Keyword research has a huge role in SEO strategy and gets process gets simplified when you use a tool. There are 100+ tools available to pick the right keyword for your web pages. Here we come up with the best keyword research tools for SEO in an unbiased approach.
A potential keyword with low competition helps your website easily reach SERP (search engine result page). A keyword analysis tool enables you to get tons of keyword ideas with details like:
- Search volume,
- CPC (cost per click),
- Keyword or search or SEO difficulty.
10 Best Keyword Research Tools for SEO:
We have used all the tools listed below for keyword research and recorded the best one. You can find both free and paid tools. We assure this article will provide you with complete clarity on picking the right one.
The best keyword research tools are the following:
- Google Keyword Planner (Free by Google)
- SEMrush
- Ahrefs
- Soovle (Free)
- Keyword tool IO
- Moz Keyword Explorer
- Serpstat
- KW Finder by Mangools
- Answer the Public (Free)
- Long Tail Pro
Google Keyword Planner:
This becomes the first pick in our best keyword research tools list, as it’s a free tool by Google. Can you assure another party who can provide as much data as Google? Definitely not!
To use Google keyword planner, you should have a Google Ads account (which is again free).
Once you log in to Google Ads with a master account, you will find a dashboard as below.
You must first select an active account; if you don’t have one, you should create one.
You have two options in the dashboard:
- Discover New Keywords
- Get Search Volume and Forecasts
Click on the option Discover new keywords, and then you will have the following options to research the details of the keyword.
- Start with keyword – You can place seed keywords and start getting ideas.
- Start with a website – You can collect the keywords that rank on other websites.
- You can enter the keyword for researching.
- You can enter the location.
Google keyword planner is one of the keyword research tools with the feature of researching the details city-wise.
Once you fill in all the details, you can press Get Results to get various keyword ideas.
You will get various details like the following:
- Average Monthly Searches
- Overall search trends and Mobile trends
- Last three-month change in search volume
- Competition (This is applicable for Google Ads and don’t consider for SEO)
- Low Bid price and High Bid price
You will also get an option of keywords under Broaden your search (just above the graph).
Following this, you can also Refine Keywords under four options – Brand or Non-brand, Tool, Service, and Others.
You can discover unlimited keywords around a seed keyword with keyword ideas. You can export the list as a CSV file and Google sheet if needed.
One of our preferred keyword research tools is Google keyword planner; this is the top pick as it’s a free tool.
The only drawback with Google keyword planner is that SEO keyword difficulty is not provided; you should rely on other tools as the content flows.
SEMrush:
SEMrush is one of the premium tools that has made keyword research an easy process in SEO. This tool has become the preferred one in SEO entities; a survey by Robbierichards with 139 SEO experts resulted in 87 votes for SEMrush.
Currently, the only tool that maps a keyword’s intent is SEMrush. Apart from keyword research, it’s an all-in-one Marketing tool for SEO, PPC, content writing, and content marketing.
It is one of the keyword research tools we trust and use for our website and keyword research services for our clients.
SEMrush comes with five features in keyword research:
- Keyword Overview
- Keyword Magic Tool
- Keyword Manager
- Position Tracking
- Organic Traffic Insight
Keyword overview is the dashboard, where you will get the details like search volume for the chosen country and keyword difficulty as the main components.
In addition, you can also find the details like global search volume, intent behind the search, CPC (Cost per click), keyword variations, related questions, and related keywords.
The keyword magic tool is one of the best features that makes this tool to be premium and in the second position on our list.
This feature provides you an additional advantage in figuring out various cluster keywords related to the seed keyword.
This helps in figuring out the following:
- Low competition keywords
- Long-tail keywords
- Other keyword Ideas
- Avoid keyword cannibalization
You can filter keywords concerning the following:
- Broad Match
- Phrase match
- Exact match
- Related Match
- Questions
- Search Volume and KD by the custom range
- Intent
- CPC
Finally, you can download the list of keywords that you have researched and use it for building quality content.
Pricing:
SEMrush comes with 4 plans:
- Pro – Kick starter plan at $119.95 per month. This is one of the best plans in the market for freelancing SEO professionals or startup business owners.
- Guru – The plan starts at $229.95, and it suits for small SEO/marketing agencies
- Business – If you run an e-commerce or running a marketing agency, this plan suits you. It starts at $449.95 per month.
