an annual plan.

Ahrefs Keywords Explorer has everything you could want from a keyword search tool. We use it to batch search groups of keywords to find new search terms quickly.

Try Ahrefs Keyword Explorer

3. Moz Keyword Explorer

Moz Keyword Explorer is an online tool for gathering data on search queries and finding new keyword targets.

To use Keyword Explorer, enter a seed phrase into the search field. This shows you the monthly volume, difficulty, Organic CTR, and Priority for the term.

Organic clickthrough rate (CTR) shows how many clicks you can gain if you can rank in the top 10 for the term. And the Priority metric indicates if a keyword is worth targeting given the potential rewards.

The results page also has a list of keyword suggestions related to your seed term. Each keyword on the list has a relevancy score based on how much it relates to the term.

Additionally, Keyword Explorer has a SERP analysis showing the current top-ranking pages, their page authority, and number of linking domains.

The best features of Keyword Explorer are the CTR and Priority metrics. These help you get a quick overview of a term’s traffic potential and whether it is worth pursuing.

• When researching new terms, use the Ranking Keywords feature to see which ones you already rank for.
• If a term doesn’t have a single number for monthly volume, it means you are searching within a search engine outside the US, CA, AU, or the UK.

Moz Keyword Explorer lets you search up to 10 keywords each month for free. Full access to the tool requires you to sign up for a Moz Pro subscription. There are four available plans:

• Standard: $99 per month
• Medium: $179 per month
• Large: $299 per month
• Premium: $599 per month

You can save 20% by paying in annual installments.

A Moz Pro subscription provides access to additional tools, including rank tracking and on-page optimization checking.

Moz Keyword Explorer is a user-friendly keyword research tool with several helpful metrics. We like to use the tool to find unique keyword suggestions not found on other platforms.

Try Moz Keyword Explorer

4. Google Trends

Google Trends is a free keyword research tool for finding trending and popular keywords.

When you enter a search in Google Trends, you get a line chart that shows you the search term’s interest over time.

You can set the chart to display trends for various intervals, including the past month, week, day, or even the past hour.

There is also a map that shows interest by subregion. For instance, if you search a term in the United States you can see the interest for each individual state.

Beneath the map, you’ll find a list of related topics and related queries.

Google Trends lets you review multiple terms simultaneously to compare the results side by side.  This leads to faster keyword research and helps you prioritize the keywords with the best opportunities.

The best part of Google Trends is seeing how interest in a keyword or topic changes over time.

Google Trends Tutorial – Learn how to use Google Trends to find trending topics and keywords.

• Google Trends lets you search for “terms” or “topics”. Using topics often gives better results as the data will include spelling variations.
• A keyword’s interest varies by region by comparing several locations simultaneously.

Google Trends is free to use.

Google Trends is a great tool for finding a keyword’s short and long-term trends. We use it to ensure we don’t focus on terms with only a temporary or fluctuating interest.

Try Google Trends

5. Google Keyword Planner

Google Keyword Planner is another free keyword research tool created by Google. You can access the tool from within your Google Ads account.

When you enter a seed phrase into the tool, Google will return a list of keywords along with their search volume, three-month change, year-over-year change, competition, and top and bottom of page CPC bids.

You also have the option to enter a website into the search field to have Google show a list of keywords that the site ranks for.

Plus, you have the option to add your domain as a filter to exclude terms that are not related to the products.

After Google analyzes the keywords you enter, it will add filters that you can use to refine your results. For example, if you search for running shoes, you’ll get filters for brand, gender, and sport.

Google Keyword Planner Tutorial – A step-by-step on using Google Keyword Planner to find keywords for SEO and PPC campaigns.

The best feature of Keyword Planner is the ability to get monthly search volume and advertising CPC data directly from Google.

• To use the tool without creating an ad campaign, look for the “Create an account without a campaign” link during setup.
• Get more results by searching a website and keywords at the same time.

Google Keyword Planner is free. You only need to have a Google Ads account to use the tool.

Google Keyword Planner is a useful tool for finding new keyword ideas. We use it before running PPC campaigns to estimate potential traffic and plan bidding strategies.

Try Google Keyword Planner

6. AnswerThePublic

AnswerThePublic is a keyword research tool that displays a data visualization of different types of keywords and their connection.

AnswerThePublic shows you a data visualization that is similar to a tree. The seed phrase is the branch, located in the center. Extending from the center are common words, which you can think of as branches. Then off of each branch are the keyword results, essentially the leaves.

You can use this tool to quickly develop hundreds of topic ideas and see which types of queries are most common.

Various data visualizations and lists include questions, prepositions, comparisons, alphabetical, and related.

If you prefer to see the keywords without the visualization, you can click the Data tab to see the results in an ordered list.

The best part of AnswerThePublic is the data visualization tree that shows you how related keywords are connected.

• Create collections to save and organize your searches.
• With a Pro account, you can use the Data tab to hide certain keywords from the visualization tree.

AnswerThePublic has both free and paid versions.

The free version has limited searches. The amount you get is based on the site’s total number of free searches.

The Pro plan costs $99 per month or $948 when paid annually. The Expert plan costs $199 per month.

With both plans, you get unlimited searches and the ability to compare data over time. The Expert plan gives you more search listening alerts.

AnswerThePublic is the best keyword research tool for visualizing the connection between keywords.

Try AnswerThePublic

7. KeywordTool

KeywordTool is a keyword research tool that helps you find long-tail keyword suggestions for any search term.

KeywordTool uses the autocomplete features in Google and other search engines to discover relevant long-tail keywords on any topic.

After you enter a search, the tool will provide a list of keyword suggestions with the monthly search volume, CPC, competition, and 12-month trend for each term. The results also include a list of question-based search terms and prepositions.

Data for the top few terms is free, but the rest is gated behind a paid subscription.

Another useful feature in KeywordTool is the ability to surface keywords from various platforms, including Amazon, eBay, Instagram, and Twitter.

KeywordTool’s strongest feature is its segmented keyword lists that help you find questions and granular terms.

• Get better results by selecting negative keywords.
• Use the Analyze Competitors feature to reverse engineer the top-performing keywords from competing websites.

Keyword Tool lets you search keywords for free with limited data. To get access to more data, you need one of the following plans:

• Pro Basic: $89 per month
• Pro Plus: $99 per month
• Pro Business: $199 per month

You can save up to 20% by signing up for annual billing, and all plans have a 30-day money-back guarantee.

You need at least the Pro Plus plan if you want CPC and Google Ads competition data.

KeywordTool is a helpful tool for surfacing keywords across different platforms. We like its ability to find long-tail and question-based search terms.

Try KeywordTool

8. Keywords Everywhere

Keywords Everywhere is a browser extension that lets you gather keyword data directly from a search engine when using it.

Keywords Everywhere add several widgets to the right-hand side of Google search results. The trend data shows the interest in your search term over time.

There are also widgets for related keywords, trending keywords, long-tail keywords, and People Also Search For queries.

You’ll also see traffic metrics next to each ranking result when you install the extension. These will show you how many visitors the site gets each month and how many keywords it ranks for.

The best feature of Keywords Everywhere is the keyword widgets that let you see search term data directly from the Google search engine.

• Enable “Show Metrics in Autocomplete Suggestion Drop-Downs” to quickly see the search volume for Google autosuggestions.
• Disable the extension when conducting personal searches so you don’t waste credits.

Keywords Everywhere is a freemium keyword research tool. The free version includes keyword widgets, trend charts, YouTube metrics, traffic metrics, and on-page analysis.

The paid version adds metrics such as search volume, CPC, competition, and 12-month trend data.

Keywords Everywhere use a pay-as-you-go model. Instead of a monthly subscription, you buy credits. Each credit equals one keyword. The cost is $10 per 100,000 credits.

Keywords Everywhere are great for performing first-hand research directly on Google. We like to use it to find People Also Ask and long-term keywords quickly Try Keywords Everywhere

9. Google Search Console

Google Search Console is an SEO management platform for website owners. With its Performance report, you can find keyword opportunities based on existing content.

The Performance report in Google Search Console shows you all the keywords your website ranks for. You can see what pages rank for the keywords and how many impressions and clicks they generate.

With this data, you’ll uncover new search terms you may not have planned to rank for when creating your content. You can then optimize your existing pages to rank even higher for these terms. Or, you can create new content specifically designed to target the new keywords.

Google Search Console Course – A complete course on how to use Google Search Console for keyword research purposes and SEO.

The strength of Google Search Console is how it lets you see all the keywords your pages rank for so that you can further optimize your strategy.

• Find the best keywords to target by adding filters only to show those with strong clicks or clickthrough rates.

Google Search Console is a free keyword research tool. To use the platform, you need to create an account and verify ownership of your website.

Google Search Console helps you enhance your content to rank better for more keywords.

Try Google Search Console

10. KWFinder

Mangools KWFinder is an easy-to-use keyword search platform that helps you find new keywords to target.

KWFinder has a search function that lets you search for keywords by seed phrase or web domain. The results include organic and paid keywords and their respective search volume, CPC, keyword difficulty, and PPC competition.

When you click a result, you can see each result’s current SERP and backlink data. The tool also shows estimated visitors for each ranking page based on its position and the keyword’s search volume.

KWFinder’s best features are its simple user interface and the ability to see estimated visitors based on SERP position.

• Use the Autocomplete and Questions filter to find unique keyword ideas.
• If you see errors when using the Autocomplete and Questions filters, try waiting a few minutes as Google may have temporarily blocked your IP because of too many requests.

KWFinder is a paid keyword research tool that requires a subscription to one of the following plans:

• Mangools Basic: $49 per month
• Mangools Premium: $69 per month
• Mangools Agency: $129 per month

You can save 40% with an annual plan. Paid plans also provide access to other Magools tools, including rank tracking, backlink analysis, and an on-site checker.

KWFinder has a 10-day free trial for users seeking to try out the platform. However, it comes with limited data, as you can only see the top 25 keywords.

KWFinder is a simple, easy-to-use keyword tool. It helps estimate the visitors you can expect to get if you rank.

Try KWFinder

11. Sonar Amazon Keyword Tool

Sonar is an Amazon keyword research tool that helps sellers find relevant keywords.

Sonar features a continuously updated database of Amazon products and keyword combinations.

When you search a keyword, the tool provides a list of terms and a score for projected search volume, ranging from 1 to 5.

To the side of the results, you’ll see a list of words frequently appearing in the top keywords and a list of relevant products.

With the tool, you can also search existing Amazon products using their ASINs to look up the top keywords that they rank for.

The best feature of Sonar is the Frequent Words section which you can use to generate specific, long-tail keyword ideas quickly.

• New products and those not ranking well may not currently be a part of the Sonar.

You can use Sonar for free but with access to limited data.

Sellics has a more powerful keyword research tool with their paid plans. These plans start at $349 per month when paid in quarterly installments.

Along with a longer list of keywords, the paid version of the keyword research tool gives you an actual numerical value for monthly search volume.

Sellics’ paid plan comes with a 7-day free trial for you to test-run the platform.

Sonar is a simple but useful tool for finding keywords to target for your Amazon products. The paid version is on the expensive side. But it and the other tools included in a Sellics plan could be worth it if you sell a lot on Amazon.

Try Sonar Amazon Keyword Tool

12. SerpStat

SerpStat is an all-in-one SEO platform with a powerful keyword research tool that you can use to gather new search ideas and better understand the questions users are asking.

Like other keyword search tools, SerpStat lets you enter a seed phrase into a search field to generate a list of relevant terms.

The results include a list of organic and paid keywords, search volume, CPC, and ranking difficulty. A top page section also shows you the current ranking pages and the estimated amount of traffic they receive.

SerpStat provides a list of search questions for each term that you research. The results include a field for question type (how, why, what, etc.) so that you can easily refine the results to show the terms most relevant to your business.

One unique feature in SerpStat is the competitors report that lists the most relevant competing websites related to your search term. The list includes each site’s common keywords and overall domain visibility.

Serpstat’s best feature is its flexible filters that allow you to fine-tune your keyword research results based on very specific criteria.

• View the Keyword selection to see a set of phrases using a specific key query, and the Related keywords report to see a set of semantically related phrases.

SerpStat is another freemium keyword research tool. With the free version, you are limited to 10 requests per day.

Four paid plans provide 4,000+ searches per day, depending on the level of the plan. Their prices are as follows:

• Lite: $69 per month
• Standard: $149 per month
• Advanced: $299 per month
• Enterprise: $499 per month

SerpStat has a variety of payment options, and you can save by paying in quarterly, bi-annual, annual, or even five-year installments.

SerpStat is a flexible keyword research tool with a lot of useful features. We like its ability to analyze top competitors and gain insights into search questions.

