SEOs all around the world take part in the endless chase for right keywords. These keywords play a crucial part in getting tons of traffic to websites and it brings a solid revenue as result.
However, sometimes it is rather hard to target a specific keyword for your niche. I believe you agree with me that “reading coffee grounds” is not a great idea. Especially, when it comes to getting more traffic to your own website.
If you have a perfect gut feeling and you can predict what keyword will bring you traffic, then you can stop reading this post. But if you are an ordinary man who is afraid of being mistaken, thus you should check out keyword research tools I want to introduce in this post.
The only thing you will have to do is to decide for yourself which tool fits you the most.
Ahrefs Keyword Explorer 2.0
Ahrefs has recently released a new keyword research tool. It is pretty handy in use and is good for searching keywords you need.
Keyword Explorer + Site Explorer + Content Explorer tools (All tools in one package)
Free 14-days trial
Cons:
Price (Pricey in comparison to other tools; Lite package costs $82/month)
SEMRush
SEMRush is another one great solution in Digital Marketing, especially in SEO world. If you want to be ahead of your competitors, thus SEMRush is a tool for you. It lets you find the right keywords in your niche. Especially, if you have a limited budget – SEMRush is an ideal opportunity for you.
Pros:
Free 30-days trial
Find the right keywords for SEO and PPC campaigns
Gather phrase matches and related keywords
Get long-tail keywords
Explore multinational and multilingual environments
Cons:
It is expensive as well (PRO package costs $69.95 per month)
Google Keyword Planner
Despite the fact that the major part of keyword research tools costs some money, Google Keyword Planner is still for free.This free tool helps you search for keywords relative to your niche, see how a list of keywords performs. Moreover, you will be able to create key phrases by multiplying a few lists together.
Pros:
It is free
Easy in use
Filters
Easily export data
Nice and competitive targeting
Cons:
No negative keyword list
No suggestions for long term keywords for a huge part of categories
No “keyword density check” option
Keyword Tool.io
Keyword Tool.io is a nice tool for those marketers who want to generate long-tail keywords and make an analysis of your competitors’ keywords as well. Basically, the tool is free; however, you can get a pro version for ‘hunting’ more keywords you might need. It is easy in use, well-designed and fast.
Pros:
User-friendly
Generate long-tail keywords (hidden by Google Keyword Planner)
No need registration for free users
It provides with accurate results
No drawbacks haven’t been noticed.
Longtail PRO
If you need to find more long-tail keywords, thus Longtail PRO is the tool you should use. The tool generates data from Google’s Keyword Planner, which you can use for searching long-tail keywords. With the help of filters that are available in this tool, you will be able to narrow down the results and get the most related keywords for your niche.
Pros:
Free 10-days trial
Keyword research feature
Competitor analysis feature
Rank checker feature
Calculate keyword competitiveness
Save favorite keywords
Import list of keywords
Affordable price (annual starter plan costs $25)
Cons:
You can’t use it without installation on your PC
Downloading of results is a bit slow
BuzzSumo
BuzzSumo is a wonderful tool for content marketing. Basically, the main purpose of this tool is providing you with the most shareable content on the Internet. Yes, this tool doesn’t do any keyword research; however, it shows you the most desirable content on social media. In other words, you can identify, which content will be in trend related to your keyword’s inquiry.
Pros:
See the most shareable content
See how competitive keywords are to rank for
Look for influencers in your niche
Research your competitor’s content
Create alerts
Free 14-days trial
Cons:
It is expensive ($99 per month for Pro plan)
Google Trends
Do you want to know what is going to be trending in Google search? Then, use Google Trends tool for this purpose. This tool allows you to see whether some particular keyword is still ranking high. Moreover, you can compare a few keywords from your niche identifying which one is far better to use for today.
