15 Best Keyword Research Tools Which You (Probably) Haven’t Used

If you are playing the SEO game for a while, you must have realized the importance of Keyword Research so far.

Choose the right keyword, do the basic SEO optimization, and you will start getting the traffic from Google. Choose the wrong keyword, and do whatever optimization you could, it would take you a lot of time to rank for that keyword.

Keyword research is very important. People overlook it most of the time and care about the other stuff like link building and on-page SEO strategies. Even if they do them perfectly, it is a matter of time before knowing that their time is wasted.

Do the keyword research right, and everything after that becomes easier. We are lucky nowadays because of the availability of great tools that could help us find thousands of keywords in seconds and with a glance, we can filter them to find out which ones to investigate and which ones to ignore.

Best Keyword Research Tools [2019 Edition]

Here are the best keyword research tools [that I have used personally] along with their features.

1. SEMRush

SEMRush is one of the top tools known for Keyword research. This tool started mainly as a keyword research tool then expanded to cover the other options for SEO, unlike most of the popular SEO tools.

So expect SEMRush as a great keyword research tool, they became so popular and they expanded into other territories to be a complete online marketing tool, not just a SEO tool.

Features :

Get over 2 million keyword ideas in seconds after entering your seed keyword.
The ability to sort the keywords by search volume, keyword difficulty, cost per click data and more.
Keywords are grouped by an algorithm to know related keywords that you can use in your content to rank for multiple keywords within one detailed article.
You can analyze 1000 keywords in single go with data like search volume and keyword difficulty to help you identify right keywords to proceed with.
You can also estimate how much traffic you can get by looking at the click potential for every keyword.
Easily send the new keywords that you selected to track their position or use with paid promotion.
Compare keywords with other domains or compare different domains with each other.
Use their keyword difficulty tool to get a glance of how difficult a keyword is to rank for. Go with lower keyword difficulty if you are still a newbie to get good results.

SEMRush was my only go-to tool for a while until other tools were developed. It is still one among the top tools that I can’t live without.

The pro plan is more than enough for most of the people and it costs $99 a month. It is a little bit pricey, but don’t forget that you get access to a ton of tools. Keyword research is a small part of it. It is 100% worth your money if you are serious about your marketing efforts.

2. Ahrefs

Ahrefs is one of those tools that has grown quickly in the past few years. They are competing for the top tool for SEO, many people consider it as the best tool.

Ahrefs first started as a backlinks analysis tool. You would be mistaken if you think their keyword research tool is not top notch. If there is only one tool that I can use for SEO purposes, then I would go with Ahref.

Features:

Get thousands of keyword suggestions in seconds from more than 7 billion keywords on their database.
Access data over 170 countries.
Get data not only from Google but from 10 other search engines like YouTube, Amazon and more.
Ahrefs keyword difficulty is the most accurate one on the market.
Know the estimated number of clicks you can get from every keyword. All keywords do not have the same CTR.
Know the parent topic so that you can try to target one big keyword and rank for hundreds of other related keywords with the same piece of content.
Get data for over 10k keywords with single click of a button.
Ahrefs filters are not like others. You’ll love playing with them.
Review the current ranking pages and the history of top-ranking results. When there are a lot of changes, it is better to go with more stable one where the pages haven’t changed for years.

Ahrefs is a complete SEO tool. They are growing rapidly and changing things rapidly.

But it may be little bit expensive if you are just starting out. Other than that, they are the best and can be the only tool you need.

Their plans start at $99 a month. The standard plan at $179 may be the right option if you do a lot of analysis in a month. But the lite plan is more than enough if you are just starting out.

3. KWFinder

KW Finder is a tool that is created to do keyword research. It may be the tool of choice if you are short on budget and don’t want to have one complete tool like Ahrefs or SEMRush.

Here is one thing you need to know, they have one of the best user interfaces of any tool available on the market. They let you do analysis easily from within the dashboard and the ability to choose the right keyword is so easy with this tool.

Features:

Their keyword difficulty is one of the best. Not better than Ahrefs, but if you are considering the budget then I would suggest KW Finder.
You can easily find the long-tail keywords your competitors are not ranking for.
Easily find data for keywords on a city level.
Easily filter keywords that are not profitable.
Search trends and keyword metrics can be seen in a glance.
Easily perform analysis on the top pages with a single mouse click without leaving the site.