Try SerpStat

13. Keyword Sheeter

Keyword Sheeter is an online tool that pulls keyword ideas from the autocomplete suggestions in Google.

When you enter a seed phrase into Keyword Sheeter, the platform generates a running list of matching terms in an online notepad.

You can fine-tune the results by adding either a positive (words to include) or negative (words to exclude) filter.

The initial results only include keywords with no additional data. Keyword Sheeter lets you buy additional reports for search volume, CPC, keyword difficulty, and the top 100 SERPs.

The strength of Keyword Sheeter is the ability to quickly generate new keyword ideas that can easily be copied and pasted into your documents.

• Use the Region Subdivision filter to find local keyword targets in the advanced options.

Keyword Sheeter pulls keyword ideas for free. For additional data, you need to purchase “Sheet Coins”. These cost as low as $0.0012 Per Keyword.

Keyword Sheeter is one of this list’s most basic keyword research tools. It could work for you if you need a simple way to generate new ideas.

Try Keyword Sheeter

14. Keyworddit

Keyworddit is a tool for finding keywords being used on the social platform Reddit. You can use it to see what subjects your audience frequently talks about in the comments of subreddit pages.

Keyworddit works by entering the name of a subreddit page into the search field. The tool then scans the page to return a list of all the keywords used on the page, along with how many times that keyword is searched on Google monthly.

Keyworddit’s best feature is its ability to find the keywords people use on subreddits that are relevant to your business.

• Click the Context link next to a keyword to be taken to a Google search showing how people on the page use the term.
• If your search doesn’t return any results, it is likely because the subreddit is too small to come up in the auto-suggest list.

Keyworddit is a free keyword research tool.

Keyworddit is a nifty tool for uncovering new and unique keyword ideas. Many site owners only research terms used on Google, thus missing out on lesser-known keywords used on other social platforms.

Try Keyworddit

15. Google Search

You may not consider Google’s search engine a keyword research tool, but the platform has several ways to find new ideas for keywords.

Each time you enter a query into the Google Search bar, the autocomplete feature generates a list of keywords that include the letters/words you have already typed. You can use this list to find new keywords related to your search phrase.

Many Google search results also include a People Also Ask section. This list contains popular keyword questions related to the initial query.

At the bottom of the search results, you can find more keywords related to your search query.

The People Also Ask section is the most powerful keyword search feature in Google Search.

It gives you new keyword ideas, and each question includes a link to the web page that provides the best answer.

Ranking for one of these queries is one of the most effective ways to drive search traffic to your site.

• Depending on your search, Google will show extra ideas at the top of the page. For example, if you search “Best CRM”, you’ll see keyword ideas for companies that often need a CRM, such as small businesses, schools, or agencies.

Google Search is free.

Google Search is a simple yet effective way to find new keyword ideas. We use the People Also Ask questions to find long-tail keywords that we can target with specific content sections. Google It!

There are many similarities between free and paid keyword research tools. Each best keyword search tool on this list allows you to find new keyword ideas by entering a seed phrase or reverse searching a website.

The two types of tools differ in the amount of data they provide and the extensiveness of their research features.

Many free tools limit the number of keywords you can see or don’t show crucial metrics such as search volume or keyword ranking difficulty.

Paid keyword research tools give you this information and more. They can show search intent, competitiveness, and trends. Plus, they can have robust filters that let you get granular with the keywords you find in your research.

If you have a smaller, newer site, you can get by with a simpler free search tool. But a paid keyword research tool is worth it if you’re looking to build a comprehensive SEO strategy and drive meaningful traffic to your site.

To help you find the best keyword research tool, we’ve looked at the most popular keyword research tools in the market. The tools that made it to the top 15 list provide accurate results at a reasonable cost. We included tools that cover all aspects of keyword research and all platforms, including Google, Bing, YouTube, Amazon, and Reddit.

Related Tools & Resources

• Best Keyword Research Courses – a list of the best courses to master the secrets of keyword research using the above tools.
• Best SEO Audit Tools – a list of tools for performing SEO audits (all tools include keyword research features).
• Keyword Research Course – learn how to perform keyword research like a pro.

Alex Chris is a digital marketing consultant, author, and instructor. He has more than 18 years of practical experience with SEO and digital marketing. Alex holds an MSc Degree in eCommerce and has consulted with Fortune 500 companies in different industries. He blogs regularly about SEO and Digital marketing, and his work has been referenced by leading marketing websites. Connect with Alex on Twitter and LinkedIn .

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16 Best Keyword Research Tools For SEO

We review the best keyword research tools, from the usual free versions and the "big three" paid tools to some lesser-known tools to try.

Ask any SEO pro and they will tell you that trying to do keyword research without a keyword research tool is a thankless task – and it’s pretty much impossible to build a comprehensive list of keywords with monthly search volumes .

As keyword research is one the most important parts of any search engine optimization strategy , the right keyword research tools are an essential part of your SEO tool stack .

If you’re new to SEO or just looking for new tools to try, we have the list for you.

We’re going to take a look at 16 of the best keyword research tools used by SEO professionals and help you choose the right one for your needs.

[Recommended Read] → A Guide to Essential SEO Tools for Agencies

The Best Tools For Keyword Research

One of the most popular keyword research tools on the market, Semrush offers a comprehensive suite of SEO tools.

Specifically for keyword research, it includes:

• Keyword Overview: Just like its name suggests, this provides an overview of keywords, including search volume, difficulty, CPC, and variations.
• Keyword Magic Tool: This tool gives you keywords by broad match, exact match, phrase match, and related words, alongside relevant metrics about search volume, intent, and competitiveness.
• Keyword Manager: Only available to paid Semrush users, this tool supports deep analysis and data export.
• Position Tracking:  This feature allows you to monitor how your site is ranking alongside the competition on a daily basis.
• Organic Traffic Insights: Combining Google Analytics and Search Console with its own data, this helps you identify the keywords that are actually driving organic traffic to your site.

Price: $99.95-449.95/month

2. Ahrefs Keywords Explorer

Another all-in-one SEO toolkit, Ahrefs includes a Keyword Explorer that provides incredibly in-depth information on keywords.

Using data from 10 different search engines, it provides more than keyword suggestions; it also provides information about search volume, ranking difficulty, and keyword movement.

Particularly useful is the insight it provides into your competition, helping you identify which keywords they’re ranking for that you’re not.

This information can then be used to create new content to target and capture that traffic.

Price: $83-999/month

3. Google Keyword Planner

It’s only logical that the world’s most dominant search engine would provide a tool to help you identify useful keywords.

Google Keyword Planner doesn’t offer as much functionality as some of the other tools out there, but it does have something they don’t: direct data from Google.

Primarily intended for digital marketers who are advertising on Google, it’s a free-to-use tool for anyone with a Google Ads account.

Using it is simple – just type in a keyword and it will give you data on approximate monthly searches, related keywords, and bidding information.

Price: Free with a Google Ads account.

4. Serpstat

Another full-service SEO suite, Serpstat includes tools for link building, PPC campaign management, and local search optimization, as well as keyword research.

Claiming to use the biggest database, it can help you identify keywords, analyze volume, popularity, and competition, and track your competition.

What’s really cool about Serpstat is that its results include the site in the featured snipped as the first result, to help you claim that spot for your own.

It also includes tools for monitoring trending keywords, including searches by region, rank tracking, and content analysis.

Price: $59-499/month

5. KeywordTool.io

The most useful part of KeywordTool.io is the sheer volume of keyword suggestions it provides.

A search for [pharmacy], for example, returned 669 total keywords.

These words are provided with all the relevant data an SEO professional could want, including competition (both average and by specific keyword), search volume, and trend information.

KeywordTool.io also allows you to filter results based on your needs. You can specify region, language, platform, and even type.

Like most of the other keyword research tools listed here, it allows you to analyze your competitors and identify words and phrases that they’re ranking for, but you are not.

Price: $69-129/month

6. Moz Keyword Explorer

In the world of SEO tools, Moz is one of the biggest players. It’s no surprise, therefore, that it includes a keyword research tool.

Offering both a paid and free version (limited to 10 queries per month), Moz Keyword Explorer has comprehensive analysis tools, robust keyword suggestions, and predictive metrics.

It also gives you detailed information on SERPs, tools for identifying long-tail keywords and search questions, and suggestions to help you rank internationally.

Price: $79-599/month

7. Google Trends

Another tool from the biggest name in search, Google Trends is a free-to-use keyword research tool that lets you search by specific words and phrases, or related queries.

It breaks down results in a variety of useful ways, including interest by region, interest over time, and related topics and queries.

You can also compare two keywords to determine if one is trending more than another.

Price: Free

8. AnswerThePublic

Billing itself as a “search listening tool,” AnswerThePublic taps into autocomplete data from search engines and uses this to determine useful search questions and phrases.

This information is then presented in a visual format that makes it easy to identify search volume divided by questions, prepositions, comparisons, and related searches.

It also provides an alphabetical list of keywords.

It has a free version, which is useful if you’re only doing a small amount of research.

The Pro plan is better if you’re regularly performing SEO, as it gives you unlimited daily searches, priority customer support, and customization options.

Price: $9-199/month

9. QuestionDB

QuestionDB is a great way to discover relevant keywords that other keyword research tools may not suggest.

You enter a broad keyword, and it returns a list of highly specific questions related to it.

With this in mind, you can create content to target low-competition, high-potential words, and phrases, as well as establish authority within your niche.

It has both a free and paid version, with free accounts being limited to a maximum of 50 results per search.

Price : $0-50/month

Claiming to be the “world’s most advanced keyword tool,” Jaaxy is an easy-to-use tool that gives you a lot of keyword ideas.

Developed for affiliate marketers, it provides a huge list of related words and phrases, as well as useful data on search volume, traffic, and competitor performance.

It also includes information about how your website is ranking under tracked keywords.

Price: Free (limited to 30 keyword searches per month)-$99/month

11. Long Tail Pro

Designed specifically to help SEO professionals identify long-tail keywords, Long Tail Pro includes five tools to cover all things SEO:

• SERP Analysis.
• Site Audit.

Its keyword research tool offers a lot of functionality marketers may find useful, including keyword grouping, campaign metrics, and competition analysis.

But its true strength lies in its ability to uncover long-tail keywords from a broad seed, returning as many as 400 highly specific words and phrases in seconds.

Price: $24.75-

13. Majestic

Majestic has three keyword tools included in its suite of SEO tools:

• Keyword Generator , which can be used to discover new keywords for content ideas and targeted advertising.
• Keyword Checker , which provides an extensive index that tracks words and phrases.
• Search Explore , which explores competition for keywords and provides a more granular view of ranking difficulty. This is only available in Pro-level plans.

Price: $41.67-399.99/month

Combing sites like Google, Amazon, Bing, Wikipedia, and YouTube, Soovle suggests keywords that you may otherwise have overlooked.

Results are displayed by website, allowing you to optimize your content for each one specifically.

It lets you save suggestions for future reference, or download them in a .CSV file.

It also provides an alphabetical list of the top internet keywords, with the platform each one ranks highly on indicated by an icon.

15. Keyword Surfer

This tool is a bit different from the others listed here, in that it’s not a standalone platform, but rather a Chrome plugin.

Keyword Surfer gives you an intuitive way to collect and analyze search data, as well as separate your keywords into collections.

This plugin makes it easy to monitor search intent, uncover topic clusters and evaluate search volume at a glance.

Price: Starting at $49/month

16. Google Search Console

No list of keyword research tools would be complete without a mention of Google Search Console – even though it’s not technically one.

It’s included on this list for one primary reason: the performance report.

By breaking down your website’s performance, it tells you where your traffic is coming from, which queries are driving people to your site, and which pages are your best-performing.

This data can then be mined for new keyword opportunities and to optimize your existing content.

Even better, it lets you custom configure your reports, so you can include the data that’s most important to you.

Choosing The Right Keyword Research Tool

The tools listed here are just a few of your many options.

So, how do you choose the right platform for your needs, especially when many of them have the same, or similar functionality?

To help you decide, you should consider:

• Your budget – Obviously, you need something that will give you the functionality you need at an affordable price. Free options can be useful, but they tend to be less robust than paid tools.
• Your overall SEO strategy – What is the primary focus of your search engine optimization efforts? Are you seeking to establish yourself as an authority? Or do you want to attract new customers? Are you targeting people locally or internationally? Each keyword research platform has different strengths and weaknesses. Select one that’s well-matched to your goals.

Be sure to carefully evaluate your options. If you work as part of a team, invite everyone’s opinions.

They may have platforms they have used in the past that did or did not work. Understanding why can help you pick the best one for your needs.

And once you find the perfect one for you, you can start going after and landing traffic from more queries and generating more conversions.