Pros:
It is completely free
Real-time search
Keywords comparison
Figure out what is working for today
Find content for backlinking
Monitor your brand and your competitors
Cons:
It doesn’t provide you with search volume data
Ubersuggest
Ubersuggest suggests you a huge variety of keywords, which you won’t find in the Keyword Planner Tool. Even if you don’t know the right keywords you need for your business, Ubersuggest will provide you with a list of keywords related to your inquiry; this list will be based on the single keyword you typed into a searching box.
Pros:
Free
Easy in use
Suggest a list of keywords related to your inquiry
Cons:
It is not as powerful as other paid keyword research tools
Google Analytics
Google Analytics is a free tool from Google that fits perfectly for earning traffic to your site. With the help of keyword report you will see all paid and non-paid keywords that people use to find your site. Thus, you will be able to choose only those keywords that will bring you paid customers.
Pros:
It is free
Can be used via PC, mobile devices
Goal tracking
Fresh data
Keyword analysis
Cons:
It is a bit complicated in use for a newbie
KWFinder
KWFinder helps you search for long-tail keywords with a high search volume and less competition in SEO. Yes, it reminds a bit Longtail PRO; however, the features KWFinder has are much better in use.
Pros:
Find long-tail keyword (plus search volume on every keyword/local keywords)
Provide with SEO difficulty to rank a keyword
Create and save a list of keywords
Import/export keywords
Free plan is available
Affordable price (basic plan costs $29 per month)
Cons:
Sometimes it provides with inaccurate results
Moz KW Difficulty Tool
Moz KW Difficulty tool is a great solution for you in searching and analyzing keywords. It offers you using search volume and opportunity scores for thousands of keywords downloading data for further analysis. Make a comparison of yourself to the competitors and get a comprehensive list of keywords from the largest English language database on the Internet.
Pros:
Free 30-days trial
Get metrics that matter (volume, difficulty, opportunity, potential and customizable scores)
SERP analysis
Imports/exports of data you need
Get an access to the largest keyword database
Cons:
Price (standard plan costs $99 per month)
Market Samurai
Market Samurai is a keyword research tool that is very popular among the marketers for its incredibly high-quality database of keywords. The tool is focusing on providing you with a detailed analysis of keywords. Alongside with keyword research, this service offers you keyword tracker, SEO competition module as well. By the way, you can upload this software on your PC or Mac.
Pros:
Powerful keyword research
Rank tracker
Easy in use
Database of keyword constantly updates
Free trial is available
Cons:
It works slow sometimes
Doesn’t provide with a detailed information on competitor’s backlinks
Must be installed on your PC
Price (a full version of the software costs $149)
WordTracker
WordTracker is a tool for searching any kinds of keywords. As long as the other related keyword research tools have almost the same features, WordTracker has one unique feature called Keyword Effectiveness Index (KEI). The primal goal of KEI is to show you the most profitable keywords marked by a high rate of traffic and low competition.
Pros:
Fast keyword results
A huge database of keywords
Free 7-days trial
Save up to 40% of your money buying annual membership plan
Not too expensive (bronze plan costs $27 per month)
Cons:
Not user-friendly
You might be a bit confused with filter and metric figures
SERPwoo
As it is understood from the name – SERPwoo is, perhaps, the best SERP tool ever. Moreover, this tool works great in terms of searching keywords. It will analyze the TOP 10 websites ranking for your keyword and will find those keywords that had been hidden before (keywords your competitors are ranking).
Keyword finder is perfect for generating long-tail keywords
Cons:
It is a bit pricey (bronze plan costs $49.95 per month)
Topic Explorer
The Topic Explorer is built on a groundbreaking technology that “understands” semantically-connected keywords, independent of their wording. It searches through billions of semantic connections, to create the whole universe of keywords forming a topic. It enables a bird’s-eye view of an “intent” topic or a niche, which can further be explored at a keyword level.
Pros
It’s absolutely free and it offers unlimited access to all features.
It helps you analyze the opportunity of a topic and all of the competitors on that market.
It aggregates close variations of keywords sharing the same search volume so that it avoids any misinterpretation of the total search volume, that thus remains relevant.
