8+ Best Keyword Research Tools For SEO in 2021
February 26, 2021 / By / 100 Comments
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Here is the list of Keyword research tools listed below:
- SEMRUSH (Have given a link below to try SEMRUSH worth $199)
- KWFinder
- Answer the public (Free)
- Ahrefs
- LongTailPro
- Google Keyword Planner
- SpyFU
- Keywordseverywhere
- Keyword Surfer
Bonus: Google Trends
Keywords are one of the most critical and important parts of SEO. We have already discussed this in detail here.
The basic foundation of SEO is keyword research.
Afterward, other factors like on-page optimization, Writing SEO friendly content, a good UX, content that satisfies user intent and a few other factors come into the picture. Once you have all this in place, you can expect significant amount of organic traffic from search engines like Google, Bing, Yandex and others.
Many companies invest thousands of dollars to pay for keyword research to get such targeted content.
But you don’t need to do that. Just follow this guide…
The keywords you choose to focus on for your digital marketing efforts are critical to the success of your website’s organic ranking.
Choosing the right keywords isn’t always easy or intuitive and you need a lot of data to know whether a given keyword will work for you.
If you are completely new to keyword research tools and the process of keyword research, here are some guides from the past which will help you understand the basics:
- Importance of Keywords in SEO
- Google Keyword planner guide
So now you know the basics of keyword research and you have an understanding of how valuable it can be.
Fortunately, there are many tools available that can help you figure out which keywords work best for your overall web strategy. There are mostly two types of Keyword research tool:
- Basic Keyword research: Use the seed Keyword to find profitable Keywords
- Competitor based Keyword research: Find proven keywords that are helping other sites to drive traffic.
Personally, I find Competitor based Keyword research to be more effective as the purpose of the Keyword research is to find profitable Keywords. What could be more profitable than something which is already working for someone?
All you need to do after that is to create a page targeting that profitable keyword & reap the benefit of keyword research.
In this exclusive guide, I have covered both the type of Keywords. Most of these keyword research tools are paid and only a few of them are free.
Best Keyword Research Tools: 2021 edition
1. SEMRUSH <14-Day Free Trial (worth $199)>
“What is the easiest keyword research tool for a blogger?”
The answer:
- SEMRUSH
SEMRUSH is not a typical keyword research tool; it offers so much more than just researching keywords.
It let you perform keyword research in multiple ways:
For example:
- Find keywords using a Seed Keyword
- Find Keywords driving traffic to your competitors
- Keyword gap analysis
The simplest one that I like is being able to find keywords based on a URL. All you need to do is, add a URL (or your competitor’s URL) and it will show you all of the keywords that are ranking for that page or for entire website.
Along with Keyword data, you would be seeing the monthly search volume, Keyword difficulty, CPC for PPC.
Keyword suggestions is another handy feature of SEMRush, where is shows “Keyword variations” and “Related keywords”. This helps you discover more search term that you could target.
This makes it easier for you to find short-tail and long-tail keywords that you can target and beat out your competition.
You can get in-depth keyword data such as:
- Keyword traffic volume
- Keyword difficulty score
- Search engine reports
- Adsense CPC
- and so many other details that you need to properly do Keyword research.
You also have an option to sort the keyword list based on keyword difficulty score, this helps you find the low competition keywords, and with one click you can add them to Keyword manager.
It also offers features like:
- Keyword manager: This let you add keywords in a list and see the updated data. It helps in better managing keywords when you are researching for profitable keywords.
- Keyword difficulty tool: To check the keyword difficulty score.
- Backlink analysis: It also recommends you the exact websites from which you should get backlinks to rank#1 in the Google search.
SEMrush is highly recommended and the #1 keyword research tool.
- You can read a detailed review of SEMRUSH here.
2. KW finder
If you are looking for one tool which is completely dedicated to Keyword research only, KWFinder is your best bet. They are new in the market yet they are one of the fastest-growing SEO tool companies.
KWFinder helps you get the Keyword that will help you drive highly targeted traffic. Using Questions based Keyword research option you can quickly find long-tail keywords that are related to problem-solving. It’s a no-brainer that problem-solving content helps us get more targeted traffic & conversion.
KWFinder offers both free & paid plans. For most of the users, the basic plan is the best.
However, use the 10 day’s free trial account to see the effectiveness of KWFinder keyword research app.
3. Answer The Public (Free Keyword research tool)
For anyone looking for a free keyword research tool, Answer the public is a great place to start. This keyword tool will let you find long tail keywords based on your seed keywords.
You will be able to see keywords in different formats such as:
- Questions
- Preposition
- Comparisons
The free plan let you search for 3 keywords every day, which is decent for someone looking for a free option. You also have an option to select country, and language for your searches.
What it lacks is the keyword volume, and as long as this is not very important for you at this moment, “Answer The Public” is for you.
4. Ahrefs Keyword Explorer tool
Ahrefs is one of the most popular keyword tools out there.
What I really like about them is extensive detail including the keyword difficulty. Ahrefs uses clickstream data to also show how many clicks you will get from the search engine. You can use Keyword generator tool to generate ideas for Google, Bing, Amazon, YouTube and a few other search engines.