More Resources:

• Google Keyword Planner: How To Use The Free Tool For SEO
• Keyword Research: An In-Depth Beginner’s Guide
• Rank Tracking: How To Do It The Right Way

Featured Image: Aysezgicmeli/Shutterstock

Loren Baker is the Founder of SEJ, an Advisor at Alpha Brand Media and runs Foundation Digital, a digital marketing ...

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13 Best Keyword Research Tools in 2024 (Including Free Options)

Keyword research is a crucial element of modern SEO. Whether you’re kick-starting an old blog or developing your content strategy for a new one; good quality keywords are one of the most efficient ways to attract consistent, quality traffic to your site. We’ve compiled a list of some of the best keyword research tools to help you conquer your content.

📚 Table of contents :

• SEO PowerSuite
• Ahrefs Keywords Explorer
• Google’s Keyword Planner
• Long Tail Pro
• Keyword Tool
• Moz Keyword Explorer

The 13 best keyword research tools

1. kwfinder.

KWFinder is a tool designed by Mangools – a developer known for delivering the best keyword research and analysis tools across categories. You can use their beginner guide to get started.

The KWFinder platform makes it easy to find keywords with low SEO difficulty, along with a whole host of other useful features.

⚙️ Standout features

• A unique and easy to navigate user interface
• Finding keywords in any language target, anywhere
• Choose options from the list of powerful keywords
• Get precise statistics with the keyword competition checker
• In-depth SERP overview alongside a list of suggestions
• Use filters to refine the list of keyword suggestions

💳 Pricing

KWFinder is part of a package that includes four other SEO tools. This keyword tool only allows a handful of free searches. You can select an annual plan to save up to 40% on any of their three subscriptions.

• Entry – $19.90 (freelancers)
• Basic – $29.90 (small businesses)
• Premium – $44.90 (new startups and blogs)
• Agency – $89.90 (eCommerce stores and heavy sites)

2. SEO PowerSuite

If you’re looking for a comprehensive option, SEO Powersuite is one of the best tools for keyword research. Its complete toolkit includes everything you need to improve on and off-page SEO . You’ll get fundamental SEO keyword research features, as well as optimization options for mobile, social media, and more.

• Comprehensive SEO audit
• Competitor rank tracking
• Professional SEO reports
• Cloud storage (up to 400 projects)
• White-labeling reports for clients
• Link management and backlink history

SEO Powersuite offers a limited free tier, along with two full-featured premium plans.

• Free – There is a free version of SEO Powersuite that may work well if you run a small/personal site and only need to occasionally check your site’s rankings.
• Professional – With this plan you get unlimited SEO audits, link management, and more. You’ll also have access to white-labeling (with watermarks) and cloud storage for up to 20 projects. Professional plans cost $299 per year.
• Enterprise – This option includes everything that the Professional plan does, plus more. You’ll also get white-labeling without watermarks, and cloud storage for up to 400 projects, for $499 per year.

3. Ahrefs Keywords Explorer

Ahrefs is one of the best keyword research tools available for content creators today. The platform provides a broad keyword report to the user and relies on clickstream data to provide unique click metrics.

• Accurate keyword difficulty score
• 1,000+ keyword suggestions
• Supported in over 171 countries
• Click metrics for improving CTR
• Extensive SERP overview

Ahrefs has four pricing plans. The rates for freelancers, online marketers, mid-sized organizations, and bigger brands start at just $83.00 per month if you choose an annual payment plan.

They do have a trial offer ($7 for seven days) on their Lite and Standard subscription plans.

4. SE Ranking

SE Ranking uses advanced data processing algorithms to deliver unique SEO insights. Better yet, the dashboard can be customized to reflect your brand book and domain name, making it a great choice for agencies.

Plus, you can combine the SE Ranking insights with tons of other tools like Google Search Console and Zapier. And, the tool doesn’t neglect any area of SEO. You’re able to monitor local SEO , on-page SEO, backlinks, and even track your competitor’s efforts.

• SEO keyword tracker
• Backlink checker
• Keyword suggestion tool
• Local marketing
• Best for agencies

One of the best parts about SE Ranking is that it offers a generous 14-day free trial (no credit card required). Then, you’ll need to choose between three paid plans.

• Essential – This plan costs $44 a month (with an annual plan) but it’s limited to 750 daily keywords to track. However, you’ll get access to the backlink checker, on-page SEO checker, keyword research, and more.
• Pro – The next plan up costs $87.20 a month. It includes 2000 daily keywords and unlimited projects with page change monitoring, historical keyword data, and more.
• Business – This plan costs $191.20 a month and goes up to 5000 keywords. Additionally, you’ll get access to priority support, team training, and five manager seats. You can also contact SE Ranking if you need a custom package.

5. LowFruits

If you’re looking for one of the best keyword research tools to make SERP analysis easier, LowFruits is what you want. This tool can identify weak positions on the first page of Google search results and assess other crucial metrics like word count, title relevance, and website types.

What’s more, it’s super easy to get started. You can use the SEO keyword generator (including long-tail keywords), or import an existing list. Then, LowFruits will analyze the SERPs in bulk while detecting other significant factors like keyword clusters (which can help you reduce the chance of duplication).

• Keyword clusters
• SERP analysis in bulk
• Wildcard SEO keyword search (to find specific combinations of keywords)
• Domain explorer to identify low authority websites (that are easy to outrank)
• Competitor analysis (with sitemap extraction)

To get started with LowFruits, you can pay-as-you-go or subscribe to an annual plan. With the former option, you’ll get 10 credits for free (no credit card required).

Then, you can purchase 2000 credits for $25, 5000 credits for $60, 10,000 credits for $100, or 50,000 credits for $250. These credits will be valid for one year.

However, if you’d prefer to proceed with a subscription, the Standard plan is the most affordable (costs $249 a year). This includes 3000 credits a month and exclusive features like competitor keyword extraction, sitemap extraction, and free keyword searches.

Or, you can upgrade to the Premium plan for $749 a year. This is best suited to enterprise websites since it includes 10,000 credits a month alongside the exclusive features available with the Standard plan.

6. Google’s Keyword Planner

Google’s Keyword Planner is a simple SEO keyword tool option serving up a few basic features. Despite the lack of functionality, however, it’s one of the most accurate sources of keyword data on the market. The data comes directly from Google and the results integrate well with AdSense monetization .

• Locate commercial keywords using “top of page” bid range
• Accurate search volume directly from Google’s search engine
• Best choice for business websites

Google’s Keyword Planner is available for free. It might not be among the best keyword research tools when stacked up against the premium options on this list, but for being 100% free, it’s a solid addition to any keyword research toolbox.

7. GrowthBar

GrowthBar is one of the best keyword research tools for marketers and bloggers who are in a hurry, and want ranking difficulty or keyword suggestions to appear along with their search results.

A unique feature they recently added is content outline generation , you can use it to generate content outlines in one click for your blog or website with keywords, word counts, headers, images, links and more.

It also allows you to explore competitors’ profile featuring – backlink data, organic keywords, Google/Facebook ads info and related insights.

• Generate content outlines with AI
• Accurate ranking difficulty
• Long tail keyword suggestions
• Exportable keyword data
• On-page word count

GrowthBar offer a free 5-day trial , after which you will be charged based on the plan you choose. The higher-tier plan will let you search unlimited keywords. You’ll get the following rates when you pay annually.

• Standard – $20.30/month
• Pro – $55.30/month
• Agency – $90.30/month

8. Long Tail Pro

It’s no secret that long-tail keywords are the new standard of SEO. The Long Tail Pro keyword tool generates long-tail keywords for niche sites and has even found a cult following with content producers for micro-niche sites.

• Powerful, detailed keyword metrics
• Easily find long-tail keywords
• Provides recommendations for attracting highly convertible organic traffic
• 2,500+ SERP lookups every 24 hours

Long Tail Pro is a premium tool and does offer a 7-day free trial (subscription to be cancelled before seven days). Subscriptions start as low as $24.75 per month (when billed annually). Long Tail Pro currently offers three plans to users.

• Starter – $24.75/month
• Pro – $44.75/month
• Agency – $98.08/month

9. Majestic

Majestic is an all-in-one SEO keyword tool that can help you keep track of your site’s health. It’s an ideal option for new blogs and small businesses that don’t have the resources to invest a lot of complicated support for search engine optimization.

• All SEO features are available in a single toolkit
• Find easy-to-target phrases
• Research competition on each keyword
• Trustworthiness vs. authority graph for website analysis

Majestic allows you to sign up and run three free searches to help you get a feel for the service. The keyword checker, however, is only available in PRO and API plans. You can grab the SEO toolkit for $83.33 per month when you select the annual billing option.

10. Keyword Tool

If you’re obsessed with keyword data mining, try Keyword Tool. The platform is regarded as one of the top keyword research tools on the market and offers analysis for multiple search engines including Google, YouTube, Bing, Amazon, and the App Store.

• Find great keywords using Google Autocomplete
• Supplement your social media marketing with Instagram and Twitter keyword analysis
• Export results to CSV
• Simple UX for beginners

Keyword Tool is very similar to Google Keyword Planner. It’s free for first 750+ keywords and extremely easy to get started with. The Keyword Tool “Basic” plan starts at $69 per month and is billed annually.

11. Serpstat

If you’re searching for a full SEO suite , Serpstat is an excellent option. It’s not only one of the best keyword research tools available, but it also offers website analytics , SERP analysis, backlink analysis, an SEO keyword tracker, and website audit features. It’s an all-in-one solution meant to streamline everything you would need for comprehensive SEO.

• Understand your competition using the competitor graph feature
• Find keyword difficulty and keyword trends
• The most budget-friendly option on our list

Similar to a couple of the other options we’ve listed here, Serpstat can be used a few times for free by signing up for their trial membership. To use the service regularly though, you need to get yourself set up with one of its subscriptions. An Individual plan goes for $50 per month if you pay up front for the year. Otherwise it’s $59 on a month-to-month basis.

12. Moz Keyword Explorer

The Moz Keyword Explorer serves up easy to use, out-of-the-box keyword recommendations. Moz’s SEO tool boasts all the features you’d expect from the very best keyword research tools, plus two very unique data points:

Organic CTR score – This click-through rate demonstrates the number of clicks you’re expected to attract on page one of Google.

Priority score – The priority score is a mixture of all the individual factors a typical tool uses to suggest keyword options. It combines data on CTR, search volume, and keyword difficulty to help you select the best terms for your project.

• Get related keyword suggestions
• Organic CTR and Priority score for smart targeting
• Moz offers a one month trial period

You can sign up for a free Moz account and get ten free queries per month. The Keyword Explorer is not a standalone researching tool, to get full access to this useful little asset, you will need to pay for the entire SEO suite. You can get the keyword research features with the Moz Pro plan, which starts at $79 per month if paid annually (or $99 if paying month-to-month) with the option to do a free 30-day trial.

SpyFu works best as an SEO keyword competition checker. The SEO keyword tool uncovers valuable, virtually untapped keywords and makes a huge difference if you’re working in a highly saturated niche.

• Compare different websites competing for a single search term
• Discover ranking difficulty and historical rank changes
• Additional modules for in-depth domain analysis

SpyFu is a little different from the other best keyword research tools we’ve listed here as they offer monthly results, not real-time feedback. You can subscribe to SpyFu for $16 per month if you choose the annual billing option.

Which one of these best keyword research tools is right for you? 🤔

The benefits of keyword research cannot be understated, and the options you just read through are some of the best keyword research tools you can currently find in the SEO marketplace. To find the one that works for your business, start by analyzing your budget and then consider the primary focus of your brand’s SEO strategy .

That being said, here are some of the best keyword research tools for you to add to your workflow:

• If budget is your chief concern , narrow your search to Google Keyword Planner or Serpstat .
• If you need a more robust set of tools , you’re going to be looking at KWFinder or Moz Keyword Explorer .
• For beginners that prioritize ease-of-use and simplicity , you might prefer Keyword Tool , Majestic , or Google’s Keyword Planner.
• For bloggers, marketers, and content writers , GrowthBar and Ahrefs Keywords Explorer make great options.
• If you run an enterprise-level website , your best bets are SEO PowerSuite , SE Ranking , or LowFruits .

Do you have any questions about choosing between these tools? Ask away in the comments!

By Themeisle Editorial

Themeisle contributor.

We're the crew behind Themeisle Blog, where we eat, sleep, and breathe WordPress, website building, and all things blogging. Under the leadership of Karol K, our team is composed of WordPress wizards, web design junkies, and blogging enthusiasts. Between us, we've got a boatload of experience (like, 50+ years worth!) in making the digital world more accessible and fun.

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Best SEO keyword research tool of 2024

Software for keyword search tried and tested by our experts

Best overall

Best for analysis, best for beginners, best for suggestion.

• How we test

The best SEO keyword research tools make it simple and easy to identify important business keywords for your website and optimize for them.

