There are several tools available for free on the internet which can help you with keyword research or give you ideas for what keywords to target. These tools may also offer great insight into your competition, giving you a competitive advantage.
In this article, I will demonstrate a few of the most used Google Keyword Planner Alternative & free keyword research tools on the market. There a bunch of different keyword research tools on the market, but these are the ones I use every time I am looking to optimize a website.
Ubersuggest
Ubersuggest provides a wealth of information with its free version. When you enter a search term, it displays the search volume, SEO difficulty, paid difficulty, and CPC.
Immediately beneath that display, it identifies the number of backlinks you would need to rank on the first page of Google for that keyword phrase.
As you scroll down, you can view lists of keyword ideas and page content ideas.
The list of page content ideas displays related blog titles. At a glance, you can see how many people click on and share each article. You can export most of your data reports to CSV to save and sort. Ubersuggest provides a free Chrome extension to see data right on the SERP easily.
The free version limits your use to a single website and 3 keyword searches per day.
Moz Keyword Explorer
Moz Keyword Explorer is an attractive and well-laid-out keyword research tool. You can see monthly volume, organic difficulty, organic click-through rate (CTR), and a priority score for each search term.
The organic CTR displays how many people who use the term follow through and click on one of the results. The priority score aggregates the difficulty, opportunity, and volume to show you in a simple score how likely you are to rank for that keyword phrase.
Keyword Explorer delivers a long list of keyword suggestions for each term, with monthly search volume and relevancy.
The SERP analysis, also included with the free search results, gives you 10 specific pages that rank for your target keyword. You can see their title, URL, page authority, domain authority, number of backlinks to the page, and the number of backlinks to the root domain. It’s easy to download results into a spreadsheet.
Moz provides an excellent service. The downside is the free account limits you to 10 queries a month.
Keyword.Guru
Screenshot from Keyword.Guru, August 2021
Keyword.Guru is an uncommon keyword research tool that collates results from top search engines (Google, Yahoo, Bing) and ecommerce sites (Amazon, eBay).
While it does not show keyword density or frequency, it returns the most common keyword search results quickly and displays real-time keyword search results.
Key Features:
- Analyzes search data from top search engines (Google, Yahoo, Bing) and ecommerce websites (Amazon, eBay).
- Delivers real-time search results data.
- Shows the most common searches quickly.
Best keyword research tool for: Real-time keyword researchADVERTISEMENTCONTINUE READING BELOW
Pricing: Free with limited features. The premium plan is $5/month.
SEMrush
SEMrush is not just a keyword tool, it is like the Swiss Army Knife of SEO. Instead of producing a list of keywords, SEMrush suggests 5-10 very specific keywords that your competitors are already using.
Standout features
- Uncover long-tail keywords and ad group ideas
- Get yearly keyword trends
- Worldwide CPC distribution statistics
- Access to the complete keyword research toolkit
- Keyword difficulty analysis and organic traffic insights
Pricing
SEMrush hosts a 7-day free trial of the service. You do need to enter credit card details to get access to the trial, but there are no charges levied if you choose to cancel your subscription within the 7-day trial.
SEMrush has four different pricing plans. The best offers come with annual billing.
- Pro – A plan for limited budget sites and freelancers, it starts at $99.95 per month and gets billed annually.
- Guru – SEO agencies and small to mid-sized business will find the features in this plan perfect for the day-to-day management of content sites. Guru starts at $191.62 per month.
- Business – It is ideal for eCommerce stores and agencies, and opens at $374.95 per month.
- Enterprise – If you have an extensive content strategy, reaching beyond the capacity of the above solutions, SEMrush can custom fit a plan for your needs.
KWFinder
KWFinder is a tool designed by Mangools – a developer known for delivering the best keyword research 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
- Find keywords in any language target, anywhere
- Choose options from the list of powerful keywords
- Get precise statistics for keyword competition
- In-depth SERP overview alongside a list of suggestions
- Use filters to refine the list of keyword suggestions
Pricing
KWFinder is part of Mangools package that includes 4 other SEO tools. This keyword tool only allows a handful of free searches. Select an annual plan to save up to 40% on any of their 3 subscriptions.
- Basic – $30 (freelancers and small businesses)
- Premium – $40 (new startups and blogs)
- Agency – $80 (eCommerce stores and heavy sites)
TagCrowd
Screenshot from Tagcrowd.com, August 2021
TagCrowd is one of the best free keyword research tools for SEO.
