Best Keyword Research Tools | Keyword Research Tools You Can Use For Free Now

Keyword Research Tools You Can Use For Free Now

Best Keyword Research Tools

Keyword research is one of the most important digital marketing tasks. Furthermore, it lies at the foundation of any business strategy or campaign you are planning.

Keyword research provides useful insight into organic ranking opportunities, persona building, competitive research, product development — you name it!

Another reason why I love keyword research is that it’s a highly creative process. There is never such a thing as “enough tools” when it comes to keyword research. Each data source and the way the data is presented brings something new to the table. Sometimes when I feel stuck, all I need is to play with a new keyword intelligence tool.

With that in mind, I decided to create a roundup of free (and freemium) keyword research tools, i.e. those tools you can run right now, without the need to pay first.

Some of those tools are freemium (meaning you can pay for the upgrade) but all of them are quite usable for free (which is what I recommend doing first before deciding if you need to upgrade). Finally, I am not going to include obvious tools like Google Ads Keyword Planner and Google Search Console as I am sure SEW readers are well aware of.

New tools inspire new tactics which is what I hope you’ll end up with.

• 1. Rank Tracker: 

Aggregated keyword suggestions from multiple sources

(Freemium)

Rank Tracker free version gives you access to its keyword research feature that uses around 20 different keyword research sources, including Google Ads Keyword Planner, Google Suggest, Wordtracker, SEMRush and more.

Rank Tracker is a downloadable tool and you do have to provide your name and email to start downloading. Other than that, the installation takes seconds, and running it won’t kill your browser.

The free version includes keyword analysis feature helping you to discover the most promising keywords to include into your content strategy. These metrics include:

Monthly search volume (according to Google)

PPC competition

Keyword difficulty that reflects the estimated level of organic competition of each query.

…keywords with the Keyword Difficulty score below 60 are the hardest to find but the easiest to rank for. When accompanied by a considerable and steady number of searches, they become perfect keywords to optimize your pages for. You may also have a look at KEI, visibility, and CPC parameters for a deeper analysis.

You can export the whole list into an Excel file to play further.

The premium features include collaboration, cross-tool reporting, task scheduler, multiple projects, etc.

You can see the full list of features you’ll get free access to here.

• 2. Answer The Public: 

Google Suggest driven questions and more

(Freemium)

Answer The Public is a completely free keyword research tool that requires no registration. It uses Google Suggest data to discover questions, comparison-based queries and keywords containing prepositions.

Answer The Public allows to view the data in two ways: Visualization (i.e. a mindmap) and Data:

You can also export all the results in a CSV file or save any visualization as a PNG file.

The recently launched premium version allows you to target keywords by location, compare data and add team members for collaboration.

You can see the version comparison here.

Tip: You can also use this tool to upload your Answer The Public spreadsheet to add Google search volume to each question. This will help you focus on those questions that are often being searched in Google.

• 3. Text Optimizer:

Related concepts and terms(Freemium)

Text Optimizer is the semantic analysis tool helping you identify related concepts behind each topic or query. It uses Google’s search snippets to analyze the keyword context to come up with related concepts and entities that help Google understand and classify the topic.

Text Optimizer is both a content optimization and research tool helping you direct your whole content creation process.

Don’t get misled though: It’s not about stuffing your content with the suggested terms. Use the tool for deeper topic understanding and as a writing aid.

The premium version allows to use of geo-targeting, build whole sentences to help you in writing and access your historic records.

You can see it in action here.

• 4. Kparser: 

Clustered keyword suggestions(Freemium)

Kparser is a freemium tool that runs the whole keyword analysis for free, without requiring registration. You won’t be able to export the keyword list unless you upgrade but you can use the keyword filters to the left to a group and cluster your list by a common modifier.

Kparser combines multiple keyword sources including Google Trends, eBay, Amazon, Google Trends, and YouTube.

It’s a somewhat basic approach to keyword clustering but it’s nonetheless nice to have completed for free as it helps to discover more queries to optimize for.

The premium features include unlimited searches, geo-targeting and more.

Read more about Kparser here.

• Bonus: 

Analyze keyword performance

(Free trial)

Finteza is a nice affordable alternative to Google Analytics with a huge focus on conversion optimization and monetization.

One of its highly useful features searches analysis section showing you which keywords brought most clicks to your site. It’s a great way to identify more queries to focus on:

If you select any of the queries and keep browsing the site, you’ll see data related to that keyword only, e.g. its conversion rate, associated conversion funnel analysis and user demographics. Finteza also recently added a retargeting feature allowing you to serve specific content based on the initial referral or engagement.

You can read more on Finteza’s traffic analytics here.