1. Best overall 2. Best for analysis 3. Best for beginners 4. Best for suggestion 5. Best free 6. FAQs 7. How we test

When it comes to SEO, Keyword research is probably among the most crucial aspects of the industry, and there is no doubt that there are hundreds of tools available online to do this. Now, these tools broadly fall into two categories– Complete SEO-optimization toolkit including a keyword research feature or Specific Keyword research tools that just do a single legwork. In any case, there are certain criteria that you must keep while looking for the best keyword research tool for your website.

Like, go for a tool that has reliable and accurate keyword data, offers a wide range of keyword suggestions, including long-tail keywords, and should offer a competitor analysis feature through which you can analyze your competitor’s keyword strategies. Along with this, such tools should be capable of getting integrated with other tools and come with a user-friendly interface to make them easily accessible. 

Yes, we know, it’s a lot. That’s why we have created this detailed guide, where you will find the best keyword research tools on the internet. Each tool has its own USPs. So, let’s get started and find the ideal tool for your needs.

We've also featured the best free SEO keyword research tools .

The best SEO keyword research tools of 2024 in full:

Why you can trust TechRadar We spend hours testing every product or service we review, so you can be sure you’re buying the best. Find out more about how we test.

Our expert review:

Reasons to buy

Reasons to avoid.

If you're looking for a tool with a large data library, Ahrefs should be at the top of your list. Its database is spread across 10 different search engines and lets you get detailed insights into keyword difficulty, search volumes, and competitive analysis for crafting effective SEO strategies. 

For expanding your content reach and visibility, it even has a keyword suggestions tool that helps find related terms and questions through its deep understanding of search intent and relevancy.

Moreover, the Keyword Explorer offers tons of metrics and useful data to help your keyword study. For instance, it offers a "Return Rate" metric, which tracks how often people are searching for a specific keyword again. You can also analyze the total number of clicks for a specific keyword on the search engine through Ahrefs “Click” data.

Even its interface is pretty easy to navigate and you can get used to its toolset quite easily. However, the plenty of features and data might be slightly confusing. Despite this, you can easily overcome any problem with the help of its extensive documentation and Ahrefs' responsive customer service.

With a starting price of $99/month for the Lite plan, Ahrefs may sound costly. However, this plan provides access to a variety of essential tools. This includes the keyword research tool, which comes with 500 tracked keywords and ample keyword and content exploration.

All in all, Ahref's data accuracy, user-friendly interface, and support structure make it a standout choice for keyword research, especially when it comes to keyword insights and strategic SEO planning.

Read our full Ahrefs review.

• ^ Back to the top

Semrush comes with gigantic data of over 25 billion potential keywords under it. It does deep keyword research for you and offers crucial figures related to search volumes, user intent classifications (informational, commercial, navigational, transactional), and competitive density scores on a scale from 0 to 1.0. Its large database offers critical information on important metrics like search trends, keyword volumes, keyword difficulty, and cost-per-click (CPC) rates. All this helps you find the right keywords and understand competitors' activities.

During our tests, we found its competitive analysis feature quite impressive as it didn’t just mention our competitor's ranking keywords but even went a step ahead and noted down the visibility score of keywords. This score shows the keyword’s prominence on the Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs).

Plus, you can further compare your keyword profile with up to five different competitors through Semrush’s Gap Analysis feature. Along with this, if you want to know the “not provided” keywords, Semrush seamlessly integrates with different Google tools like Google Analytics and Google Search REASONS TO AVOIDole (GSC) to show these keywords comprehensively.

To easily let you find your way around the vast amount of tools and data, Semrush has designed its interface to be powerful and user-friendly. For the times you get stuck, its support system provides live chat, email support, and a wide range of tutorials and resources to help you.

You might say that $119.95 per month for the pro plan is too much. But with full access to its features, including tracking for up to 500 keywords and in-depth reports in the keyword analytics section, it's worth it. 

Read our full Semrush review.

3. Keyword tool

Keyword Tool.io’s straightforward approach to keyword research makes it the perfect starting point for beginners. Its clean and user-friendly interface lets you quickly generate long-tail keyword suggestions across various platforms, including Google, YouTube , Bing , Amazon , and more. It does this by using Google Autocomplete, which finds popular and relevant keywords and delivers crucial data beyond the one available on Google Keyword Planner.

It further provides essential keyword data like search volume, trends, CPC, and competition levels with its Pro version and that too without making the process difficult. What makes it a great keyword research tool is its support for over 192 different types of Google domains and 83 different languages which helps in targeting both global and local SEO strategies. Under this, you can find the localized search volume data and trends, which prove whether your SEO strategy is effectively curated to different markets and search behavior or not. Through this, you can boost your traffic and engagement across diverse and specific audiences.

However, if you’re looking for in-depth competition analysis, you may find the features lacking compared to more advanced tools. Plus, the absence of direct phone support or chat could be a downside when you need immediate assistance. However, the platform's straightforward design and online resources ensure this doesn’t happen. Another great thing about this tool is its starting price of just $89/month for the Pro plan. This makes it an accessible option for those just starting in SEO. 

Read our full Keyword tool.

4. Exploding Topics

Exploding Topics is an AI-powered trend-analyzing tool that excels in offering keyword suggestions that have the potential to gain volume in the future. It does this by going through millions of datasets from various mentions, searches, and conversations. This makes it a valuable resource for marketers, content creators, and business owners looking to capitalize on emerging trends. Thanks to its simple and straightforward interface, the tool makes discovering and analyzing upcoming trends easy. 

While the basic plan is free, you must subscribe to a Pro plan to unlock its full potential and access comprehensive insights. If you're wondering about the price, it is customized based on individual or business needs, so you have to pay for what you need. Despite all its amazing features, there are a few drawbacks worth pointing out. 

Firstly, not all predicted trends gain the predicted popularity. Additionally, its focus on industry-specific trends means that not all suggestions will be applicable or useful for every user. However, Exploding Topic's user-friendly interface and unique focus on emerging trends make it a powerful asset for staying one step ahead in your online game.

5. Google Keyword Planner

If you’re looking for a free tool to help you in keyword research, you can always bet on Google Keyword Planner. The best thing about this tool is that it seamlessly integrates with Google Ads and gives you a straightforward interface that simplifies keyword research. 

Besides this, you can uncover information regarding search volume, competition level, and cost-per-click (CPC) estimates for your keywords of interest, which tap into the source of over 3.5 billion daily searches.

The Keyword Planner also helps you filter and refine your keyword list based on various criteria, such as search volume, competition, keyword type (broad match, phrase match, or exact match), and more. This helps you focus on the most relevant and valuable keywords for your campaign. If you want to plan your budget for Google Ads, The tool allows you to estimate the potential cost and performance of your ad campaigns based on your selected keywords, bid amounts, and budget.

Furthermore, support for Google Keyword Planner users is mainly available through comprehensive online help documents and active community forums. While these resources are informative, lacking direct support channels might leave you seeking more personalized assistance.

However, while it delivers essential data, the tool does not provide trend analysis, making it difficult to identify emerging keywords or seasonal changes. Additionally, if you’re not investing in Google Ads, you’ll receive ranges instead of specific numbers for keyword volume data which might not be very useful for you when it comes to detailed analysis.

We've also featured the best onpage SEO tools .

SEO keyword research tool FAQs

How to choose the best seo keyword research tool for you.

When deciding which SEO keyword research tool to use, first consider what your actual needs are, as budget options may only provide basic features, so if you need to use advanced tools you may find a more expensive platform is better suited to you. 

Additionally, higher-end SEO software usually includes a range of ranking and content tracking options, along with a comprehensive tool box to suit every need, so do ensure you have a good idea of which features you think you may require from your keyword research tool.

How we tested the best SEO keyword research tools

To test for the best SEO keyword research tools we first set up an account with the relevant software platform, then we tested the service to see how the software could be used for different purposes and in different situations. The aim was to push each keyword research tool to see how useful its basic features were and also how easy it was to get to grips with any more advanced SEO options.

Read more on how we test, rate, and review products on TechRadar .

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Brian has over 30 years publishing experience as a writer and editor across a range of computing, technology, and marketing titles. He has been interviewed multiple times for the BBC and been a speaker at international conferences. His specialty on techradar is Software as a Service (SaaS) applications, covering everything from office suites to IT service tools. He is also a science fiction and fantasy author, published as Brian G Turner.

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What are SEO tools?

What is the most effective tool for seo, best free seo tools, best ai-powered seo tools, best local seo tools, best google seo tools, best paid seo tools, 19 best seo tools in 2024 (for every use case).

Whether you’re a local mom-and-pop shop or a multinational enterprise, SEO is still the best play for long-term traffic growth and lead generation. A single optimized blog post, web page, or video can attract thousands of qualified visitors for years—and you don’t have to spend a dime to promote it.

That said, SEO isn’t easy. Every marketer knows how valuable the top of a Google results page is, and it keeps getting harder to own that real estate.

That’s why we’ve trialed, tested, and categorized the best SEO tools available in 2024. Whether you’re publishing your first blog post or optimizing a 5,000-page website, there are SEO tools here to help.

💡 Rank faster with this free guide: 10 Tangible & Free Ways to Get on the First Page of Google .

In broad terms, SEO tools are software that helps you automate, streamline, or support your SEO strategy.

More specifically,  SEO tools can help with:

• Keyword research
• Keyword position tracking
• On-page SEO
• Link building
• Competitor analysis

SEO tools come in a few varieties. Some are feature-rich, comprehensive software with several tools to tackle many SEO tasks. Ahrefs is a good example of a comprehensive SEO tool since it helps with on-page SEO, off-page SEO, site audits, and more. Our Keyword Tool is a point-solution since it has one function—to help you find the best SEO keywords to target.

That’s like asking, “What’s the best vehicle?” Do you want to haul a lot of people, a lot of stuff, or do you just want to go fast?

Like car shopping, picking your SEO tool starts with understanding your needs. Here are some questions to consider:

• Are you new to SEO or a power user of SEO tools?
• What’s your budget?
• Do you have specific jobs to do, like auditing a blog with 5,000 posts or doing initial keyword research?
• How big is the team that’ll use the SEO tool?
• What type of organization is it (a marketing agency, affiliate marketing group, ecommerce shop, SaaS company, etc.)?

While each use case has its own set of needs, there are a few foundational characteristics we used to compile our best SEO tools list, including:

• User experience: Is the interface and workflow intuitive? Does the design help new users find what they need quickly?
• Value: Does the cost justify the software’s capability? Is it competitively priced versus similar tools?
• Feature/use-case fit: Does the tool have everything you’ll need to complete the task it’s built for?
• User feedback: Positive reviews and high ratings on sites like G2 and Capterra.

These SEO tools are either completely free or have a robust free tier with plenty of functionality.

1. Exploding Topics for SEO keyword trends

Exploding Topics is a neat little tool that helps you get in early on soon-to-be popular topics. The tool constantly scans the web, looking for increasing patterns of searches and mentions for any specific term.

Note that you can’t enter any old search term to see what’s trending. But you can choose from a bunch of topics that may be important to your brand.

The data doesn’t just come from search engines (although the software does “listen” to millions of searches). When you see a trending topic, it’s because it’s also been mentioned, commented on, and discussed all over the internet. That’s why this tool is good at exposing not just what people search for but also what they’ll likely search for in the near future.

There’s no cost to pop in anytime and see what’s trending for each category. The paid plans start at $39 and give you tracking, alerts, and detailed reports (like tracking specific product categories).

2. WordStream’s Free Keyword Tool for unlimited keyword research

One of the hardest parts of SEO is finding keywords with the right balance of search volume and low difficulty . Our Free Keyword Tool helps you overcome that hurdle by quickly surfacing a list of relevant keywords and the data you need to pick the best options.

I like to use it once I’ve brainstormed a list of seed keywords (terms I think people might search for). Just drop the word or phrase in the search bar, and you will get a list of related terms, plus their monthly search volumes and competition levels. It’s pretty easy to spot those high-volume, low-competition keyword unicorns.

The price of the tool is in the name. It’s always free for an unlimited number of searches.

3. Animalz Revive for refreshing SEO content

Over time, SEO blog posts often lose their ranking to new content. Revive , from the content marketing agency Animalz, locates these decaying assets on your blog.

The tool works by reviewing your Google Analytics (you have to give it access) to spot blog posts with a downward traffic trend. Once it’s finished, you’ll get an emailed report with a list of content that could rank and get more traffic once it’s refreshed.

The tool is free, but you do have to give up your email address to access it.

4. Similarweb for competitive SEO analysis

Similarweb gives you a sneak peek at the performance and ranking of any public website on the internet. Its free version is surprisingly comprehensive.

