Even in 2019, intelligent use of keywords remains the simplest, easiest and most effective search engine optimisation technique to drive high-quality organic traffic to your website, when it’s matched with high-quality content.
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Why use Keyword Research Tools?
Whilst you probably already know which keywords you want to target for your websites SEO, using keyword research tools can help you choose both long and short-tail keywords you may not have thought about, along with giving you a better understanding of the search volumes and quality of searches.
You may be thinking that you could use the free Google keyword research tool, but unfortunately, it changed recently and no longer gives us exact keyword search volumes.
We highly recommend using one of the following ten free keyword research tools for your search engine optimisation to help you figure out exactly what sort of content you should create for your website in order to match what your audience is searching for:
1: SEO Book
This free keyword tool is unique amongst the others in that you can tick a box to include Google Trends data in your results along with the usual data points such as estimates of Cost Per Click and the value of the traffic.
SEO Book focuses on English speaking searches mostly from the UK and US.
It will provide an inexhaustive list of keyword results that you can easily export to CSV, this is good because these are usually limited.
In order to use this tool simply head to their website and put in your email address to subscribe.
To use SEO Book’s free keyword research tool, head to this link: http://tools.seobook.com/keyword-tools/seobook/
2: SEO Chat
SEO Chat is another of the keyword research tools that is unique because it allows you to include search results from not just Bing, but also Amazon and YouTube, which is very helpful.
Once it has returned your results it will show you them side by side, which suggestions for longer-tail keywords based on each letter of the alphabet following.
If you choose to select or export all of these keywords the suggestions will be limited to the first 100 keywords.
Further to this, SEO Chat can divide your results into bulk suggestions or useful suggestions.
To use SEO Chat’s free keyword research tool head here; https://tools.seochat.com/tools/suggest-tool/
3: WordZe
This free tool also requires you to sign up with your email to receive access to the free tool, but uniquely provides you with a referral link, allowing you to refer other users and receive a free upgrade to the premium version of the tool.
WordZe contains three major features;
Ultimate research
Long tail keywords
Competition analyser
Ultimate research allows you to create a named project and specify what country you are in before moving into which service you want to return data from (Google, Bing etc) and asking you whether you’d like broad or exact match keywords.
It’ll also remember your recently searched keywords.
Wordze seems to be a little slower than the other keyword research tools but is still powerful and so features high up this list. Additionally, WordZe will save all of your results for use in future.
This tool claims to be able to find all of the keywords that Google’s Keyword planner hid within their tool, giving you access to thousands of long-tail keyword opportunities.
To use WordZe’s free keyword research tool head to this link: http://www.wordze.com/
Once you have signed up, there is a members area and a getting started guide for you to use.
4: LSI Graph
The only one of the keyword research tools to mention Latent Semantic Indexing, LSI Graph pledges to highlight to you the most profitable but also semantically-linked keywords that Google will love.
LSI Keywords are keywords that sound different but have the same meaning, and help teach Google to understand what your content is about. This also helps your audience read your content because you aren’t repeating the same keyword over and over, but using synonyms that both your reader and search engines can understand.
You’ll need to verify you’re not a robot with a CAPTCHA before you can generate your results.
Once you see your results, you can continue to drill down into the results and receive more suggestions for linked keywords.
For instance, Fruit Smoothie might become Easy Fruit Smoothie Recipe, which might become Easy Fruit Smoothie Recipe for Kids.
To use the LSI Keyword Generator, head to this link: https://lsigraph.com/
5: Keywords Everywhere
This keyword research tool is a Chrome or Firefox extension that you will need to install and load into your browser.
Once you’ve installed, this will actually add volume and cost values to your Google Autosuggest searches as they appear, which could be very useful if you’re just wanting to test one specific keyword.
Once you’ve performed a search and are presented the Search Engine Results Page (SERP) it will now include data on related keywords and what other searches people are making.
Usefully, you can export all of this data to a CSV file for later use.