- Enterprise – A marketing agency that does unlimited keyword research can contact SEMrush for custom pricing.
Note:Â SEMrush provides 10 free keyword research for a day. But, search volume and KD are the only features you will be accessible to.
Ahrefs:
Ahrefs is another premium keyword research tool that starts at $99 per month for a user. When it comes to data, Ahrefs is at the top of the table and has an extensive collection of keywords used by internet users on various search engines.
The tool is placed in 3rd position, as there are a lot of restrictions on the lite plan ($99 per month). We believe their actual package starts with a standard plan ($199 per month).
The keyword research by Ahrefs is performed in Keyword Explorer. It is one of the tools that has a keyword research facility for search engines like the following:
- YouTube
- Amazon
- Bing
- Yahoo
- Yandex
- More (Baidu, Daum, Naver, Seznam)
The dashboard of the keyword explorer appears in the above image. You have to select the preferred search engine and target country, and then enter the keyword to research.
Once start the research, you will get extensive data on keywords like the following:
- Keyword Difficulty
- Search Volume
- CPC (Cost Per Click)
- Traffic Potential of the keyword
- Global Search Volume
Also, you will get another feature – Keyword Ideas, where you can explore cluster and relative keywords by
- Terms match
- Questions
- Also Rank for
- Also Talk about
Besides this, you can also get visibility over the SERP (search engine result page) in the selected country. This helps SEO experts to have details on rivals that compete in the first 100 positions.
At the same time, you can get details like DR, UR, backlinks, referring domains, organic traffic and keywords, top keyword, and search volume.
When you explore keyword ideas, then you will be getting a detailed dashboard like the above image.
Here, you can explore cluster keywords, long tail, and high intent keywords by Ahrefs.
You can filter keywords with more options provided by the tool like the following:
- Matching Terms – Questions, Term Match, Phrase match
- The select range on KD, search volume, global search volume, traffic potential, word count
- SERP features
- Include
- Exclude
- Clicks per search
- Cost per click (CPC)
Pricing:
Ahrefs comes with 4 plans:
- Lite – Kick starter plan at $99 per month. This is one of the best plans in the market for freelancing SEO professionals or startup business owners.
- Standard – The plan starts at $199, and it suits small SEO/marketing agencies
- Advanced – If you run an e-commerce or a marketing agency, this plan suits you. and it starts at $399 per month.
- Enterprise – An marketing agency that does unlimited keyword research, and it is $999 per month.
Soovle
Soolve is another free keyword research tool. The best about this tool is you will get all the keyword ideas on the same screen for various search engines like the following:
- Amazon
- Yahoo
- Bing
- YouTube
- Answers
- Wikipedia
as the image below
Once you type the seed keyword in the search box, you will get all the keyword ideas appearing across the screen.
So, with this keyword research tool, you can get cluster keywords for every seed keyword, which helps build topical authority websites.
If you press search, you will be redirected to the search engine results page of the respective search engine chosen.
You can’t discover the details like search volume, KD, and global search volume as displayed in SEMrush and Ahrefs.
KeywordTool.io
Keyword Tool.io is a semi-free and premium keyword research tool that help you provide details of various search engines and social media like the following:
- YouTube
- Bing
- Amazon
- eBay
- App Store
- Play Store
- Google Trends
- Facebook, etc.
OMG, these many search engines in a single tool? Yes, and that is the reason, we bagged them in our best keyword research tools for SEO.
From the above dashboard, you can find the detail of keywords and related keywords.
You can filter keywords by language, search engine, currency, location, etc. to do proper keyword research.
Even without subscribing to a Pro account, you can find the details like search volume, trend, average CPC, and keyword competition.
But, if you need to discover more keyword ideas, you should subscribe to a pro account.
Even though data is fewer compared to SEMrush and Ahrefs, you can research up to 7000 keywords in a day with a basic plan of the pro version.
If you only perform keyword research services and don’t serve other aspects of SEO, then you can only purchase keywordtool.io
Pricing:
- Pro Basic – $69 per month
- Pro Plus – $79 per month
- Pro Business – $159 per month
Moz Keyword Explorer:
Moz keyword explorer is another premium keyword research tool that provides about 10 free research. You can use Moz for keyword research, as it has extensive data and clears the need for any keyword.