Enter a URL and scroll to see estimated traffic and engagement stats, site traffic demographics, traffic sources, and more. You can even compare two websites side-by-side.

I wouldn’t take Similarweb data as gospel. It pulls “digital signals” from millions of locations across the internet and creates statistically significant estimates. It’s excellent for directional insights, though. If five of my competitors show a lower bounce rate than the pages I’m working on, it’s a signal that I need to make some user experience improvements.

Basic website analysis is free on Similarweb. There are several data points, like top outgoing links and referral traffic sources, you’ll have to pay for.

5. LocaliQ’s Website Grader for free SEO audits

If you need a quick, easy-to-understand website audit, LocaliQ’s Free Website Grader will do the trick.

Even though it’s a free tool, you get a lot of information. For example, in your report you’ll see:

• Technical SEO: Site security, site speed, mobile optimization
• On-page SEO: Metadata, word count, alt text
• Off-page SEO: Links from other sources

It’s plenty enough to create a good checklist of SEO improvements.

Free reports are delivered by email, and you can run them as often as you like.

Many of the tools in this guide have some type of built-in AI functionality for SEO . But we found a few that stand out for their use of AI’s ability to process huge amounts of data and generate SEO insights.

6. Outranking for SEO outlines

There are loads of generative AI content tools out there now. What sets Outranking apart is that it’s focused on helping you create content that’ll rank well on search engines.

With a free account, you can input a search query, location, language, and title, and it will generate an SEO outline that you can customize. It’s really helpful if you regularly write content briefs for others to complete. Like any generative AI content tool, double-check the output and add your own voice.

Outranking pricing tiers start at $29 monthly for five new SEO documents and AI-assisted SEO optimization for existing content.

7. CanIRank for keyword competition

CanIRank is a personalized keyword difficulty tracker on steroids. It reviews your website’s existing SEO clout and then tells you if you can rank for specific keywords.

Here’s the real magic of CanIRank. It doesn’t just tell you which keywords to target; it leverages AI to give you specific steps to help your content rank higher.

CanIRank lets you review one website for free (plus get five keywords and SEO reports daily without paying). The paid plans for more websites and keyword reports start at $49/month.

8. Keyword Insights for keyword clustering

Keyword Insights is a paid keyword research tool that uses AI in two interesting ways. First, it uses algorithms and machine learning to locate clusters of topics from a single keyword.

Keyword clusters help you target multiple longtail keywords in a single post or a linked group of posts. Google sees your exhaustive coverage as topical authority on the subject and bumps you to the top of the SERPs for those related keywords.

Then, once you have a keyword cluster defined, Keyword Insights uses AI to generate a brief or outline based on the existing posts in the SERP plus data from Reddit, Quora, and People Also Ask boxes.

A note of warning here. Generative outline creators like Keyword Insights are a great way to create a base outline quickly. But to earn your spot on the SERPs, make sure you add something extra like personal experience, expert quotes, or another facet of the topic other SERP leaders don’t have.

Keyword Insights offers a four-day trial for $1. Monthly paid plans start at $58.

9. Diib for keyword and rank monitoring

Google SERPs are in constant flux. You can gain or lose page-one ranking for any given keyword in a day. Diib uses predictive AI to monitor all sorts of SEO vitals for your website, but the keyword tracking will keep you abreast of turbulent search pages.

With Diib, you can add high-priority keywords to a monitoring list. It’ll show you those at the top of your keyword reports and let you see their history of performance on the SERP. But the best part is that the tool will also notify you when your rankings change for those keywords. The heads-up lets you take action, like updating the page’s UX or adding new information.

The pricing provided to us was an initial $99 startup fee and $14.99 for each subsequent month.

🛑 Get the free Guide to AI in Marketing and learn the most effective ways to use AI (and the ways you shouldn’t be).

It’s cliche but true: Local SEO is critical for location-based businesses. 77% of people say they’ve used Google to find businesses like a coffee shop, dentist, or HVAC tech nearby. These tools are designed to ensure that you show up on SERPs when those people need you.

10. GeoRanker for location-specific SEO tracking

If your customers come from a specific geography, you need to know if your website ranks for relevant keywords in that location . GeoRanker has a feature that lets you track that.

Once you fill out the form, GeoRanker returns a report showing the position—in real-time—your website holds for your target keywords in the cities or countries you’ve picked. You can also see how your rankings have changed and learn where your competitors land on those SERPs.

The tool would be really handy for multi-location businesses , as it allows you to get data for each city you have a presence in.

GeoRanker also has a location-dependent SERP checker that shows the top 100 results for a keyword in different cities. For example, “coffee shop” will have different results in Chicago vs. Phoenix.

GeoRanker gives you limited access to its tools for free, with a monthly subscription plan starting at $99.

11. LocaliQ’s Free Business Listings Grader for directory audits

Online business directories like Yelp and Google Business Profiles are like the digital age’s answer to the Yellow Pages. If you want your local business found online, you need updated, correct information on your listings in those directories. LocaliQ’s Free Business Listings Grader lets you instantly verify your business listing on 20+ online directories.

The Listing Grader is very easy to use. Just enter your company’s name, street address, and postal code, and then the Grader will check it against what’s currently shown on apps like Waze, eLocal, and dozens of other locations. It’s a great way to check many business listings at once.

LocaliQ’s Listings Grader is free for an unlimited number of reports.

12. Yext for review monitoring

Reviews can directly affect how your business appears in local searches. Yext has several features to help you manage your online presence and reputation, but I really like its review management functionality for local SEO.

Using API integrations, Yext pulls reviews from all over the web and places them on your dashboard. From there, you can see how people rate your business and what they’ve written. You can also set up notifications so you always know when a new review comes in.

Besides monitoring reviews, Yext lets you respond to (via auto-responder or manually), request , and analyze reviews for their sentiment.

Yext pricing is on request.

If you succeed in SEO, then Google succeeds. So it’s created an impressive list of tools to help you research, optimize, and analyze all aspects of your website’s ability to rank. These three tools are free, so I’ve not included pricing information individually.

13. Search Console for technical SEO

Technical SEO sounds daunting (and it can be). But Google Search Console helps you track and visualize several aspects of your technical SEO, making it easier to understand and improve.

Here are a few ways you can use GSC to see which technical aspects of your website are hurting or helping your SEO:

• Confirm that Google’s crawlers are properly indexing your web pages
• Monitor and troubleshoot your Web Core Vitals or mobile usability issues
• Submit sitemaps
• See security issues

We wrote a guide explaining how to use Google Search Console for technical SEO.

14. Google Trends for timely keyword planning

Google Trends tells you how often a word or phrase is entered into Google relative to the total volume of searches over a set time. Essentially, it’s a real-time keyword popularity report.

On Search Trends, you won’t see the total number of searches for a keyword. Instead, you’ll see how the search volume changes over time, using the highest and lowest search volumes for context.

You can change the time period, region, and type of search (image, news, Google Shopping , etc.) to see how they affect the trend. You’ll also get a graphical representation of the region you’ve chosen (U.S., worldwide, etc.) that shows the relative searches in each subregion. You even get related terms to inform your keyword strategy.

This guide will help you use Google Trends to its fullest.

15. Google Analytics 4 for SEO performance tracking

Google Analytics 4 (GA4) is a platform that tracks how people arrive at and interact with pages on your website.

There’s an incredible amount of data that can be parsed in hundreds of ways on GA4. A few of the most valuable insights for SEO are:

• How much of the traffic to your site and individual pages comes from organic search
• Which blog posts and pages get the most traffic
• Which pages are losing traffic from search engines

GA4 is the latest iteration of Google’s analytics platform. Here are a few ways GA4 differs from Universal Analytics , its most recent predecessor.

If you have the budget, these SEO tools combine rich functionality with excellent user experience. While they all charge a fee, we’ve chosen those that provide the best bang for your buck.

16. Ahrefs for best overall functionality for the money

I’ve used Ahrefs for years for keyword research, rank tracking, competitor analysis, and several other essential SEO tasks. Ahrefs edges out its competition based on the value of what you get, especially for light to moderate SEO users.

I could write a few thousand words trying to cover all the tricks and tools embedded in Ahrefs’ platform. But for now, here are a few of the functions I use most often to give you a feel for what it can do for you:

• Site Explorer: Enter any website or webpage URL, and Ahrefs will tell you its ranking for specific keywords, how many backlinks it has, where they’re from, estimated traffic, and much more.
• Keywords Explorer: See search volume, difficulty, and which pages rank for any keyword.
• Competitive analysis: Get a list of keywords your website doesn’t rank for, but your competitors do.

Ahrefs pricing starts at $99 per month, with the $199-per-month Standard Plan being what most average users will likely need.

17. Semrush for hardcore SEOs

While Ahrefs is a good value for many SEOs, Semrush delivers more detailed and in-depth data in several areas, making it a better fit for highly technical users.

Take keyword research, for example. Semrush gives you search volume trends, Google PPC keyword data, keyword intent, and search volume and difficulty.

Ahrefs also shines in its technical SEO audit reporting and has a few more rank-tracking features.

Semrush pricing starts at $129.95 (just make it $130!) per month, and its mid-priced plan is $249.95 monthly.

18. Screaming Frog for finding common SEO issues

Screaming Frog works like Google Search Console in that it crawls (hops?) through your website, looking for things that might hurt its performance. The difference is in the issues Screaming Frog looks for and the insights it offers to fix them.

The learning curve for Screaming Frog is a little steep for non-technical SEOs. But if you’ve ever been involved in an SEO audit, it won’t take long to catch on. Once you do, you’ll quickly find things like broken links, problematic titles and meta tags, and incorrect redirects. You can also generate XML sitemaps and site visualizations.

A free version of Screaming Frog lets you crawl up to 500 URLs. The paid plan costs $249 per year and adds functionality like audit scheduling and a near-duplicate content checker. It also allows for unlimited URL crawls.

19. AnswerThePublic for topic ideation

AnswerThePublic is a content topic idea generator. It’s different from keyword research tools because it pulls ideas directly from Google’s drop-down, autocomplete queries (like when you enter “back pain” and Google suggests “…relief” and “…causes”). Then, it presents those keyword variations visually.

Once you’ve entered a root keyword, AnswerThePublic will tell you all the standard information about it, such as volume and the cost per click for search ads. Scroll through the report, and you’ll see a preposition report (keyword variations using “is,” “to,” “with,” and so on). Keep scrolling, and there’s a report that compares the cost-per-click and search volume for several related keywords.

AnswerThePublic has added Bing, TikTok, Amazon, and YouTube to the sites you can target for keyword research.

Once you register, you’ll get three keyword reports per day for free, although some of the data is withheld. Monthly paid plans start at $9, and a lifetime plan starts at $99.

The best SEO tools in 2024

Despite some rumors to the contrary, SEO remains one of the most valuable long-term marketing strategies for driving traffic and generating leads for your business.

But it continues to get more competitive. Manual keyword guessing and piecemeal SEO audits won’t put you in a great position to rank on SERPs. With the right SEO tools in your kit, you’ll punch way above your weight against much larger websites.

Here’s a recap of the best SEO tools available by use case:

• Exploding Topics for SEO keyword trends
• WordStream’s Free Keyword Tool for unlimited keyword research
• Animalz Revive for refreshing SEO content
• Similarweb for competitive SEO analysis
• LocaliQ’s Website Grader for free SEO audits
• Outranking for SEO outlines
• CanIRank for keyword competition
• Keyword insights for keyword clustering
• Diib for keyword and rank monitoring
• GeoRanker for location-specific SEO tracking
• LocaliQ’s Free Business Listings Grader for directory audits
• Yext for review monitoring
• Search Console for technical SEO
• Google Trends for timely keyword planning
• Google Analytics 4 for SEO performance tracking
• Ahrefs for best overall functionality for the money
• Semrush for hardcore SEOs
• Screaming Frog for finding common SEO issues
• AnswerThePublic for topic ideation

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Meet The Author

Rob is a Senior Copywriter for LocaliQ and WordStream where he uses his content marketing experience to write about all manner of advertising, sales, and adtech topics. When not turning phrases, Rob loves to travel, cook, and spend time outdoors (especially hiking and mountain biking) with his wife and dog.

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10 Best Keyword Research Tools of 2024 (Free and Paid)

Written by Ankit Singla

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by Ankit Singla

Finding the best keyword research tool doesn’t have to be complicated.

You just need to identify your goals, know your budget, and look for a listicle  that rounds up your best options and dissects their features.

If you’ve already done the first two steps, I can help you with the third.

But first, let’s have a quick word about the importance of keyword research.

Table of Contents

Why keyword research is important, best free keyword research tools, best paid keyword research tools.

Let me ask you something:

What is your current marketing goal?

Is it to establish a presence on social media? Generate sales through Pay-Per-Click  or PPC ads?

