14 Keyword Research Tools for SEO and PPC, Free and Paid

The nine top tools for conducting keyword research for the content of your website are covered in this post. But before we begin, let’s quickly go over two crucial factors to take into account when conducting your research: relevance and location.

Relevance of Keywords

When selecting the best keywords for SEO, relevance is the most crucial consideration. Why? Because it’s preferable to be more specific.

Because there’s a good chance that someone searching for “fiberglass in-ground pool installation” is looking for information on installation or someone to perform the installation, it’s likely that you’d attract more qualified prospects by targeting a keyword such as “fiberglass in-ground pool installation rather than “swimming pools, and you might be that!

Yes, it makes sense to optimize for “swimming pools”. But it’s undeniable that this keyword will draw in a far more broad audience, one that might not be interested in what you have to offer. Instead, focus on long-tail, important keywords.

Location-based keywords

Location-based searches are a significant consideration when optimizing for the proper keywords. Users of search engines typically add their location while seeking SEO services for businesses in their particular area. In this case, “fiberglass in-ground pool installation” is now “fiberglass in-ground pool installation in Boston, MA.”

Since visitors from other Location won’t be of much use to you if you just operate in one, you might want to think about including location-based keywords on all of your pages. If your company has multiple geographic areas, it is also a smart idea to establish a unique web page for each one so you can make sure your brand is seen when customers are looking for specific locations.

Now, how do you pick the appropriate keywords for your company? Guessing is definitely not a good idea, for obvious reasons. In contrast, there are numerous techniques to do research and identify long-tail keywords that are appropriate for your company.

Here are 14 amazing paid and free keyword research tools that you can use to find powerful long-tail keywords for your SEO campaign with ease and speed.

Tools for Free Keyword Research

• Google Keyword Planner
• Google Trends
• Keyword Tool.io
• Keyword Everywhere
• Answer the public

Tools for Free Keyword Research

Google Keyword Planner

The free Google Ads tool called Keyword Planner is a terrific place to start, especially if you use Google Ads for some of your campaigns. Google provides a few other tools that make it simple to conduct keyword research. (Note: Setting up a Google Ads account is required in order to utilize Keyword Planner, but you are not required to make an ad.)

When you enter a keyword, many keywords, or even your website address into the Keyword Planner, Google will provide a list of similar keywords as well as some basic stats to determine how competitive each keyword is and how many searches it receives on both a global and local basis.

Additionally, it will provide you with historical data and information on the potential performance of a keyword list; additionally, it will combine multiple keyword lists to produce a new keyword list. It’s a free Google Ads tool that can assist you in selecting profitable bids and spending limits for your Google Ads campaigns.

Unfortunately, when Google switched from Keyword Tool to Keyword Planner, they removed a lot of the more fascinating capabilities. However, if you use the knowledge you gain from Keyword Planner and Google Trends to fill in certain gaps, you can partly make up for it.

Google Trends

Another free tool from Google is Google Trends. You can filter results by region, search history, and category and enter multiple keywords. When you submit that information, you will receive results that demonstrate the level of web interest in a specific keyword, the factors that contributed to the interest (such as press coverage), the origin of the traffic, and related keywords.

The best thing about Google Trends is that, unlike most keyword research tools, it doesn’t only provide you with static keyword volume figures. As an alternative, it produces vibrant, interactive graphs that you can play with, download, and even post on your website. Additionally, it will provide you with more dynamic insight into a keyword by providing details like the relative trend in search term popularity.

It’s interesting to note that its data excludes inquiries made repeatedly by a single user over a short period of time, which improves the quality of the results. Additionally, it compiles searches that it presumes to be synonymous, such as typos.

How might one utilize Google Trends? If you’re debating between two keyword variations for the title of your most recent blog article, To find out which one is being looked for more frequently, simply run a simple comparison search in Google Trends.

KeywordTool.io

Although it’s a really basic tool, Keyword Tool can be helpful if you’re merely searching for a list of long-tail keyword recommendations connected to one you already have in mind. Additionally, using the most basic version of it is completely free; no account is even required.