You will get access to their other tools like Link miner, SERP watcher, and SERP Checker to get the best experience within a low budget.

You can get started with $29, which is affordable that is why I recommend it for most of the people who are just starting out.

4. Google Keyword Planner

Google Keyword Planner is the tool provided by Google to help you find keywords to use with AdWords.

It was the gold standard before they started to not show data for the public unless you start advertising on the platform.

Features:

Provides grouping of keywords by Google itself.
It shows a range for the number of searches.
Can be used to search multiple keywords at once.
Great tool to find the CPC of a keyword.

It may be a great keyword to look at from time to time, but it can’t be your only tool anymore.

5. LongTailPro

Long Tail Pro made a huge impact on the market when it first started out. They were the only tool that provided a score for the difficulty of their keyword.

The tool has changed a lot since then and it can be a great option to check out if you just want a keyword research tool.

Features:

Easily do keyword and competitor analysis.
Find the keyword profitability with rank value.
Easily spy on your competitors to find their top-performing keywords.
Updated rank data can be found easily with their rank tracker.
Their university is a great one to help you get started with finding the best keywords, which you can get with an annual purchase.

You can get started with the tool for just $37 a month. If you want the best bang for your buck, this may not be the best option for you.

6. SpyFu

Spy Fu is your great ally to find the top keywords of your competitors and hijack it to make your site compete with them

Features:

Just enter a domain name and you can easily find all their organic rank, keywords they bought, and all their ad variations in the past 12 years!!!
Easily download SEO keywords of your competitors.
Find out changes in rankings and catch emerging competitors.
Easily compare data of multiple competitors at once.
Easily find the history of pages ranking for a keyword and how they rose or fall.
Track your rankings progress.

You can get started with the tool for just $39 a month. Great if you want to find data of your competitor whether paid or organic.

7. SERPStat

Serpstat is another all-in-one SEO platform that helps you with everything related to SEO. It has grown rapidly in the past year because of its low pricing and its fast progress with the tool.

It started as a baby, but now it is one of the best budget options for people to get started with SEO without paying hundreds of dollars for tools like Ahrefs, and SEMrush.

Features :

Easily find keywords for SEO and PPC campaigns from your competitors.
The value of the keywords can be determined easily.
Keyword variations and search suggestions can be found with a single mouse click to make your content rich with more keywords and able to rank higher on multiple pages at once.
Find your webpage relevance to a specific search query.
Analyze trends on keywords.
Find the page ranking for a keyword with a click and see all the data related to that page to easily determine if the keyword is competitive or not.

And as I mentioned, it provides the best option to get started with a premium SEO tool for a low price.

You can get started for just $19 and you don’t just get access to their keyword research tool but also their search analytics, content marketing ideation, rank tracker, market intelligence, on-page audit, backlinks analysis, and advanced reporting tools.

A great option if you want to get the maximum bang for your buck.

8. Soovle

Soovle is fun to play with as a tool that helps you find keyword suggestions from major search engines including Google, Bing, Amazon, Answers.com, Yahoo, Wikipedia, and YouTube.Just enter a keyword, click Soovle, click on any of the suggestions and results will be updated quickly with the new phrase you just clicked on, and then repeat as much as you want to see long-tail keywords from the other search engines as well, that your competitors wouldn’t think about.

When you double click on a suggestion, you perform the search on the engine it came from to see the results

You can use saved suggestions to save keywords you played with.

You can then research the saved suggestions using google trends to find whether the popularity of the keyword is increasing or decreasing.

It may seem like little bit outdated, but as I said, it is a fun tool to play with from time to time.

9. SECockpit

SECockpit is another great premium tool that can help you with keyword research.

Here are some of the features of this tool:

Find keywords in seconds and easily import existing keywords.
Find thousands of ideas via Google ads, Google suggests, Google related searches, Amazon and Youtube suggest.
Easily know how niche a keyword is.
Find trends for every keyword.
You can find extensive details easily for every keyword idea.
Analyze competitors for a keyword and find ideas from them easily.
Easily sort and filter keywords and export them.

It is a great tool to add to your arsenal. You can get started with just $49 a month.