How about improving your website’s search engine rankings?

Guess what, none of those goals are possible without an effective keyword research strategy.

In the online world, keywords act as a bridge that connects users with the content they need — be it a display advertisement, a “how-to” article, or a YouTube video.

A query for the keyword “ weight loss ” on Google, for example, will lead them to the following results:

Simple, right?

Does that mean you only have to target popular keywords if you want online success?

The truth is, the most popular and profitable keywords in your niche probably aren’t viable to you.

That’s why you need to learn how to find keywords by expanding broad, highly-competitive terms into long-tail keyword variations, which I’ve discussed thoroughly in this post .

In a nutshell, a long-tail keyword contains three or more terms, making it more specific than broader head terms. As a result, they’re typically less competitive and easier to monetize for smaller brands.

What is the Best Keyword Research Tool?

In addition to generating long-tail suggestions, most keyword finder tools also provide indispensable metrics that can help you handpick feasible target keywords for your brand.

There are also bloggers who rely on keyword research to come up with blog post topics . After all, keyword research involves looking at the questions that users ask on the internet.

If that won’t help you come up with content ideas for your blog, I don’t know what will.

Despite their usefulness, not everyone is willing to shell out cash on a keyword research tool.

With that in mind, I decided to split this post into two categories: free and paid keyword research tools.

Also, I created a simple scoring system to help us determine how each of these tools rank among each other. Here’s an infographic that describes how the scoring system works:

Ready for the tools?

Buckle up and feel free to bookmark this post — it’s going to be lengthy.

Let’s start with the best free keyword research tools for bloggers on a budget:

1. Ubersuggest

Ubersuggest  is one of my all-time favorite keyword research tools, and it shouldn’t be hard to see why.

Upon loading the Ubersuggest page, you can start your keyword research right away. Just enter a domain URL or seed keyword, set your region preferences, and click ‘Search.’

Since we want to look at Ubersuggest’s keyword research capabilities, let’s say you entered the keyword “ build a blog. ”

After a few seconds, the tool should present you with an overview page with essential metrics, like the keyword’s average monthly search volume , SEO difficulty , and Cost-Per-Click  or CPC.

Now, for the actual long-tail keyword suggestions, use the menu on the left and click ‘Keyword Ideas.’ This should take you to a long list of keyword suggestions and related long-tail variations.

In my experience, Ubersuggest can easily generate hundreds  of useful long-tail keyword suggestions.

Moreover, it will display the top 99 pages on the Search Engine Results Page or SERP for your seed keyword along with their estimated traffic share.

Perhaps the most challenging aspect of keyword research is finding target keywords that match your needs.

Ubersuggest solves this with the “ push-button ” filter tool that pulls up keywords that contain specific terms or are within a specific range in terms of search volume, paid or SEO difficulty, and CPC.

I could go on and on about how to use Ubersuggest for PPC or SEO keyword research, but to keep things simple, allow me to rate the tools in this list according to six factors:

Usability: 5/5

What can I say? You don’t even need to create an account to use Ubersuggest.

The interface is also fast and has an intuitive layout, making it easy even for beginners to complete their research in minutes.

Suggestions: 3/5

For a free tool, the amount of keyword suggestions you can get with Ubersuggest is impressive, but it’s nothing to go crazy about.

Granted, Ubersuggest is capable of providing hundreds of keyword suggestions, but there are other tools capable of so much more.

Reporting: 2/5

As far as metrics go, Ubersuggest makes sure you don’t miss any important data even though it’s a free tool.

However, your keyword research data can only either be exported as a CSV file or copied to your clipboard.

Since you can’t create an Ubersuggest account, there’s no way to sort your keywords into lists, perform additional analysis, or save any information on the cloud for later use.

Filters: 3/5

Although Ubersuggest’s filter feature is perfectly adequate for most bloggers, I’d be hard-pressed to consider it as a strong point.

It simply doesn’t offer as much depth as the filter tools of other keyword research tools, including those included in this list.

My Favorite Feature: Domain Keywords Checker (5/5)

That’s right — the free pricing model isn’t actually my favorite aspect of Ubersuggest .

Recently, they rolled out the “ Traffic Analyzer ” feature that allows you to check the target keywords of any domain. This allows you to discover the target keywords of your competitors or the keywords that bring traffic to your website.

Worst Feature: Keyword Difficulty (-3)

Despite all the features that Ubersuggest brings to the table, I’m disappointed that both its SEO and paid keyword difficulty ratings are, as of writing this post, inaccurate.

Ubersuggest Recap: 15/25

If you’re looking for a free keyword generator, Ubersuggest is surely worth checking out. It’s one of the few free keyword research tools I’d personally use to fuel my content marketing campaigns.

→ Click here to experience Ubersuggest!

2. AnswerThePublic

If you plan to use keyword research for content research, I recommend AnswerThePublic  — a keyword research tool that consolidates “ autocomplete ” data from Google and Bing to visualize a “search cloud” and produce long-tail keyword suggestions.

Just like Ubersuggest, AnswerThePublic doesn’t require you to create an account to perform keyword research. You just have to plug in a seed keyword and click ‘Get Questions’ to get going.

The AnswerThePublic engine will generate search clouds that contain long-tail keyword ideas.

To help you understand what I’m talking about, let’s just jump into the “ Questions ” search cloud, which is found at the very top of the initial results page:

Basically, a search cloud is a map of long-tail keyword ideas that contain certain terms, like “WH” question words, prepositions, and other conjunctions.

In the example above, you can see that your target keyword is preceded by question words — namely who, why, where, when, which, will, what, can, are, and how . These reflect queries that users search for on Google or Bing.

If you find it difficult to look for keywords using search cloud visualizations, try switching to the ‘Data’ tab.

From there, you can convert each data card into their own search clouds by clicking ‘Image.’ Doing so will show you a clearer view of the long-tail keyword ideas.

Also, take note that keywords with brighter green dots are more popular and tend to be more competitive than the rest.

Usability-wise, AnswerThePublic passes with flying colors.

It is a free tool that makes do without a cumbersome account creation process. More importantly, it only takes AnswerThePublic mere seconds to turn seed keywords into hundreds of keyword ideas.

Don’t get me wrong: it’s nice that AnswerThePublic instills context to long-tail keywords and gives you a clear idea about the user intent. However, it usually yields fewer suggestions than other keyword research tools.

Reporting: 1/5

While I’ll recommend AnswerThePublic for bloggers in need of topic ideas, it falls short in the reporting department.

It’s true that you can download keywords as a CSV file with one click, but there’s absolutely no metrics to be found in the tool. As a word of advice, always use AnswerThePublic in combination with another keyword research tool for the sake of getting metrics.

On the bright side, keyword suggestions from AnswerThePublic are already filtered from the get-go.

You can find questions, comparisons, and other related queries — all neatly organized in their own search clouds.

But then again, there are no metrics to use filters with. And for that particular reason, there’s no way I’m giving this tool a score higher than three.

My Favorite Feature: Search Clouds (5/5)

To be honest, the search cloud visualizations are the only reason why AnswerThePublic makes this list.

You just enter a seed keyword, download the search cloud images, and you’re practically done. I guarantee that over 90 percent of the suggestions can be used as blog topics, which is what the tool is really designed for.

Worst Feature: Zero Metrics (-3)

The fact that AnswerThePublic doesn’t measure important keyword metrics is a huge deal-breaker for me.

To be fair, AnswerThePublic was intended by developers to help generate web content ideas. I just think the tool will be much better in doing its job if it also tracks metrics, like monthly search volumes, keyword competitiveness, and so on.

AnswerThePublic Recap: 14/25

AnswerThePublic may lack reporting features that every keyword research tool should have. Still, its effectiveness in content idea generation is a must-have in every busy blogger’s workflow.

→ Click here to experience AnswerThePublic!

3. Google Keyword Planner

Before you came here, I’m willing to bet you’re already familiar with Google AdWords Keyword Planner .

Although it’s not a standalone solution, Keyword Planner is a trusted keyword research tool in the industry.

Of course, being a Google product helps amass a large user base. But what marketers really like about it is the sheer number of long-tail keyword suggestions you can obtain — 100% free.

There are two ways to use Keyword Planner: finding new keyword opportunities and viewing search volume plus other metrics for your current keywords.

To use Keyword Planner for keyword research, go ahead and select ‘Find new keywords,’ You will then be prompted to enter seed keywords or the URL of any relevant page.

It shouldn’t take long for Keyword Planner to find hundreds of keyword ideas at your disposal, including important metrics like average monthly searches, competitiveness rating, and average CPC bids.

With such a large list, you’ll need a handy grouping or filtering feature in place to find potential keywords from the bunch. Luckily, both features are well-implemented in Keyword Planner.

On the left menu, navigate to ‘Grouped ideas’ to sort your keywords according to certain themes.

For instance, Keyword Planner organizes the suggestions for “build a blog” into groups like “Making Sites,” “New Blog,” “Successful Blog,” and “Best Way” — common content angles for the keyword.

You may also use Keyword Planner’s range of filter options to find the exact keywords you need. This can be done on either the “ Keyword ideas ” or “ Grouped ideas ” page.

If you plan to use keywords for a PPC campaign, the next step is to select the keywords you want to target and click ‘Add Keywords’ on the blue menu that appears. Just be sure to select “Add to plan” from the first drop-down menu for a forecast on how well it could perform.

This will add the selected keywords to the “Forecasts” page, which can be accessed by going to the ‘Keywords’ tab.

Keyword Planner will leverage historical data to project the results of your would-be PPC campaign using your keywords.

Speaking of Google keyword research tools, you can also use the Search Console  to view keywords your site is already ranking for.

Remember, SEO can take a painfully long time before it can produce profitable results. By targeting keywords you’re already ranking for, it should be easier for you to snag any of the top three spots where most of the traffic go to.

You can view these keywords on Google Search Console by navigating to the ‘Performance’ page and scrolling down to the “Queries” list.

Usability: 3/5

Look — everybody loves the AdWords Keyword Planner. But before you can use the tool, you need to set up an AdWords account.

The Keyword Planner interface also isn’t exactly among the user-friendliest. Still, beginners should have no problem getting what they need from the tool.

Suggestions: 5/5

Keyword Planner is more than capable of providing you with truckloads of keyword ideas for SEO or PPC. The tool’s ability to automatically group similar keywords is also a nice touch.

Want to know the most feature other keyword research tools are touting?

“More accurate metrics than AdWords Keyword Planner.”

However, if you plan to run a PPC campaign, then Keyword Planner’s forecasting tool is indeed a silver lining.

Filters: 4/5

If you’re looking for a keyword research tool with the most elaborate filtering feature, Keyword Planner definitely comes close. You can sort keywords according to competitiveness, search traffic, organic impressions share, and more.

Keyword Planner is also one of the few tools that can weed out “ adult keywords ” right off the bat.

My Favorite Feature: Forecasts (4/5)

Before you launch a PPC campaign, you should always look at Keyword Planner’s forecasts. That’s how important this feature is — in my opinion.

Worst Feature: Inaccurate Metrics (-3)

If you need to look for target keywords you can realistically compete in, you need a lot more than just “ low, ” “ medium, ” or “ high ” competitiveness ratings.

Keyword Planner’s absurd search volume ranges also offer very little value to bloggers who need to balance keyword competitiveness and profitability.

AdWords Keyword Planner Recap: 15/25

Even though I use an assortment of keyword research tools for various projects, I still come back to Keyword Planner every time for Google suggestions, especially if I need forecasts for PPC keywords. The Search Console also helps me find keyword ranking opportunities that I’m more likely to succeed with.

→ Click here to experience GKP!

4. Keyword Tool

Another well-known tool in the keyword research space is KeywordTool.io .

At first look, it may resemble the vast majority keyword research tools in the market — until you notice that you can also use it to find keywords for YouTube, Amazon, Play Store, and other websites by switching to a different tab.

KeywordTool.io can help you find long-tail keyword ideas by scraping Google Autocomplete suggestions — identical to how AnswerThePublic works.

The main difference is, instead of visualizing keyword results into search clouds, KeywordTool.io presents them using the traditional, list view.

You can also sieve out results that are either questions or have prepositions. This is always an excellent way to diversify your keyword pool, find more ranking opportunities, and whip up some more content ideas.

Switching to any of the tabs above the search bar also creates new keyword lists for that particular site.

For example, if you click ‘YouTube,’  KeywordTool.io will immediately refresh the results page with keywords that are used for video searches on said platform.

What’s that — you’re looking for metrics?

KeywordTool.io has them, namely each keyword’s average search volume, CPC, competitiveness rating, and traffic trend over the past 12 months.

The catch is, these are all locked away behind a paywall that requires a minimum of $89 per month.