Which keyword research tools do you know that is usable free of charge? Please share yours in the comments!

Related reading

Look around at a macro-level to see the trends vs. always focusing on detailed keyword-level optimizations. Trends to help put your strategy in context.

Producing a constant stream of content can be exhausting without running out of ideas. How do you keep up with all the content you need to produce?

Understand your site’s critical HTTP codes to recognize errors that demand attention and find opportunities to help improve your SEO.

The whole point of customer support is to understand your industry and business goals. Coaches meet you at your level of expertise and build up from there.

5 Useful International Keyword Research Tools You Need to Know

ant to automate the keyword discovery process, save dozens (if not hundreds) of hours, and supercharge your optimization efforts?

Then you need a keyword research tool.

Without the right tool, keyword research remains one of the most complicated, labour-intensive, and time-consuming (but super necessary) parts of SEO.

The only question is: with hundreds of different tools on the market, how do you choose the one that’s perfect for your business?

You weigh their pros and cons, of course!

Without further ado, here are my picks for the best five keyword research tools.

• 1. Google Ads Keyword Planner

Pros Straight from Google

The biggest benefit of the Google Ads Keyword Planner is that you’re getting information straight from the horse’s mouth.

You can trust that all the information about search volume, competition, and top of page bids is accurate and reliable.

Free

Google Keyword Planner is the only forever free tool on this list. It might not have all the bells and whistles of the subscription-based or one-time-fee software on this list, but you can’t beat that price.

Convenient Features

The three features I love most about Google Keyword Planner are:

You can always access historical data for the last 12 months.

You can save keywords and easily add them to an upcoming Google Ads campaign.

You can add search parameters to conveniently filter for keywords that match your goals.

Cons No Competition Analysis

Keyword Planner is the only tool on this list that doesn’t allow you to discover your competitors’ keywords or perform any keyword competitor analysis.

Limited Results

Keyword Planner has a few data limitations compared to the paid models in this list.

It doesn’t differentiate between singular and plural cases.

Search volume results are shown as a range, which isn’t great if you need precision.

The keyword suggestions it returns are quite limited (you can type up to 3 keywords and Google will return no more than 2,000 results).

Less International Versatility

Keyword Planner is great for all things Google, but that makes it noticeably less effective in regions where Google isn’t the #1 search engine.

If you’re hoping to reach audiences in Russia, where most people use Yandex, or China, where they use Baidu, or certain other locations, you’ll need to invest in another tool.

• 2. SEMrush

Pros Large International Database

SEMrush is cloud-based, which gives it a lot of versatility, and they boast the largest keyword database with data on more than 450 million domains and more than 9.4 billion keywords.

When doing international keyword research, you can choose a specific country for your seed keyword and get multiple keyword suggestions with data on Search Volumes, Keyword Difficulty, and more.

• Intuitive Interface

While you’ll find some detractors on this point, SEMrush is widely considered to have one of the most user-friendly UX’s out of any of the big keyword research tools.

Their intuitive Keyword Magic Tool makes it easy to implement filters to refine your results.

• Competition Analysis

One of the best things about SEMrush is what it does differently from every other tool. Instead of giving you a list of keyword ideas, SEMrush shows you what your competitors already rank for.

This makes it easy to swoop in, start optimizing for low-hanging fruit and discover search terms that you otherwise might have missed.

Cons

• Keyword Research Uniformity

SEMrush pulls keyword ideas from its own database only, not making use of auxiliary keyword research methods like Google Autocomplete, Related Searches, or Keyword Combinations.

It means that for some niches, and especially for international research, the keyword suggestions might be quite limited.

• Affordable Plans Limit Key Features

SEMrush has four different payment plans, but each plan locks or caps some essential features.

For example, the free plan is obviously the most attractive price-wise, but it’ll limit you to 10 searches per day. Speaking of keyword research, the Pro plan only lets you have 500 SEO idea units.

Traffic Analytics Can Cost More Than the Software

SEMrush doesn’t include traffic analytics out of the box.

It’s going to cost you an extra +$200/month if you want to:

Track key metrics such as visitor engagement, marketing mix, devices used, etc.

Compare different websites for benchmarking.

Or analyze marketing trends.

• 3. Ahrefs Keywords Explorer

ProsIn-depth Insights

Enter a seed keyword, and Ahrefs will give you a ton of information with each result it returns, including:

A breakdown of first-page competition (specified by country).

Search volume.

More keyword ideas, featuring the same terms.

This will help you gauge the real traffic potential of each keyword.

• Keyword Difficulty Score

Almost every keyword research tool assigns a keyword difficulty score to its results, but Ahrefs offers something special.

