5 Keywords Research Tools You Need to Know besides Google Keyword Planner

Being able to leverage Google Adwords to run a search marketing campaign and optimize performances based on that is becoming a must-to-have qualification for digital marketers. As a matter of fact, with Google being the world’s most popular search engine, which has a broad display network and a large global audience, it’s hard for any business to resist the benefits of using any of the company’s toolset.

Nevertheless, given the fact that Google doesn’t allow first-time users to access Keyword Planner until they launch the first campaign as well as the data accuracy problem that similar search terms are counted in the same group, there is an need for marketers to find out more substitute tools to supplement their research and make better decisions.

Here are 5 keyword research tools that you might find useful.

1. SEMrush

As the world’s leading competitive research service for online marketing, SEMrush literally offer you everything. In the dashboard, you can look into reports about phrase match, related keywords, and ad history to seek for keyword inspirations; you can utilize the Keyword Magic Tool to help you customize ideal keywords with detailed requirements; you can also discover the common keywords that you and your competitors are using and compare the different ones. Reports on the platform usually consist of volume, ranking difficulty, competitive density, CPC, number of results, trend, and a link to the snapshot of the SERP, which is pretty complete.

Notice that if you are working for an international business, you may find this platform exceptional since its database includes data from as much as 131 countries over 16 languages on both Google and Bing. Despite of this advantage, however, the site is a little hard for users to navigate.

2. Moz

Compared to SEMrush, Moz is a more user-friendly platform. It basically conveys the same data in a more organized and visualized way. In its simply designed interface, you can easily read through all the analysis reports without losing track of any details. What’s special on this website is that it offers you extra metrics such as organic CTR and priority, which helps you identify the most effective keywords that you need to focus on. In addition, when you compare you and your competitors by root domain, Moz shows you the keyword overlap with a Venn diagram, which you can click through and check out the details.

Be aware that if you are using this platform, researches that are not defined in the US and Canada market might end up less accurate results. Also, as the platform stated, keyword data is updated every two weeks, so just be careful when you are doing a research.

3. Spyfu

There is no worse experience than looking in the interface of Spyfu. The grey scale design with a mix of raw data is just dull and boring. Nevertheless, I recommend this tool because it is free for checking out the top 5 results with unlimited search times. Even for its paid version, the price is much cheaper than the other tools.

As the name suggests, this US/UK based tool highly focuses on a competitor dimension. You will be able to pull up both organic and paid keyword data of your competitors. It’s just like a spy. Every campaign your competitor does on Google Adwords would be directly recorded and delivered to you. This way, you will have a better understanding of what your competitors are doing and how to respond to their move.

4. KWFinder

KWFinder is another user-friendly tool with a clear and fresh interface. It is one of the services provided by Mangools. What I love most about this site is its filter function. You can basically filter out all the unwanted results by volume, CPC, PPC, SEO difficulty, and number of words and exclude or include any specific keywords in just one screen. Also, you can conduct your keyword research by queries that include the specific keyword you have typed in so that you would have a better sense of what your main audience are asking about. Notice that this site only allow not logged-in users to search twice a day. You will have to subscribe to one of their plans if you’d like to get more results.

5. Sistrix

If you are running a business in Europe, Sistrix can be one of your choices. The German company positions itself as a professional tool for SEO professionals. What makes this website stands out among other analytics tools is its unique Visibility Index, which is a metric to evaluate how well your domain is progressing in Google Search. Rankings, search volume, and the estimated CTR are taken into account when the index is calculated. You can look into the data history dating back to as early as 2008 to see if your SEO strategy is making a difference over the period of time. You can also check on the mobile visibility index in order to develop a strategy that is special for the mobile devices.

Conclusion

To wrap this up, all these tools can be at your disposal when you are conducting a keyword research. Although each website has its special features and focused markets, they generally provide you the same data metrics that are clear, precise, and helpful.

If you wish to try, just click through the links attached to each subtitle. Most of the websites would grant non-subscribers a few times of trial everyday.