The Google Autocomplete feature of the Keyword Tool is used to provide a list of potential long-tail keyword ideas. The search words that Google Autocomplete suggests depend on a number of factors, such as how frequently users have previously searched for a particular term.

With the use of this kind of recommendation tool, you may learn what people are looking for in relation to your themes. Bloggers, for instance, might use a program like this to generate blog post names that will rank well in search.

The free version only provides you with further keyword recommendations in alphabetical order; it offers no information on search traffic or cost per click (CPC). You must upgrade to Keyword Tool Pro in order to access that data. You can export the keywords from the Pro edition and utilize them for content development, search engine optimization, CPC/PPC campaigns, or other marketing initiatives.

keywords For Everywhere

With the help of the free browser extension Keywords Everywhere, you can conduct keyword research while visiting websites like Google, Bing, YouTube, etc.

Every time you conduct a search, that term will be regarded as a keyword, and Autosuggest will provide you with the most recent data on keyword search traffic. To help you create your keyword list, a box with fresh keyword suggestions is integrated into the right-hand side of the SERPs themselves.

Answer the public

In order to improve voice search, popular questions should be used to generate keyword suggestions.

Searchers became accustomed to framing their requests as questions rather than as individual phrases as a result of Google’s improved capacity to grasp natural language. The growth of voice search has accelerated this trend.

One of the crucial components of your keyword research success is crafting your content to directly address the queries. Additionally, content that asks questions has a better chance of appearing in Google’s featured responses, also known as the “position 0” results.

Answer the Public, a no-brainer keyword tool that combines your primary keywords with other question phrases (such as who, what, why, etc.), is the fastest and easiest way to identify popular questions relating to your business specialty.

You can also find a few keyword ideas by using “preposition” keywords (which are created when your seed term is paired with another keyword via a preposition) and “comparisons” (such as “your keyword vs. another keyword”).

The Best Paid Tools for Keyword Research

Paid Tools for Keyword Research

Term Explorer

Of all the keyword research tools on the market, Term Explorer gives possibly the most thorough study results. Over 10,000 different keyword variations can be generated from a single seed term. The tool excels at keeping the findings as pertinent as possible and bringing a wealth of supporting information along with them.

The number of results, link quality, trust score, and keyword difficulty will all be provided for every result on page one of search engine results pages (SERPs). You may use the tool to examine domain age, page ranking, and links, as well as the word count, page rank, links, outbound links, and the number of keyword occurrences in title, URL, and headers for specific webpages, to help you get a hold on your competition. For your own examination, you may also export all of this data into a CSV file.

There is a free version of this application that will perform five micro keyword jobs and five keyword analyses per day with no queue priority if you just intend to use it occasionally.

The keyword difficulty tool from Moz

One of the most helpful features of Moz’s premium package is the tool for determining keyword difficulty. It’s an excellent tool for determining how competitive a keyword is and finding high-yielding keywords.

This tool will locate the top 10 ranks for a keyword when you enter it. Then, depending on the pages that currently rank for that keyword, it will award a “Difficulty Score” to that term. To get the top 10 results for each phrase, open the SERP and look at the search volume data for your keywords.

Do you want to research competitive keywords? The tool allows you to check who else is showing up for your selected keywords, along with details such as each site’s page authority and the number of root domains referring to it.

SEMrush

SEMrush is a tool for competitive research that enables you to monitor the keywords of your rivals in order to spot opportunities to overtake them for the top spot in Google’s and Bing’s organic search results. To assess the competitive environment, you can compare a variety of domains against one another, taking into account their common keywords and positions in Google’s organic, sponsored, and shopping search results.

Position tracking, which lets you see a keyword’s position in SERPs and study the history of peaks and falls, is much like an advanced version of Google Trends. Their vibrant, graphic charts are also incredibly useful for immediately grasping trends and performing result analysis.