It’s the only tool that breaks down exactly how many backlinks you need to Google’s first page results along with the more standard difficulty score.

• International Results

Ahrefs’ Keywords Explorer 3.0 added nine more search engines (on top of Google) including Yahoo, Bing, and some important international players like Yandex, Baidu, Naver, Daum, and Seznam.

• Keyword Research Uniformity

Similar to SEMrush, Ahrefs provides keyword suggestions from its own database only, potentially limiting keyword ideas for some niches, especially in the international segment.

A mix of in-built tools like Yandex Autocomplete, Google Related Searches, or Word Mixer could have added more diversity to the results.

Affordable Plans Limit Key Features

Just like with SEMrush, you may find your SEO efforts stymied if you only have the budget for the cheapest ($99/mo.) “Lite” edition.

Your limitations in the Keywords Explorer module will include 5 keyword lists, 100 SERP updates per month, and some more.

No Free Trial

Most SaaS keyword research tools let you take them for a spin before you commit.

Not Ahrefs.

You’ll have to pay a nominal fee, even for the seven-day trial of its “Lite” and “Standard” editions.

• 4. Keyword Tool.io

A Good Starting Point for International SEO

Keyword Tool generates keyword suggestions from multiple Google language interfaces, making the keyword choice relevant to the country and language you target.

This makes it a useful tool for creating a list of baseline international keywords.

Affordable

You can use Keyword Tool for free, and with the free version, you can gather more than 700 keyword suggestions.

But if you want deeper insights, you’ll need to pay a monthly fee, which is still quite affordable compared to the other cloud-based tools on this list.

Focus on Long-Tail Keywords

One of Keyword Tool’s main strengths is the number of long-tail variants it will help you identify. When you need to develop content, this is a very nice resource.

Cons

No Keyword Research Tools for Major International Search Engines

If you want to do keyword research on search engines like YouTube, Amazon, or eBay, then Keyword Tool is great.

But unlike SEMrush, Ahrefs, and Rank Tracker (which is next on the list), Keyword Tool does not currently show you results from major international search engines like Yandex or Baidu.

Limited Competition Analysis

You won’t have the detailed insights you would with other tools in terms of keyword difficulty scores or which keywords the competition is ranking for.

Insights Gated Behind Subscription Tiers

Keyword Tool is your typical freemium model – offering you some decent data if you pay for Keyword Tool Pro, but prohibiting you from seeing information such as search volume and competitor analysis with the free version, and the “Pro Basic” version locks you out of CPC and Google Ads competition data.

• 5. Rank Tracker

Full disclosure: my team developed Rank Tracker, a tool designed to help businesses of any size generate lists of tens of thousands of keywords and gather granular insights into keyword positioning.

Pros

More Robust International Research

Rank Tracker has one of the largest keyword databases and it’s growing at a rate of 4,000 words/minute.

It incorporates 23 keyword research tools, including Google Keyword Planner, Search Console, Google Analytics, along with international keyword tools like Yandex Wordstat.

Find the Keywords You Rank for in 10 Countries

Rank Tracker is one of the few tools that not only gives you international keyword suggestions, but also collects all the keywords you (and your competitors) rank for in organic search results in the U.S., UK, Netherlands, Spain, France, Germany, Australia, Russia, Canada, and Italy.

Comprehensive Keyword Management

Easily analyze the keywords you’ve collected according to the SEO efficiency indicators you value most, including the number of searches, keyword difficulty, competition, cost per click, and more.

Unlimited Websites & Keywords

Even the free version of Rank Tracker lets you search for unlimited keywords for as many websites as you want.

• Barrier to Entry

We tried to pack a lot of utility into our tool and help SEO professionals collect big amounts of data, but we’ve heard from some users that Rank Tracker can be overwhelming for beginners.

• Desktop Software

Rank Tracker is cheaper than a lot of the cloud-based alternatives, but as desktop-based software (Windows, Mac OS X, Linux) it may limit opportunities for collaboration.

Separate Programs for Different Functions

Rank Tracker works great on its own for rank tracking and keyword analysis but you won’t get the all-in-one experience (backlink analysis, site auditing, link building) without investing in the whole SEO PowerSuite family of products.

Which Tool Is Right for You?

Ultimately, the tool that’s best for you will always boil down to what you need.

Do you need a budget-friendly option?

Do you need more keywords to choose from?

Do you need richer international results straight from international search engines?

Do you need the versatility of a cloud-based program?

Or do you, perhaps, need more than one tool to accomplish different tasks?

Whatever you need, I hope you found this list of the pros and cons helpful, and I hope it informs your research as you decide which international keyword research tool is right for you.