This is very useful after knowledge graph integration, as many keywords may have huge traffic but they hardly get any clicks from the search engine. The reason being, they get answers directly from the Google search result. Example of one such query is: “birthdate of any celebrity”
Another thing which makes Ahrefs Keyword research tool stand out is the great UI & the amount of data they provide. There are many more features offered by Ahrefs such as Backlink analysis, SEO site audit to name a few. You can read a detailed review of Ahrefs here.
You can also create a list of keywords to target directly from the Ahrefs dashboard. You don’t need to use excel & this is a huge time-saving.
5. Google Keyword Planner <Free>
The Google Keyword Planner tool is one of the most used and popular keyword research tools out there.
The only reason for it being so popular is it’s free and is directly integrated with Google AdWords.
To start using this tool you need to have an AdWords account (which you can create one for free).
- Features: The biggest feature of the Keyword Planner tool is the deep information it offers on Google (the largest search engine).
- Limitations: In some ways, that’s also a limitation. If you want to know how your site or a given keyword is doing on other search engines, you won’t get it here.
- Pricing: Free to use.
The Keyword Planner tool is a good, basic tool for the early stages of a website’s SEO.
This my favorite free tool, but if you need more detailed and competitive analysis, I would recommend going for one of the advanced tools that I have listed below.
6. Keyword Surfer
Keyword Surfer is a chrome extension which let you see the keyword volume and keyword CPC right at the SERP page. This is a free keyword research chrome extension that is brought to you by SurferSEO, which is a SEO content optimization tool.
It let you take advantage of auto complete feature of Google search to discover new search queries. As you will be able to see the monthly traffic volume, related keywords data in the SERP page, it gets easier to create the list of keywords for your project.
For your content marketing effort, this free tool could be a great addition with other more feature rich tools.
Here is a video that explains how this free KW research tool works:
This extension also shows more keyword ideas based on your search, enables you to discover more profitable keywords.
7. LongTailPro <$30 Discount>
LongTailPro is a cloud-based software for keyword research and one of the most popular in this list.
This is a paid keyword research tool which will help you find amazing keywords for your niche/micro-niche sites. With their “platinum” version, you can get a really amazing and really detailed keyword analysis feature.
They also have a competition checker, which will make it easier for you to pick the right keyword.
You can see a detailed review of LongTailPro here.
8. Serpstat
Serpstat is another comprehensive keyword research tool that I discovered recently. They have done some really good work when it comes to helping us identify winning keywords.
The Serpstat keyword tool gives you the following details:
- Search volume
- Competition
- CPC
- Keyword difficulty score
You have the option to search in Google.com based on the country or also in the Yandex search engine. The Keyword trends section helps you to understand how the keyword search trend has been.
There is a detailed keyword difficulty score section that shows the top 10 web pages that have taken ranking for the keyword along with details like page rank, external backlinks and referring domains. This type of data is very useful when you need to evaluate if you can rank them for a specific keyword or not.
For those who are in PPC, the SERPstat keyword research page also shows which all domains are advertising for your target keyword in the search and what kind of ads they are running. Something that is uncommon in this list of best tools of Keyword research.
Serpstat is used by small businesses to research keywords, build new links, and develop a strategic SEO platform.
- Pricing: Serpstat includes free data just for registration.
Monthly pricing is $19 per month.
9. SpyFu
SpyFu is one of the best SEO optimization software products on the market. It’s especially useful if you’re trying to analyze and stay ahead of the competition in a tight niche.
Here’s what you need to know about this one:
- Uses: SpyFu is highly useful for two important reasons.
- Understanding your competition’s SEO platform.
- Discovering under-served, un-tapped, or emerging markets.
- Features: SpyFu also has several modules.
- Compare Websites module
- Keyword History module
- Domain History module
- Related Keywords module
- Limitations: This program doesn’t have the depth of keywords that some competitors do, although this is changing. Also, the data for SpyFu is monthly, rather than real-time.
- Pricing: SpyFu offers two basic pricing plans as well as an “Agency” plan.
- The basic plans are $79 and $99 per month (with a discount of more than 40% if you buy a one year term).
- The “Agency” pricing is $999 per month.
SpyFu is a solid SEO product.
It’s useful if you want to check up on the competition as well as find new areas in which to market.
I would not recommend you pick up all of the tools listed above, but instead, stick to one or two Keyword research software and get used to its system.
If you have been using the Google Keyword Planner tool for a while, you have a good basis for getting started with any of the paid and professional tools listed here. Take a look at some of these tools and decide which works best for your business strategy.
10. Bonus: Google Trends
Google trends is a free keyword research tool that offers great data of data directly from Google. You can trust all the information such as keyword popularity, Interest by region, related queries.
You can also compare two or more search queries to see the traffic trend. This is the only tool that let you see the keyword popularity in different countries.
Once you know in which region/country, your target keyword is popular, you can use other keyword research tools, to measure the keyword search volume. Overall, as a free keyword tool, this should be part of your keyword strategy.
My recommendations:
- If you are looking for an easy, yet a great solution, go for SEMRUSH.
- If you are researching keywords for micro-niche sites, use KWFinder
Whatever you choose, use these tools to supercharge your SEO.
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