10. KeywordTool.io

Keyword Tool is one of those tools that provide generous free usage. I would suggest you to not bother with their pro plan.

Few of the features of this tool:

Get over 750 long-tail keyword suggestions.
No need for creating an account.
Easily do a search on all languages and all google domains with data from 192 countries available.
Can be of great value if you run paid ads.
Find keywords even hidden in the keyword planner.
It depends on the Google keyword autosuggest to find long-tail keywords in seconds.

You can get more results and do competitor analysis with their pro version. The problem is that it costs $199. At that price, I would highly suggest you go with Ahrefs to have a more complete tool.

11. Moz Keyword Explorer

Moz is one of the first premium SEO tools available on the market that are still available now.

And their keyword explorer tool is a great tool that you can add to your arsenal:

Easily analyze keywords volume with over 95% accuracy.
Generate and save keyword lists and easily export them.
Easily find long-tail keywords that are in question format.
Keyword difficulty is one of the best options to show you how easy or hard to rank a keyword.
Review and analyze which pages are ranking for certain keywords to better understand what you need to compete.
Easily sort data with keyword difficulty, volume, and expected organic CTR.
Do a keyword analysis on your competitors.

You can get some data from their free tool, but don’t expect much. Their paid plans are a little bit pricey and I wouldn’t suggest it over tools like Ahrefs.

12. Google Trends

Google Trends is a tool from Google.

It helps you analyze trends of keywords. So if you want to find whether a keyword is rising in popularity or decreasing then this tool is a great option to check because it provides data from the source itself.

It is great to make sure that you don’t go after keywords that are fading in popularity. If you are able to catch a trend while it is starting to grow, that may be the best thing to grow your site rapidly.

It is good to know whether a keyword is evergreen or not. Because if the keyword is not a good keyword, then no need to target it.

It is a great tool to add to your arsenal and check before making a final decision whether to target a keyword or not.

13. Google Correlate

Google Correlate is another great free tool provided by Google, not many are using it.

It has the trending data for all phrase match search terms that exceed a certain threshold.

It then uses its algorithm to find the highest correlative terms to a keyword. This way, you will get more correlated keywords that you can add to your content or that you can create new content to try to rank for.

And it is very easy to use. Just enter a keyword, click on “Search Correlations” and you will immediately get a list of highly correlative terms. 1.0 is a perfect correlation. They don’t show anything below 0.6.

You can easily export the results in a CSV.

You can use it to find the hidden gems not many know about.

In the example above, if we shift the series back to 2 weeks earlier (i.e -2 weeks), we can see what people were searching 2 weeks earlier when they searched for the main keyword.

These tools can help you to understand your customer keyword journey.

14. Ubersuggest

Uber Suggest is a great free keyword tool that helps you find a lot of keywords.

It was acquired by Neil Patel and he added it to his personal site. He is spending upwards of 6 figures every month to update it with more features to make it the best SEO tool available, not just keyword research.

If you are short on budget, this is the best SEO tool that you need.

Here are some of the features of this tool:

Easily find insights about what is working for your competitors including top keywords.
Top SEO pages help you find the popular pages for your competitors and easily find the keywords they are ranking for.
Their keyword suggestions is a great option to check out as well.
Easily sort data by the keyword difficulty, paid difficulty, CPC and volume.
Easily have a look at the trend of that keyword and analysis of the top-ranking pages for that keyword.
You can use multiple languages using this tool.

Neil Patel is spending a lot to make this tool the best free tool, and it is already the best by a mile.

He is competing to make it the only tool that you need without the need to purchase a premium tool.

It is nearly there. So check it now and you will not regret it. It is better than 90% of the paid tools available on the market right now.

15. AnswerthePublic

This is one of my favorite tools ever for finding content ideas and keywords to rank for.

And it is available for free.It is very simple to choose.

You just enter a keyword, click on the “Get Questions” button and you will find questions asked by people related to that search term.

It uses autosuggest provided by Google and Bing to find data and compile it in a visual way in a matter of seconds.

And it is not just questions that you get. You can also see data when adding prepositions, comparisons with other topics, related searches and data that appears when adding a certain alphabet, so what appears when adding a certain alphabet. It compiles it all in one place.

I’m not exaggerating when I say that you can’t find a better free keyword that provides all this data in a beautiful manner.