It delivers accurate search volumes and trends, for both the entire topic and each keyword.
It immediately gets fresh ranks and calculates Visibility Scores for all of the competitors on the searched topic.
Cons
For the time being, it is available only to a few markets, including the UK and the US, but it will soon extend to other European markets.
It may be a bit slow when analyzing large topics.
SECockpit
With SECockpit your keyword research and analysis will be easier and more advanced. This tool is one of the best options for those people who have been doing SEO for a long time. And here is why:
Pros:
Keyword research at Warp speed
Tracking your SEO campaigns
Superior keyword analysis data
Get the juiciest keywords on the web
Find the best keywords opportunities
Cons:
Not cheap (personal plan costs $40 per month)
BrightEdge Data Cube
What is the best way to find various keywords related to different niches? It is to find the tool which has this massive database. BrightEdge Data Cube has an impressive storage of data, such as search terms, content, rich media etc. Thus, there are no doubts that it is a perfect place to start a keyword research for you.
Pros:
Get keywords based on your target audience behaviour
Receive the information about any keywords + its related keywords
Sort keywords by categories (long-tail keywords, high-volume keywords, high-value keywords)
Discover the TOP-10 pages for any keyword
Cons:
Company keeps its price plans in secret
KeywordSpy
I believe you have already guessed what this tool does. Yes, KeywordSpy spies (sorry for a tautology) on keywords and ads your competitors use. With this tool, you will get a chance to be ahead of your competitors and build tactics for your marketing strategy.
Pros:
Spy on keywords for your niche
Creating targeted campaigns
Real-time tracking for keywords
ROI indicator
Advanced searches
Free trial
Cons:
Price ($89.95 per month for research or tracking)
If you want to get both options, you should buy ‘Professional’ plan for $139.95
Seed Keywords
Seed Keywords tool decided to gain its popularity by offering an interesting service. Yes, it is about getting high-quality keywords but not in an ordinary way. Have you ever thought about asking people of what keywords are popular in your niche? That’s right! Seed Keywords tool is here to help you find out what keywords people suggest you use. Keyword analysis with the help of human intelligence might be useful for your business.
Pros:
Create your own scenario (describe people your needs and ask them how would they search for the solution in Google and what keywords they would use)
Send URL of your scenario to people via email, forums, and popular social networks
Get keywords insights people suggest you
Cons:
Completely free
You can’t be 100% sure in data people give you
HitTail
HitTail was developed to help you find long-tail keywords based on your current keyword data. It will provide you with relevant long-tail keywords related to your particular niche. These high-quality keywords will help you gain more traffic on your website. Especially, the tool is very useful for those who want to create profitable content.
Pros:
Get great long-tail keywords
User-friendly interface
A bunch of tutorial videos and emails (if you can’t still understand how to use the tool)
Option of buying SEO articles (you can buy some SEO article that is targeted on a particular keyword)
Free trial
Nice price ($19.95 for Pro plan)
Cons:
You might be a bit confused with using it (however, tutorial videos will help you)
Linkdex
Linkdex is a wonderful SEO platform that fits those marketers who know this business inside-out. You might think this tool is all about link-building. Wrong! It is a multifunctional service that has a bunch of useful features such as keyword research, site optimization, rank analysis etc.
Pros:
Easy keyword research
Identify keyword opportunities that drive customers to your competitors’ websites
Add keywords to your Linkdex project
Use other features of the tool (SEO forecasting, crawl analytics, backlink analysis etc)
You can book a trial
Cons:
Expensive ( £600 for starter package)
BulkWords
BulkWords makes your keyword research easier. It helps you generate search phrases for your SEO campaigns. You just create separate columns of keywords and afterward combine them by your preferences. The rest will be done by this tool. It will offer you a list of all possible combinations that you can use for your own purposes.