Usability: 4/5

I don’t have any complaints with KeywordTool.io’s web interface. It’s actually really responsive compared to other, more heavy-duty keyword research tools.

The only reason why I didn’t give it a perfect score is the overpromotion of their “Pro” plan — understandable, but they really don’t need to show users three reminders on the keyword results page.

Suggestions: 4/5

Compared to other keyword research tools, the number of keywords you can get with KeywordTool.io doesn’t really stand out. But what it lacks in volume, it makes up for in variety.

KeywordTool.io deserves a pat on the back for being able to find suitable keywords for YouTube, Instagram, Google Play Store, Twitter, eBay, Amazon, and Bing.

Reporting: 3/5

Don’t get me wrong — I think KeywordTool.io Pro measures a decent set of metrics. Unfortunately, it’s not hard to find alternatives with way more features at that price point.

Filters: 2/5

KeywordTool.io lets you include or exclude keywords that contain specific terms. You can also sort keywords in an ascending or descending order — that’s about it.

My Favorite Feature: Keywords for Different Sites (4/5)

The vast majority of SEO campaigns may focus on Google, but that doesn’t mean other search engines and web services are completely neglected.

KeywordToo.io can supply you with the keywords you need to gain a foothold in these markets.

Worst Feature: Overly Promotional (-2)

It would be unfair to consider KeywordTool.io’s paywall as a negative aspect since we’ll also talk about paid tools later. Regardless, that doesn’t make it acceptable to present users with three ads on one page.

Keyword Tool Recap: (15/25)

KeywordTool.io may fit the bill if you’re looking a free keyword research tool. But in order to make the most out of it, you have to pay for the paid “Pro” version.

→ Click here to experience KeywordTool!

Being able to perform keyword research for free can be tempting for new bloggers. But, in turn, you’ll miss out on the benefits of purchasing premium solutions.

If you have the funds for a paid tool, here are your best options:

5. SEMrush Keyword Magic Tool

First and foremost, SEMrush is not positioned solely for keyword research. Rather, it’s a full-blown SEO and digital marketing analytics platform that happens to have a pretty powerful keyword research tool baked in.

To use it, log in to your SEMrush account and select ‘Keyword Magic Tool’ under the “ Keyword Analytics ” sub-menu or simply click here.

This brings up the familiar keyword research interface where you enter a seed keyword and get things going.

Just give the Keyword Magic Tool a couple of seconds to bring in long-tail suggestions. It shouldn’t take long before you see hundreds of keyword results and a complete set of valuable metrics.

As expected from a premium tool, the Keyword Magic Tool features advanced filter options that allow you to zero in on the keywords you need.

You can also comb through the results to find broad matches, exact matches, phrase matches, and related keywords in a snap.

If filters don’t do the job of helping you choose the right target keywords, you can use SEMrush’s “ Keyword Difficulty ” tool to make side-by-side comparisons.

Just click ‘Keyword Difficulty’ under “Keyword Analytics” and enter the keywords you want to compare.

Upon clicking ‘Show Difficulty,’ SEMrush should display a table with each keyword’s difficulty rating, average search volume, and any features implemented in SERPs — from featured videos to site links.

Despite being housed in a comprehensive SEO and marketing analytics platform, the keyword research features of SEMrush are easy to learn and use. The features aren’t as clear-cut as other tools, but anyone should pick them up after a few minutes of use.

For me, the Keyword Magic Tool has consistently raked in tons of keyword suggestions whenever I use it. There may be times when other tools offered more suggestions, but SEMrush is never far behind.

Reporting: 5/5

SEMrush lives up to its title as a marketing analytics platform with the sheer amount of keyword data you can get. The Keyword Difficulty tool also gives conclusive insights on which long-tail keyword variations should be targeted.

When it comes to keyword filters, SEMrush is on par with the AdWords Keyword Planner. Apart from the standard options like search volume, keyword difficulty, and CPC, both tools also let you filter results based on match types.

My Favorite Feature: Keyword Difficulty Tool Comparisons (5/5)

The Keyword Difficulty tool lets you pit potential target keywords against each other so you can decide which is more profitable — enough said.

Worst Feature: Bundled as a Package (-2)

Instead of paying for a SEMrush subscription, I wish there’s a way to purchase its keyword analytics toolkit separately. But at the end of the day, SEMrush is built as an all-in-one solution for website owners with big needs.

SEMrush Recap: 21/25

If you can afford SEMrush and have a use for the rest of its analytics features, go for it. The only reason to hold off on your purchase is if you only need a simple keyword research tool — not a fully-equipped SEO or marketing analytics platform.

You can learn more about SEMrush by reading my full review here .

→ Click here to experience SEMrush with a 30-day Trial!

If you see me talk about SEMrush, don’t be surprised if I eventually bring up Ahrefs .

These platforms are often compared in software reviews — thanks to their identical set of features.

Before we look at its keyword research functionalities, it’s worth noting that the Ahrefs “ Keywords Explorer ” recently received a makeover.

It can now scrape keyword suggestions for YouTube, Amazon, Yandex, and a handful of foreign search engines.

As for the results, Keywords Explorer implements a card-based approach. This makes every bit of information more presentable, readable, and easy to find.

The keyword suggestions are also sorted into four categories: “ Having same terms ,” “ Questions ,” “ Also rank for ,” and “ Newly discovered ” — all of which are rather self-explanatory.

Scrolling further down, you’ll find SERP data for the seed keyword you entered. You can refer to the position history chart to determine how pages rank over time or look at the SERP overview to have an idea of what it takes to compete.

Going back to the keyword suggestions, clicking ‘View all’ below each keyword list to view metrics and access your filter options. You may also select keywords one by one to update, export, copy, or add them to a list.

The user experience on the Ahrefs Keywords Explorer is slightly better than on SEMrush’s Keyword Magic Tool. It simply has a more organized layout, which, in turn, makes keyword data more readable.

If you were paying attention to the screenshots, you’ll notice that Ahrefs yielded more keyword suggestions than SEMrush or any of the aforementioned tools — not to mention that Keywords Explorer also generates keyword ideas for a bunch of search engines apart from Google.

Reporting: 4/5

Why am I giving Ahrefs a lower score than SEMrush for the reporting aspect? Three words:  Keyword Difficulty tool.

Filters: 5/5

Ahrefs has all the keyword filter options you’ll ever need for research. It can also filter keywords according to “ Return Rate, ” which measures the likelihood of users to search for the same keyword within a 30-day period.

My Favorite Feature: Foreign Search Engines (3/5)

Maybe you run a multilingual website or target users who prefer a different, non-English search engine. In any case, Ahrefs can help you find keywords for those services, unlike most keyword research tools that are locked to Google.

But since it’s probably a non-issue for most English-speaking bloggers, I think it’s only worth three points out of five.

You probably saw this coming.

It’s the same story with SEMrush’s keyword research features. If you want to use Keywords Explorer, you’ll have to cough up the money for a monthly Ahrefs subscription.

Ahrefs Recap: 20/25

Ahrefs is closer to SEMrush than any other tool — not just for keyword research, but for everything else as well.

I recommend signing up for the free trials of both SEMrush and Ahrefs to decide for yourself.

→ Click here to experience Ahrefs!

7. KWFinder

We now have two heavy-hitters on this list — namely SEMrush and Ahrefs.

Let’s dial it down a bit and go for a lean, straightforward keyword research tool.

KWFinder  may resemble the Ubersuggest start page. The main difference is that, with KWFinder, you can also search for question-based phrases as well as Google Autocomplete suggestions.

I only had to use KWFinder once to realize that it’s basically Ubersuggest on steroids. Not only are there more keyword data loaded on one page, the metrics themselves are also more accurate.

KWFinder also enables the creation of keyword lists — a much-needed feature that a free tool like Ubersuggest can’t and doesn’t provide.

To use lists, tick the checkboxes to the left of the desired keywords and click ‘Add to list.’ You’ll be asked to create a new list if you haven’t made one yet.

KWFinder is as to-the-point as you can get with keyword research tools. All the information you need — from keyword suggestions to your lists — are always within two clicks away.

For search engine keywords, KWFinder’s results are comparable to that of Ubersuggest, but it’s a tad more extensive. It may not give you the most keyword suggestion, but its ability to find questions and Autocomplete suggestions have earned it extra points.

As a paid keyword research software, you’d expect KWFinder’s reporting features to be significantly better than a free tool like Ubersuggest.

Sadly, that isn’t the case. Search volumes, average CPC, keyword difficulty, CSV reports — all of these elements are already obtainable via Ubersuggest.

KWFinder does deserve credit for allowing you to save keyword lists and view your account’s keyword search history.

As with the rest of the KWFinder-Ubersuggest comparisons I’ve made in this section, their keyword filter options are also similar with only three minor differences:

First, KWFinder lets you find keywords within a certain word count range, Ubersuggest does not.

Second, KWFinder lets you hide keywords that are already on your lists, Ubersuggest does not.

And third, KWFinder charges you a minimum of $29 per month to access these filters, whereas Ubersuggest remains free.

My Favorite Feature: Interest Over Time Graph (4/5)

I like to look at my keywords as long-term investments.

Before I build content around them, I want to ascertain that they’ll remain relevant over time. And that is why I think KWFinder’s “Interest Over Time” tracker makes it worthy of your purchase.

You can see more of KWFinder in action by reading this post .

Worst Feature: Only 200 Related Keywords for the Basic Plan (-3)

For some reason, the KWFinder developers decided to limit the number of related keyword suggestions their entry-level users can get to only 200. That’s why I advise against buying their “Basic” plan and spend the extra $10 for up to 700 keyword suggestions.

KWFinder Recap: 16/25

If you’re willing to spend money on a more reliable and robust version of Ubersuggest, then KWFinder is indeed worth picking up.

→ Click here to experience KWFinder!

8. Serpstat

I know my readers — a lot of you already make money and would like to continue growing your blog.

That said, I’ll present you with another platform that does a lot more than just keyword research.

Serpstat  is a flexible marketing platform that can help you with keyword research, content marketing, SEO, and PPC. From the homepage, you only need a keyword, domain, or page URL to fire up the tool.

Once you have any of these, click ‘Search.’

If you entered a keyword, Serpstat will show you the usual — the keyword’s average search volume, a competitiveness score, the projected keyword difficulty rating, and a list of long-tail keyword variations for both SEO and PPC.

But where’s the fun exploring features that are fairly similar to what we’ve covered so far?

Suppose you have a competitor whom you’re struggling to outperform in search rankings. Wouldn’t it be great if you can skip the number-crunching and just look at the keywords that work for them?

With Serpstat, you can.

Just enter your competitor’s domain address or their top post’s URL and you’re golden.

You can also do this with Ahrefs, SEMrush, and the majority of marketing and SEO analytics platforms out there.

If that’s not enough, you can also go to ‘Search Questions’ under the “Keyword Research” sub-menu, enter a keyword, and find search user questions that can fuel your content strategy.

I’d also like to point out that Serpstat’s keyword filters are quite remarkable.

Aside from filtering keywords based using search volume, CPC, word count, and so on, you can also combine multiple filters for a more refined set of keywords.

For example, if you want to find keywords that have a search volume of 1,000 to 5,000, but don’t want to leave out misspelled keywords, you need to combine two filters with ‘Or’ connector.

I rarely recommend tools that are hard for my readers to learn and use.

Serpstat is no exception. The interface is clean, well-laid-out, and runs like butter.

Serpstat doesn’t offer as many long-tail keyword ideas as Ahrefs, but it’s commendable that they segregated keywords for organic and paid campaigns.

From a keyword research perspective, Serpstat’s reporting capabilities are undoubtedly among the best. Sure, it doesn’t have the Keyword Difficulty tool that SEMrush has, it does have unique reporting features.

For example, Serpstat can give you a list of your competitors for your seed keyword in PPC advertising. You can even get a preview of their ads — a great way to get your feet wet in PPC if you haven’t tried it before.

Not a lot of keyword research tools can utilize compound filters like Serpstat. And for that, it deserves a perfect score.

My Favorite Feature: Combined Filters (4/5)

I may sound like a broken record, but Serpstat’s filters are clearly on a league of their own. It’s not exactly a game changer, but it’s still a huge time-saver for keyword research.

Worst Feature: Only 100 Results Per Report (-4)

If you think KWFinder’s 200-keyword limit for the base subscription plan is too much, you should know that Serpstat caps all reports — not just keyword research — to only 100 results for the cheapest plan. The next pricing option, which gets a huge increase of up to 15,000 results per report, costs $50 more.

Serpstat Recap: 17/25

Let’s face it — the only problem with Serpstat is the base version’s limitations. On the other hand, it can potentially give you more keyword results for less compared to Ahrefs and SEMrush, which generates only up to 10,000 results per report for $99 and $99.95, respectively.