Ahrefs

Ahrefs Keywords Explorer is comparable to SEMrush, but it has a few added features and a much more user-friendly interface. For instance, it can predict the proportion of searches that result in actual page views. Since Google provides instant responses for some queries, not all of them do this. Utilizing clicks and clicks per search metrics, you can identify traffic-producing terms and avoid making bad choices

Ahrefs goes above and beyond in terms of the quantity of suggested relevant keywords. The fact that it has the largest database — 5.1 billion keywords for more than 200 countries — allows it to spot chances that other tools might overlook. Ahrefs can also assist you with competition research. Their Site Explorer tool reveals the keyword strategy of rival companies, and Content Gap allows you to contrast competitor keywords with your own to discover potential missed opportunities.

Additionally, Ahrefs will email you if one of your rivals improves their position. Backlinks have a direct impact on rankings, and Ahrefs’ backlink analysis capability is one of its strongest points.

The creator of Backlinko, Brian Dean, claims that Ahrefs is his top choice when it comes to backlink analysis: “I’ve tested over 25 link analysis tools, and none compare to Ahrefs in terms of index size, freshness, and overall usability.”

SE Ranking

A comprehensive keyword analytics tool, Keyword Research Tool by SE Ranking, enables you to track SEO and PPC campaigns, study organic and paid search competition, and generate thousands of term expansion ideas.

SE Ranking places a high value on keyword SEO data accuracy. Users can access accurate search volumes and keyword difficulty data on the platform thanks to ungrouping techniques and a proprietary algorithm. You will receive a list of related, comparable, low search volume, long tail, and question-based keywords for one seed term.

Using handy filters, you may choose ideas based on your desired criteria and assess their effectiveness by looking at various metrics, such as keyword relevance and more. The suggestion’s compatibility with your content strategy will become clearer this way.

GrowthBar

GrowthBar is a piece of SEO software that aids in keyword research, competition analysis, rank tracking, and content creation for bloggers and online marketers. You may use GrowthBar to investigate your competitors’ paid Google advertisements, Facebook ads, organic keyword ranks, and backlink data. Through an intuitive interface, it also reveals crucial data points and provides recommendations.

GrowhBar’s AI-powered blogging tool is what sets it apart. GrowthBar provides an outline for you to use while writing SEO-optimized content when you enter the keyword you wish to rank for. GrowthBar leverages OpenAI GPT-3, the most comprehensive language model yet made, to accomplish this.

Accuranker

Accuranker is a keyword rank tracking tool that stands out for being both incredibly accurate and quick. Therefore, this will wind up saving you a ton of time if you’re used to spending hours tracking the rank advancement of your keywords.

Added benefits to this tool? It has built-in proxies, so you can quickly see who is listed where for a particular keyword in the SERPs. Its scheduled weekly reports option is useful if you intend to report keyword analytics to your manager or team.

It is also among the top rank trackers available and provides extremely localized search engine rankings for your keywords. So it’s a terrific tool for figuring out which pages are ranking in different regions if you’re marketing your company to an international audience.

Finally, you can monitor data and predict search traffic for your keywords directly from your AccuRanker dashboard thanks to interfaces with Google Analytics, Google Search Console, Social Monitoring, and YouTube.

HubSpot

Within the marketing hub, HubSpot also has its very own content strategy tool. With the aid of the content strategy tool, you can uncover and explore themes, target certain keywords or subtopics, and ultimately expand your content presence to attract more organic traffic over time

If you’re a HubSpot customer, click Content > Strategy to use the Content Strategy tool

Serpstat

Serpstat gives you a list of historically successful keywords that rivals have used to boost their rankings in search results. Additionally, it calculates the worth of your keywords based on a variety of variables, including the volume of search results and the cost per click.

The software will generate long-tail keywords, which are low-volume keywords relevant to your business, as well as ideas for more suggestive terms. Additionally, the tool’s database contains keywords that can be modified for use in other regions if your firm is global.

Finally, Serpstat allows you to assess the relevance of your webpages and identify any trends that may appeal to browsers.

If you want in-depth analyses of the keywords that your competitors are using successfully, Serpstat will be very helpful to you. It’s a fantastic technique for ensuring that your page has a decreased likelihood of losing a good ranking in the SERPs

Now that you are aware of these wonderful resources, go out there and begin identifying your best keywords for SEO.