Although there are a few free keyword research tools, most of them offer limited features. So these tools are helpful for keyword idea generation. However, these free tools cannot provide much help in keyword research. But if you spend your time and try different tools together, you can do great keyword research. These best free keyword research tools for SEO are described here.
So, what is Keyword Research?
Keyword research is the process of finding the words and phrases that are searched by people in search engines. For a specific website or product, we have to find the best-related words for that website or product in this research. There are many free and paid tools to do the keyword research. These tools help us in finding the best keywords. But most of the time, these tools give conflicting results. So, we have to use our intuition also to find the best words or phrases for a particular website, product, or service. Another thing to know about keyword research is that there are two types of keywords:
- Short-tail keyword: Short-tail keyword has one or two words in it. For example, ‘keyword’, ‘keyword research’, etc.
- Long-tail keyword: Long-tail keyword has more than two words in it. For example, ‘keyword research tools’, ‘best keyword research tools’, etc.
Best Free Keyword Research Tools for SEO
In this article, I have used the most widely used free keyword research tools for SEO. These are:
- Soovle
- Keyword Generator from ahrefs
- AnswerthePublic
- QuestionDB
- Google Keyword Planner
- Google Trends
- Google Search
Soovle Tool (Free)
Website: https://soovle.com/
Figure: Soovle.com
This tool provides an idea about our chosen keyword. For example, if we search ‘keyword research’ on soovle.com, it will show what people are searching using Google, Wikipedia, Answers, YouTube, Bing, Yahoo, and Amazon.com.
Figure: Results for ‘keyword research’ in soovle
Here, we can see that there are no relevant keywords from Wikipedia, amazon.com, and Yahoo for our words ‘keyword research’. People are only using Google, Answers, YouTube, and Bing to search ‘keyword research’ and its related keywords.
So, soovle.com can help us by providing related keywords that are searched in different search engines.
Free Keyword Generator of Ahrefs (Partially Free)
Website: https://ahrefs.com/keyword-generator
Figure: Keyword generator in ahrefs.com
In the keyword generator option of ahrefs.com, we can search keywords in different countries and for Google, Bing, YouTube and Amazon. If we search ‘keyword research’ in United States and in Google, we will be shown the following screen. From this screen, we can see that there are 3,569 related keywords. But only 20 keywords are shown to us. To see the complete list, we have to subscribe. So, it is not completely free!
Figure: 20 keyword suggestions from ahrefs.com
Answerthepublic (Partially Free)
Website: https://answerthepublic.com/
This website also allows us to find related keywords, especially long-tail keywords. For example, if we search ‘keyword research’ on answerthepublic.com website, it will show related keywords in different formats:
- Questions starting with are, can, how, what, when, which, who, why, etc.
- Using prepositions, for example, can, for, is, to, without, etc.
- Comparisons
- Others
Figure: Answerthepublic.com
It shows the search volume with CPC (Cost Per Click) information.
Figure: Answerthepublic.com shows search volume with CPC in different formats
Figure: Keywords, search volume and CPC in table format
QuestionDB (Free: 5 searches/month)
Website: https://questiondb.io/
QuestionDB offers full keyword research but with 5 searches/month for free. If you need more search, we have to subscribe. It shows volume, CPC, difficulty, trend, and also competition level.
Figure: QuestionDB.com keyword research
Google Keyword Planner Tool (Completely Free)
Website: https://ads.google.com/intl/en/home/tools/keyword-planner/
To use Google’s keyword planner, go to the above URL and sign in with your Gmail address. Then go to Tools -> Keyword Planner -> Discover new keywords.
Figure: Keyword planner of Google
Now, let’s search our ‘keyword research’.
Figure: Searching ‘keyword research’ in Google’s keyword planner
Google will provide you with the actual data of search volume and others. It showed around 1,800 keywords.
Figure: Actual data about search volume, competition of the keywords
Although it is completely free, it provides the most accurate data for your keyword research. But remember that the ‘Competition’ shown here is not the competition for the keyword. It is the competition to show ads for this keyword. It does not show the competition of organic search.
Google Trends (Completely Free)
Website: https://trends.google.com/
Google Trends is another service from Google that is completely free. We can use this tool to get an idea of the demand for the keywords that we use. When we use this tool, we have to search ‘Term’ for the keyword.
Figure: Google Trends
Google Trends can show the demand for the keyword over different timelines.
Figure: Google Trends showing the demand for ‘keyword research’ over 1 year
It also shows interest by region in USA.
Figure: Interest by region
It also shows related queries, for example:
Figure: Related queries in Google Trends
Google Search (Completely Free) for Keyword Research
Website: https://www.google.com/
Last of all, we can use only Google. It is completely free. All we need to do is type a few words in the search box and it will automatically suggest other related words that are searched by people.
Figure: Keyword research using Google
What keyword research tools should I use for Free?
In my opinion, you can use the tools provided by Google. Because we are doing SEO mainly for Google. And Google provides the actual data of the keywords which are used by the people. So, in this case, we can combine Google keyword planner, Google Trends, and just Google. But you have to spend your time and search with different combinations, change locations, and use your intuition to do better keyword research for SEO.