→ Click here to experience Serpstat!

Now that we’re comparing tools that unveil competitor keywords, it might be a good time to introduce SpyFu  — an analytics tool engineered to help you spy on your competitors.

Unlike most tools that work by expanding seed keywords, SpyFu focuses on helping you grab the target keywords of your competitors.

As such, the tool can only be used by entering the domain of your top competitor.

You can also use their brand name and let SpyFu automatically determine their address. However, the report you’ll get will be centered on their domain’s AdWords and SEO performance.

If you chose to enter a domain, as you should, SpyFu will grant you a bird’s-eye view of your competitor’s keyword strategy.

Some of the data you’ll find include the distribution of their traffic between organic and paid channels, the number of organic keywords they have, and an estimate of their monthly organic clicks.

In the example below, we can conclude that our friends at Grammarly heavily prioritize SEO and content marketing over PPC.

SpyFu also hauls in a couple of unique reports on the overview page.

I find the “ Competitor Shared Keywords ” report to be intriguing, as it shows diagrams that lets you discover the shared organic and paid keywords between two to three competitors.

Digging deeper, you can spy on your competitor’s target keywords in both paid and organic listings under the “ Top Keywords ” section.

This is where you’ll come across SpyFu’s weak point — the filters.

For competitor keywords, you may only sort the results based on factors like the competitor’s rank losses, page one positions, and rank gains for the keywords. Also, you can create a filter that only includes keywords with a specific term.

For related keywords, you get a mish-mash of filter options that only make the page look cluttered, which is weird since they do let users specify custom ranges — they should’ve just displayed those and got it over with.

SpyFu is not the easiest tool to use, but it certainly won’t take you hours to figure everything out.

Just be mindful that they implement a “ traditional ” interface where menus are found at the very top of the page. Whenever you want to go to another page, you have to scroll all the way up, making the overall experience slightly slower.

For SpyFu, it’s not just about the number of keywords you get — it’s also about the quality and effectiveness of those keywords in SEO or PPC.

Naturally, the volume of keyword suggestions you get depends on the website you’re trying to investigate. If you try to check out the keywords of a big-name brand, I guarantee that SpyFu can step up to the plate and give you tens of thousands  of keywords if needed.

SpyFu’s overview page alone is crammed with keyword data and insights that would otherwise be invisible using other tools. You could even find keywords that multiple competitors are targeting or generate white label reports — just in case your blog is run by a team.

While SpyFu is incredible in terms of usability, keyword suggestions, and reports, I really hope their filters were better.

My Favorite Feature: Most Valuable Keywords (4/5)

The thing about SpyFu is that it doesn’t want to be stuck spending hours in keyword research. Instead, it encourages you to spy on your competitors and leverage the keywords that already work for them.

On the overview page, there are actually four categories you can use to harvest these keywords: newly ranked keywords, page one keywords, “almost there” keywords, and most valuable keywords.

Worst Feature: Paid Keywords May Return Zero Results (-2)

Although the SpyFu team tracks millions of keywords, the tool sometimes yields zero paid search keywords in some sites. This may be because they don’t have an active PPC campaign, they only target a local audience, or they only use “unique keywords” that no other brand would optimize for.

SpyFu also won’t be able to track PPC keywords if your competitor only started advertising in less than a month.

SpyFu Recap: 19/25

If you’ve been trying to surpass a close competitor in SERPs, SpyFu can help you formulate a strategy using their own SEO keywords.

SpyFu can also give you visibility over a competitor’s backlink profile and AdWords tactics — not really the features you’d look for in a keyword research tool, but they’re still advantageous, nonetheless.

→ Click here to experience SpyFu!

10. Keyword Revealer

Finally, let me wrap up this post with another lightweight tool called Keyword Revealer .

Using the tool, the first thing I noticed is there are only two items present from the main menu: “Keyword Research” and “Keyword Brainstorming.”

By going to  ‘Keyword Research,’ you can perform what you should know by now as the standard way of doing keyword research. You simply enter a seed keyword, fiddle with the region or language options if you must, and then click ‘Search.’

Average monthly searches, CPC, competitiveness — all the metrics you care about regarding keywords are there. Keyword Revealer even chips in an estimate of your monthly profits for each keyword should you use them in your PPC campaign.

Keyword Revealer’s filters aren’t too shabby, either. They’re not outstanding by any means, but they should be enough to help you find the keywords you need.

Same old stuff, right?

Things get a bit more interesting once you try out Keyword Revealer’s “brainstorming” tool.

Remember AnswerThePublic’s search clouds? Well, that perfectly sums up what the brainstorming tool does.

Keyword Revealer does an excellent job of keeping keyword research simple. You launch the tool, put in a seed keyword, extract long-tail variations, and export the results.

Let’s get one thing straight: you won’t get heaps of keywords with Keyword Revealer. It does, however, allow for unlimited keyword results even with the cheapest plan.

You don’t need to be a marketing expert to understand that Keyword Revealer’s “profit” metric won’t actually reflect the income you’ll get using a keyword for PPC. Nevertheless, the developers have earned a high score for implementing something unique.

As I said, Keyword Revealer’s filters are nothing special. They get the job done, but functionality-wise, they equal the filter options of free tools like Ubersuggest.

My Favorite Feature: The Price (3/5)

Keyword Revealer is may be one of the most affordable keyword research tools to date.

You get unlimited keyword ideas for only $7.50 per month. If that doesn’t get my cost-conscious readers excited, I don’t know what will.

Worst Feature: Can’t Check Domains (-2)

As a paid tool, I expected Keyword Revealer to be capable of some domain analysis, which is a feature that even free tools like Ubersuggest have. I won’t penalize it by much, though, since they never advertised such a feature.

Keyword Revealer Recap: 17/25

Keyword Revealer is a reliable tool that veered away from any advanced feature that could only overcomplicate keyword research. It’s a no-nonsense tool backed by the potential to generate unlimited keyword suggestions. For more details, consider reading this detailed review .

→ Click here to experience Keyword Revealer!

Done picking the next keyword research tool you’ll use?

If not, here’s another look at the scoreboard:

• SEMrush (21/25 points)
• Ahrefs (20/25 points)
• Spyfu (19/25 points)

Above Average

• Keyword Revealer (17/25 points)
• SerpStat (17/25 points)
• KWFinder (16/25 points)

Great Places to Start

• Ubersuggest (15/25 points)
• Google Keyword Planner (15/25 points)
• KeywordTool.io (15/25 points)
• AnswerThePublic (14/25 points)

I hope you enjoyed this exhaustive comparison of my top 10 keyword research tools of all time.

Based on what you’ve learned, what keyword research tool will you choose?

I know each blogger has their own preferences and needs. That’s why I’m asking you to share your thoughts in the comments below — foster our community of aspiring Master Bloggers with me!

Looking forward to hearing from you.

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Disclosure: This article includes affiliate links. If you purchase through these links, we may earn a commission at no additional cost to you. Thank you for supporting us.

Ankit Singla

Ankit Singla is a full-time blogger, YouTuber, author, and public speaker. He founded and leads Master Blogging . With over 13 years of blogging expertise, he has assisted numerous aspiring bloggers in achieving their dreams of creating successful blogs.

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How to Do Keyword Research for SEO: A Beginner's Guide

Published: April 04, 2024

While Google keeps us on our toes with all the algorithm updates they keep rollin' out, one thing has stayed pretty consistent for inbound marketers looking to optimize their websites for search: keyword research.

In this post, we’ll define what keyword research is, why it’s important, how to conduct your research for your SEO strategy, and choose the right keywords for your website.

Table of Contents

What is keyword research?

Why is keyword research important, elements of keyword research, how to research keywords for your seo strategy, how to find and choose keywords for your website.

Keyword research is the process of finding and analyzing search terms that people enter into search engines with the goal of using that data for a specific purpose, often for search engine optimization (SEO) or general marketing. Keyword research can uncover queries to target, the popularity of these queries, their ranking difficulty, and more.

Keyword research helps you find which keywords are best to target and provides valuable insight into the queries that your target audience is actually searching on Google.

Insights from these actual search terms can help inform your content strategy as well as your larger marketing strategy.

People use keywords to find solutions when conducting research online.

So if your content is successful in getting in front of your audience as they conduct searches, you stand to gain more traffic. Therefore, you should be targeting those searches with content that features those keywords in a meaningful way.

Additionally, inbound methodology focuses less on creating content around what we want to tell people. Instead, we should be creating content around what people want to discover.

In other words, our audience is coming to us for helpful content that provides the answers they’re looking for.

In a nutshell, all of this starts with keyword research.

Conducting keyword research has many benefits, the most popular being:

Marketing Trend Insight

Conducting effective keyword research can provide you with insights into current marketing trends and help you center your content on relevant topics and keywords your audience is in search of.

Traffic Growth

When you identify the best-fitting keywords for the content you publish, the higher you’ll rank in search engine results — the more traffic you’ll attract to your website.

Customer Acquisition

If your business has content that other business professionals are looking for, you can meet their needs and provide them with a call-to-action that will lead them into the buyer journey from the awareness stage to the point of purchase.

By researching keywords for their popularity, search volume, and general intent, you can tackle the questions that most people in your audience want answers to.

Keywords vs. Topics

More and more, we hear how much SEO has evolved over just the last 10 years and how seemingly unimportant keywords have transformed our ability to rank well for the searches people make every day.

And to some extent, this is true, but in the eyes of an SEO professional, it’s a different approach. Rather, it’s the intent behind that keyword and whether or not a piece of content solves for that intent (we’ll talk more about intent in just a minute).

But that doesn’t mean keyword research is an outdated process. Let me explain:

Keyword research tells you what topics people care about and, assuming you use the right SEO tool, how popular those topics actually are among your audience.

The operative term here is topics, plural. By researching keywords that are getting a high volume of searches per month, you can identify and sort your content into topics or buckets that you want to create content on.

Then, you can use these topics to dictate which keywords you look for and target.

Keyword Research Template

Build your SEO strategy with this free template.

• Search Volume
• Keyword Difficulty

You're all set!

Click this link to access this resource at any time.

There are three main elements I have discovered that you should pay attention to when conducting keyword research.

1. Relevance

Google ranks content for relevance.

This is where the concept of search intent comes in. Your content will only rank for a keyword if it meets the searchers’ needs.

In addition, your content must be the best resource out there for the query. After all, why would Google rank your content higher if it provides less value than other content that exists on the web?

2. Authority

Google will provide more weight to sources it deems authoritative.

That means you must do all you can to become an authoritative source by enriching your site with helpful, informative content and promoting that content to earn social signals and backlinks.

If you’re not seen as authoritative in the space, or if a keyword’s SERPs are loaded with heavy sources you can’t compete with (like Forbes or The Mayo Clinic), you have a lower chance of ranking unless your content is exceptional.

You may end up ranking on the first page for a specific keyword, but if no one ever searches for it, it will not result in traffic to your site. It's like setting up a shop in a ghost town.

Volume is measured by MSV (monthly search volume), which means the number of times the keyword is searched per month across all audiences.

• Make a list of important, relevant topics based on what you know about your business.
• Fill in those topic buckets with keywords.
• Understand how intent affects keyword research and analyze accordingly.
• Research related search terms.
• Use keyword research tools to your advantage.

I’m going to lay out a keyword research process you can follow to help you come up with a list of terms you should be targeting.

That way, you’ll be able to establish and execute a strong keyword strategy that helps you get found for the search terms you actually care about.

Step 1. Make a list of important, relevant topics based on what you know about your business.

To kick off this process, think about the topics you want to rank for in terms of generic buckets.

You’ll come up with about five to 10 topic buckets you think are important to your business, and then you’ll use those topic buckets to help come up with some specific keywords later in the process.

If you’re a regular blogger, these are probably the topics you blog about most frequently. Or perhaps they’re the topics that come up the most in sales conversations.

Put yourself in the shoes of your buyer personas . What types of topics would your target audience search that you’d want your business to get found for?

Don't forget to share this post!

Related articles.

The 12 Best Keyword Research Tools to Find the Right Keywords for SEO

Finding the Best Search Terms for Your Business: 10 Tools and Tips

6 Ways That Nonprofits Can Improve Their Keyword Research

How to Figure Out What Keywords Your Potential Customers are Using

The Definition of a Long-Tail Keyword [In Under 100 Words]

Keyword Research 101: How to Discover New Keywords for Your Business

How to Use Keyword Tools to Brainstorm Blog Topics [Quick Tip]

Is 2013 the Year Marketers Lose Keyword Research?

7 Keyword Research Mistakes That Stifle Your SEO Strategy

How to Identify Long-Tail Keywords to Fuel Your PPC Strategy

Discover opportunity for growth in your keyword strategy with this easy-to-use template.

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