The keyword explorer by Moz provides you the information like the following:
- Search volume (in ranges)
- Keyword difficulty
- CTR% (How many clicks happens in SERP across impression)
- Priority of the keyword
- Keyword suggestion
- SERP analysis
Keyword suggestions by the tool provide keyword ideas, i.e., the cluster of keywords from the seed keyword.
It provides the details like relevancy connection with the seed keyword and the monthly search.
You can download the complete cluster of keywords by export CSV.
The next feature of this keyword explorer tool is the SERP Analysis, where you will get the details of the website rank in SERP for the keyword.
SERP analysis provides the detail of DA (Domain Authority), PA (Page Authority), backlinks, and referring domains of the web page that rank in SERP.
Pricing:
- Standard – $99 per month
- Medium – $179 per month
- Large – $299 per month
- Premium – $599 per month
Serpstat:
Serpstat is another premium tool on the bucket of keyword research. This all-in-one SEO tool comes with various features or sections under keyword research.
As the above image telecasts, the tool provides details like the following:
- Search volume
- PPC competition
- CPC (Cost per click)
- Keyword difficulty
At the same time, you will get many keyword ideas for both SEO and PPC campaigns.
In the left column, you get more features from these tools like the following:
- Keywords selection
- Related keywords
- Search suggestions
- Search questions
- Top pages
- Competitor
- Top by keywords
You should purchase the plan to get access to the complete features provided by the tool.
Pricing:
It has only one plan, and it starts at $69 per month. You can get a discount when you choose to pay for 6 months (10%) or an annual package (20% off).
KW Finder by Mangools:
KW finder has a facility of 10 free days trial period to establish authoritative research on search terms of various locations and languages.
This tool provides you with two options, the same as Google keyword planner.
- Discovering new keywords
- Discovering all the keywords from a domain.
To avail 10-day free trial, you should create an account and log in. Once, you do the keyword research, a dashboard appears as same the above image.
You will get the details like the following:
- Search volume
- Keyword difficulty (KD)
- SERP overview up to 100 results
- Related keyword
- Autocomplete keyword
- Question keywords
In the same way, you can choose to search by domain to discover the keywords ranked on the website.
This keyword research tool has the facility to discover using various filters.
Pricing:
- Mangools Basic – $29.9 per month
- Mangools Premium -$39.9 per month
- Mangools Agency – $79.9 per month
Answer the Public:
Answer the public should be used in daily keyword research practice for SEO. Even if you buy premium tools like SEMrush, and Ahrefs, this free keyword research tool helps discover more long-tail keywords to create a topical authority in a domain.
You should place the search term and choose the country, followed by a search. You will get a mind mapping image as below.
Every search term is coupled with multiple questions around them.
Answer the public keyword research tool provides you various questions around a keyword, like why, what, which, who, when, where, can, how, are, will, etc.
You can export all these keyword ideas and start creating content.
These keywords are generally low in search volume and easy to rank in SERP.
Long Tail Pro:
Long tail pro is another keyword research tool in our bucket that helps to discover long tail keywords that comes as a paid tool.
The tool is made in such a way as to discover as many related keywords with high intent (basically a long tail).
The tool has the facility to opt for advanced options, under which you can filter using,
- the minimum and maximum monthly searches,
- the minimum and maximum suggested bids,
- suggestions per keyword (maximum up to 400).
Once, you press retrieve, the tool starts generating keyword ideas, as per the number of suggestions provided.
The keyword ideas will have the details like the following:
- Average keyword competition
- Search volume
- Bid
- Words
- Rank value
As you get extensive data compared to free tools, you can purchase this tool to discover long-tail key phrases.
Pricing:
- Annual Starter – $297 per year
- Annual Pro – $537 per year
- Annual Agency – $1177 per year
Recommended Best Keyword Research Tools for SEO by 7 Eagles:
We have provided the top 10 keyword research tools in front of your table.
But, we recommend the bucket of keyword research tools that we use in daily practice to discover low-competition and high-intent keywords to rank in SERP to convert.
Here are the best keyword research tools we recommend using for SEO:
- Google Keyword Planner
- SEMrush or Ahrefs (either of them)
- Answer the Public
- Soovle
- Also asked for
Hope you enjoyed this article. Do contact us for keyword research services.