To download the Keywords everywhere browser extension add-on visit their website here: https://keywordseverywhere.com/
This tool will give you an idea of how competitive the keywords you’re trying to rank for are. It is worth mentioning that Keywords everywhere can add data to more than just the other tools in this list, but also other websites like Etsy, Majestic and the Moz Open Site Explorer.
6: Answer the Public
Answer the public is the most visually striking of the free keyword research tools, offering lots of data back to you in various graphs broken down into related, questions, prepositions, comparisons and alphabeticals.
If you run this tool in conjunction with Keywords everywhere, you will also see search volumes and cost estimates alongside your results from Answer the public.
You can view your results in a downloadable image file or export to CSV.
To use Answer the public visit this site: https://answerthepublic.com/
Answer the public was created by the team behind coveragebook.com and links to their blog which contains useful information.
There is a pro version of this tool, but you can get a lot of value out of the free one.
7: SEOStack Keyword Tool
Another Chromes extension, SEOStack Keyword Tool is a powerful tool that asks for a Seed Keyword, and allows you to add alphabetical extensions, numerical or other, along with being able to show results from eBay and Yahoo.
This tool can directly take you to Google Adwords, so if you’re looking to create Pay Per Click campaigns or the like with this data, it is very easy to do so.
To download the SEOStack Keyword Tool Chrome Extension, click here: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/seostack-keyword-tool/labjajhkfjfncpiddbgdimcaldgeognn?hl=en
8: Neil Patel’s Ubersuggest
Benefitting from the enormous Brand that is Neil Patel (from CrazyEgg, KissMetrics and Quicksprout), Ubersuggest shows you how to win the game of SEO straight away, by asking for a keyword or your domain.
It’ll also allow you to tell it which language you want to search in, such as British or American English.
Uniquely, Ubersuggest ranks the difficulty of your chosen keywords for both SEO and PPC. For instance, if a keyword is easy to rank for, you have a good chance of ranking in the top 20 search results.
Alongside its keyword suggestions, Ubersuggest also includes a traffic analyser that gives an overview along with the top pages in SERPs and keywords.
When looking at the results from other domains that have ranked high, Ubersuggest will estimate not just visits to those pages, but also the social shares they have received.
The visual representations of keyword search volumes include monthly data so that you can see trended searches over time.
Once you’ve begun examining keywords, Ubersuggest will actually start to give you ideas for both keywords to try and rank for, as well as the content that you should create.
To get started with Ubersuggest, visit this site: https://app.neilpatel.com/en/ubersuggest/
9: Keywordshitter
Despite the name, Keywordshitter is a keyword research tool that made our list that simply shits keywords, and can be modified with positive or negative keywords.
The interface is minimalist and simple, unlike some of the other keyword research tools that could potentially become confusing.
Once it has started its job of shitting keywords, it will continue until told to stop, providing more and more keywords over time.
This is another tool that benefits from having Keywords everywhere installed, as the results will be augmented with volume and cost estimates from there.
To start shitting keywords, click here: https://keywordshitter.com/
10: Wordstream
Wordstream’s Free Keyword tool is another free keyword search tool but this one will limit the number of searches that you can make.
Unlike other keyword research tools, this one will allow you to enhance your results with the industry that you’re targeting.
Some of the data returned will be obfuscated unless you begin a free trial of Wordstream’s premium product, Wordstream Advisor, which can offer targeted keyword suggestions and a personalised opportunity score for you.
This tool will provide results and suggestions that are less exact than the others, and can provide good inspiration for different directions to go in with your content.
It’ll also provide search volume estimates for each suggested keyword.
You can get started with Wordstream here: https://www.wordstream.com/
We hope that you’ll find some if not all of these keyword research tools useful for getting increased organic traffic to your websites.
Beyond Keyword Research
Once you’ve chosen your keywords and created your content, what next?
I’ll help you go beyond keyword research and drive targeted traffic directly to your website when you grab my free training series here.