Its value proposition is simple: you can visualize word frequency by creating word/text/tag clouds without the hefty price tag of tools like Buzzsumo and Ahrefs Keywords Explorer.
Keyword frequency remains an important focus of on-page SEO.
If you’re targeting specific keywords but use them sparsely, you’ll have trouble ranking for those keywords. On the other hand, stuffing keywords on a page with too high a frequency might trigger a Google penalty for what’s perceived as a black hat SEO technique.ADVERTISEMENTCONTINUE READING BELOW
You can use TagCrowd to determine the optimum keyword frequency for a topic by checking competitor articles.
Key Features:
- Beginner-friendly user interface.
- Supports competitor SEO analysis.
- Multiple ways to add content:
- Upload a file.
- Enter webpage URL.
- Paste page text.
Best keyword research tool for: Visualizing keyword frequency
Pricing: Free
Keywords Everywhere
Screenshot from KeywordsEverywhere.com, August 2021
Keywords Everywhere is a keyword research tool that provides keyword suggestions from over 15 of the most popular keyword tools.
This free keyword research tool for SEO has Firefox and Chrome extensions that can be added to your browser.
Unlock (not provided) with Keyword Hero
See all your organic keywords in GA and their specific performance metrics. Free Trial. Cancel anytime. Professional support. 4-minute setup.Free AccountADVERTISEMENT
It is brought to you by the same team behind Keyword Keg.
Key Features:
- Collates data from popular keyword research tools like Ubersuggest, Answer the Public, Google Search, Google Analytics, Search Console, and Moz Open Site Explorer.
- Provides basic but valuable information – keyword search volume and cost per click.
- Issues data in PDF, Excel, and CSV file formats.
Best keyword research tool for: Keyword research in browsers
Pricing: Free with limited features. The Premium version uses the pay-as-you-go model. You can buy 100,000 credits (1 credit = 1 keyword research) for as low as $10.
MerchantWords
Screenshot from Merchantwords.com, August 2021
MerchantWords is one of the best free keyword research tools for SEO if you own an Amazon store. It collects data from over one billion Amazon searches to return a list of relevant keyword phrases.ADVERTISEMENTCONTINUE READING BELOW
Key Features:
- Actionable market insights using data from over one billion Amazon searches worldwide.
- Monthly search volume of keywords with the help of Google keyword data.
- Unlimited searches and CSV downloads.
- 24/7 customer service support.
Best keyword research tool for: Ecommerce businesses
Pricing: Free with limited features. Premium plans start at $35/month (for U.S. data only) and at $149/month (for global data).
Keysearch
Keysearch is a powerful free keyword research tool that helps you get organic traffic and find potential backlink opportunities.
It also features keyword research tools for YouTube and Pinterest.
Key Features:
- Keyword difficulty checker.
- Rank tracker.
- Backlink checker.
- Website audit analyzer.
- Competitive analysis.
Best keyword research tool for: Individuals and businesses on a budgetADVERTISEMENTCONTINUE READING BELOW
Pricing: Free with limited features. Premium plans start at $17/month.
GrowthBar
GrowthBar is a great tool 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 competitor’s profile featuring – backlink data, organic keywords, Google/Facebook ads info and related insights.
Standout features
- Generate content outlines with AI
- Keyword rank tracking
- Accurate ranking difficulty
- Long tail keyword suggestions
- Exportable keyword data
- On-page word count
Pricing
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.
- Pro – $29/month
- Scale – $79/month
Long Tail Pro
It’s no secret that long-tail keywords are the new standard of SEO. 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.
Standout features
- Powerful, detailed keyword metrics
- Easily find long-tail keywords
- Provides recommendations for attracting highly convertible organic traffic
- 2,500+ SERP lookups every 24 hours
Pricing
Long Tail Pro is a premium tool and does offer a 7-days free trial (subscription to be cancelled before 7 days). Subscriptions start as low as $25 per month (when billed annually). Long Tail Pro currently offers three plans to users.
- Starter – $25/month
- Pro – $45/month
- Agency – $98/ month
Conclusion
There are a lot of keyword research tools out there. Some allow you to do more than just find keywords, while others offer a single function. So, how do you decide which tool is best for you? Use this guide to help you choose a great keyword research tool.