Pros:
Generate keyword phrases
Separate keywords by different columns
Free of charge
Cons:
Limited in features
Soovle
Soovle is an online keyword research tool that suggests you all possible variations of the keyword you are searching for. You will get the results from the most popular search engines: Google, Yahoo, Wikipedia, Ask, Amazon, Answers.com and YouTube. Soovle is good for you in the cases when you need fresh keyword ideas and if you don’t know what keyword better to use in terms of searching something.
Pros:
Get keywords ideas
Keyword suggestions from 7 most popular search engines
Save your search terms during your work
Use other available resources for your search (eBay, NetFlix, GoodSearch etc.)
Free in charge
This tool doesn’t have any drawbacks in terms of the features it offers.
Freshkey
For those marketers who “hunt” for commercial keywords here is a solution called Freshkey. Especially, if your business area is places like Amazon or eBay, thus Freshkey will tell you what your customers want to buy. Armed with commercial keywords thanks to Freshkey.
Pros:
Real-time commercial keyword results
Use keyword ranking filter
Get keyword trending results from Google Trends
The tool works on PC and Mac
30-days money back guarantee
Cons:
Pricey (one-time payment – $50)
Works great mostly for searching commercial keywords
SpyFu
SpyFu is all about competitive research. This tool helps you analyze what keywords your competitors buy, what organic keywords they rank for. Basically, you will get a chance to run an outstanding business campaign having in your arsenal your competitors’ best keywords.
Pros:
Keyword research
Competitor analysis
PPC Ad copy research
Keyword tracking
30-days money back guarantee
Cons:
Not cheap ($49 per month for basic plan)
No local data
iSpionage
iSpionage is a “spy” tool that helps you research your competitors’ keywords. You may conduct keyword, domain or, even, competitive research uncovering keyword opportunities you might miss using some other tools. By entering any keyword iSpionage reveals you TOP 10 competitors on a particular market.
Pros:
Find keywords related to your niche
In-depth analysis of your competitors
Create ad groups
Exporting lists of keywords/ads
Identify which ads get more traffic
Create better offers by spying your competitors offers and landing pages
Create alerts
Not expensive ($29 per month for basic plan)
The tool is really great; thus, no disadvantages have been found.
Wordstream Keyword Tool
Wordstream offers you its free keyword research tool. The tool offers you more keyword ideas and opportunities in contrast to other paid keyword tools. By entering a keyword, Wordstream will generate for 100 results (long-tail keywords as well). Furthermore, it allows you to export up to thousand keywords without paying any money. Wordstream Keyword Tool is a great solution for those who have no opportunity of using paid keyword research tools.
Pros:
Absolutely free
It generates a list of 100 keywords
You can export up to thousand keywords for free
Cons:
This tool does a shallow analysis in contrast to paid tools
Bonus tool for readers
GrepWords
GrepWords tends to be the fastest keyword research tool. As the company says about itself: “GrepWords merges a massive, fresh keyword database with intuitive tools and the industry lookup and related APIs to bring you the best keyword tool hands down”. And it is truth.
Pros:
Keyword lookup
A wide range of Chrome extensions from Grepwords
Excel plugins (SEOGadget for excel)
API access
Free 2-week trial
Affordable price (basic plan costs $15)
No drawbacks were found (however, it is less popular in contrast to other keyword research tools)
Conclusion
As it was said at the beginning of the post, this endless chase for profitable keywords requires some additional helpers represented by keyword research tools. As you can see, there is a huge variety of these services (paid or free); each of this tool has its pros and cons and it is up to you which one is far better to use. Remember that a single right keyword might lead your business campaign to success.
Well, if I missed some tool, then, please, tell me about it in comments.Comment and share.
Sergey Aliokhin is an Outreach manager at Ahrefs. He spends most of the time discovering and learning SEO and Internet Marketing tendencies. His primal goal is to study and practice new aspects of an outreach strategy. In his spare time, he likes to spend his time with family, visit specialized sports club, study martial arts. If he has nothing to do at all, he prefers reading books on science-fiction and playing the bass guitar.
