9 Keyword Research Tools To Try Free & Paid

It’s a solid free tool for uncovering long-tail content ideas based on what people are actually asking. So, let’s say I’m targeting small business owners in India with content about financial tools. But with the right prompts, it can speed up keyword discovery and help you explore new angles. You’ll also see suggestions for related keywords and keyword groups.

Keyword Research: The Beginner’s Guide By Ahrefs

But it will give you signals as to whether to continue to pursue this path over another keyword. ChatGPT was more upfront about the sources it used (at the bottom of the answer, you could click on Sources to see the specific websites the chatbot referenced). But it also offered search volume and keyword difficulty numbers pulled from AdTargeting’s keyword research tool.

Then sort by impressions (high to low) and scan for keywords with few clicks. These kinds of prompts are great for brainstorming content ideas, especially for sales collateral or support content. Depending on your needs, you might even want to get software that has content creation and optimization features. That way, you can execute entire campaigns from a single dashboard. I also recommend to prioritize software with lots of integrations.

Marketing Against The Grain

• This means that you should not blindly rely on the search volume of a single keyword when estimating the search traffic that your page is going to get if it ranks for it.
• The best way to do keyword research is to focus on one single topic.
• Most tools calculate this based on the authority of sites currently ranking.
• Modern keyword research prioritizes search intent, which is a person’s primary goal when searching for something in a search engine).

Free tools are also good for businesses that don’t prioritize SEO and, instead, want to focus on user intent. To drive search engine traffic, whether through organic search or paid search advertisements, you need the right keywords, plus a process to expand your keyword lists over time. The higher the search volume for a given keyword or keyword phrase, the more work is typically required to achieve higher rankings. Once you enter your seed keywords into a keyword research tool, you will begin to discover other keywords, common questions, and topics for your content that you might have otherwise missed. To get more traffic from search engines, you need to understand what people are searching for online and produce content that targets popular keywords. If you produce content without doing a prior keyword research, your chances of getting meaningful traffic from the search engines are slim.

The 15 Best Keyword Research Tools In 2025 (free + Paid)

Another important step in the SEO keyword research process is determining target and related keywords. If your content doesn’t match the search intent of your keyword, it won’t rank. Even more importantly, you want to make sure that answering the search intent makes sense for your business. The keyword competition, sometimes called keyword difficulty, refers to how challenging it will be to rank for that keyword in the SERPs. The higher the keyword difficulty, the more challenging it will be to earn a top spot in the search results. The first thing you’ll want to include in your final list is long-tail and out-of-the-box keywords.

It’s an effective way to find relevant keywords you’re missing out on. This kind of information can help you spend business resources more effectively. And ultimately get more organic traffic (unpaid visits from search engines). Whether you’re running a content-focused blog, a small business, Axtora Corp or a brand marketer, you will need keyword research to kick-start your content and marketing activities. They need to be topics that are important to your business and related to your buyer personas. Think about what type of topics will your target audience search for on Google?

You can also enter a website URL – such as a competitor’s homepage – to get contextual keyword suggestions and ideas to help you compete against similar businesses. We’ve revamped our popular Free Keyword Tool and it’s better than ever, with more features, more data, and exclusive info to help you manage, optimize, and expand your search marketing campaigns. Learn how to find low-hanging keyword opportunities in a few steps, and how to make sure those keywords are truly low-competition and easy to rank for. Combine filters to find untapped keywords with high organic traffic potential and low Keyword Difficulty scores. Now that you have an understanding of how to get started with keyword research, experiment with a few different websites and niches.

Scroll down to see a detailed keyword list along with key metrics like intent, volume, keyword difficulty, CPC, and each site’s current ranking position. Rather than creating content for keywords you think your audience will be interested in, search volume data enables you to write relevant content you know they’ll be interested in. You need to make sure the content you create is highly relevant to the keywords you target and matches the user’s search intent. Use Search Intent in Explore by Keyword and Keyword Suggestions to understand what type of content searchers want and when in their search journey they are querying your target keywords. Identify additional keywords to target with our extensive pool of keyword suggestions. Group keywords by lexical similarity and create Keyword Lists for in-depth analysis.

So, it’s little wonder that 93% of respondents reported SEO positively impacted website performance and marketing goals in 2023, according to our 2024 State of SEO Survey. However, simply employing an SEO strategy isn’t enough to make a difference. Knowing your goals will help you formulate what success looks like for your site.

For a first-stage strategy, you should aim for keywords with a mid-range and long-tail volume for quick wins and then build up to approach more competitive terms with higher volumes. When you have finished this process, you should have a raw list of potential keywords grouped in topics – such as maintenance, clothing, training, etc. The value of long-tail keywords is that they are usually highly focused terms that convert well, as users are actively looking for something very specific. Keyword research is an extension of understanding your audience by first considering their needs and then the phrases, keywords, or queries they use to find solutions. The answer is that what you want to rank for and what your audience actually wants are often two wildly different things. Focusing on your audience and then using keyword data to hone those insights will make for much more successful campaigns than focusing on arbitrary keywords.

Google Search Console shows what people search for to find your website and how many searches get clicks. As below, a search for “buy flowers online​” doesn’t show AI overviews; instead, the SERPs get straight to the businesses that can meet the searcher’s intent and sell the flowers. Instead, I research audience needs, pain points, and conversion-driven keywords.