by Table of Contents
When I first forayed into blogging, I haven’t heard of concepts like SERPS or even SEO’s and I had to rely on just my passion and instincts to guide me to what my next blog topic would be.
After months of struggling to drive traffic to my website, I’ve had serious bouts of writer’s block because of the futility of my efforts despite writing topics I was deeply passionate about. There was a point where I wanted to give up.
I didn’t budge (and thank god I didn’t). I had nothing left to lose so I might as well just continue blogging until my domain expires.
So I tried researching on ways to increase my site’s traffic.
Then came this revelation…
SEO doesn’t have to be that hard. Driving traffic doesn’t have to be expensive.
Even with all the jargons, acronyms and technicalities, a beginner can still succeed despite the increasingly cut-throat competition in the blogging world.
All you need is a proper keyword research about the niche you’re targeting.
What is Keyword Research in SEO?
Keyword Research is the process of finding the right terms, words, or phrases in your niche that your target demographic is searching for in SERPs or Search Engine Results Pages. These keywords are also called as Search Queries typed in by users in popular search engines like Google, Bing or Yahoo.
Since these search queries on SERPS are organic, it’s proven to be a very cost-effective and efficient strategy as you won’t have to shell out a huge amount of money for targeted ads on fb, google or other social media sites.
Keyword research is perhaps the most important step in SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) to increase site traffic and conversions. By researching the proper keywords, you’re ensuring that there is a high level of interest about a topic while gauging the level of competition in that particular niche.
The goal in keyword researching is to find a set of long-tail targeted keywords with a high search volume and low competition. This combination would increase your chances of driving traffic to your website.
There are several tools that you can use to easily research the right keywords for your content. The good news is that a lot of these tools are free and super easy to use even for beginners.
Here are some the best free keyword research tools that you can use for SEO
1. Google Keyword Planner
Google Keyword Planner is a free keyword research tool that helps businesses and content-creators discover the proper keywords for their target demographic. It also shows the search volume, level of competition and approximate costs of an ad to show per a specific set of keywords.
All you need is a Google account to use Keyword Planner. You don’t have to shell out money to use this tool.
There are two options that you can choose when using Google Keyword Planner:
You can either Discover new keywords or Get search volume and forecasts.
The first option allows you to find new keywords related to your niche.
Simply type-in keyword ideas. Enter a location or target. And click Get Results.
The keyword results page will show you the Average Monthly Searches, Competition (High, Medium or Low), and bids if you’re planning on advertising using that keyword. For now, we will focus on average monthly searches and level of competition.
When choosing the right keywords, I pretty much keep it simple. I choose the ones with the a high average monthly search and low competition.
If you’re getting more info on the search volumes and forecasts on the other hand, simply type-in your keywords and click on Get Started.
From the results page, you can see that you can get at least 7.9k clicks and 130k impressions (visibility or the number of people who search for that keyword in a month).
A keyword with a high number of impressions, clicks and average monthly searches plus a low level of competition is a good keyword to choose in my opinion.
2. Google Trends
While Google Keyword Planner is helpful in showing you relevant data like average monthly searches, clicks and impressions, Google trends is a great supplemental tool in determining if search levels for a keyword is on an uptrend, downtrend, or if there is a steady level of interest depending on a specific timeframe.
Google trends is helpful in catching keyword spikes or hot topics that your potential demographic are currently interested in. It could also show seasonalities so you’d know the optimal time to post your content, and spot the next hot topic to get ahead in the game.
Google trends will show you trends within past few days, weeks, months, and even decades. Plus, they show breakdowns of locations with the highest number of searches for that keyword. You could type-in keywords, and check the level of interest between the two.
I avoid keywords that are on a downtrend as it just means that interest is slowly fading.
3. Ubersuggest
Another free keyword research tool that is one of my favorites is Ubersuggest.
Similarly with Google Keyword Planner, you’ll be able to see a keyword’s average monthly volume, competition, seasonal trend and impressions. And not only that, Ubersuggest also shows relevant information about your target demographic like mobile vs desktop volumes, searcher’s age ranges and locations.
Ubersuggest also gives you long-tail keyword ideas, related words or alternatives, questions, prepositions and comparisons that might help you rank better in search engines.
With their keyword overview, you’ll be able to see webpages and authority sites that rank in the top 10 of Google SERP, check the number of social media shares per post, see their estimated number of visits and number of backlinks to that page.
In my opinion, the higher your competition’s backlinks, the harder it will be to rank in the top 10 of SERPs. Or you could try to target the same keywords, but it would require for you to have a higher number of backlinks than them.
Ubersuggest also shows titles of popular pages that will give you content ideas with a high level of interest in social media sites like Facebook and Pinterest.
4. Keywordtool.io
Keywordtool.io is another free keyword research tool. It is fast and easy to use and they claim to be the best Google keyword planner alternative. You can use this tool even without signing up for an account.
Keywordtool.io utilises Google Autocomplete to generate up to 750+ keywords.
Whether you’re a blogger, an entrepreneur, a youtuber or looking for ways to employ different marketing strategies across different platforms, Keywordtool.io allows you to search for keywords for other SERPs and social media sites like Bing, Facebook, Youtube, Amazon, eBay, Playstore, Instagram and Twitter.
For the free version of Keywordtool.io, they only generate keyword combinations. You’d have to upgrade to their Pro version to see important data like Average monthly volume, competition, trend, etc, which you could in Google Keyword Planner and Ubersuggest.
5. AnswerThePublic
AnswerThePublic is a highly visual keyword research tool that gives you insights about your customers’ wants, needs psychographics, habits, and basically everything they’re searching for on SERP’s.
It is not just a keyword research tool; it is a powerful marketing tool to help you discover consumer insights that will help you drive traffic to your website.
Compared to other free keyword research tools, AnswerThePublic’s generated keywords are presented in a highly visual but easy to understand interface.
Similarly with keywordtool.io, AnswerThePublic will not give you numbers about monthly volumes, competitions, clicks and impressions. Instead, AnswerThePublic is helpful in giving you possible combination of long tail keywords that you can include in your content to improve your SEO.
Their generated long tail keywords are pretty exhaustive. They branch out from your keyword or niche to questions like Where, Who, Why, How, etc., and they include prepositions and alphabeticals.
6. Wordze
Wordze‘s free keyword research tool is pretty much a “hidden gem” but I highly recommend it because even if it’s free, you can still get access to all important research metrics like monthly search volumes, competition, traffic values, cpc, etc.
Just start off by signing up to get free access, then make a project or a SEO campaign. Wordze.com will generate thousands of hidden long tail keywords that might be helpful in improving your SEO.
What I like about this too is that your results can be saved. All these for free!
They also give you insights on the current trends in the form of trend graphs; and you can get an insight on not one but 5 databases (Google, Bing, Youtube, Amazon and Ebay).
7. FaqFox
Faqfox is a slightly different keyword research tool slash question scraper. It is unique in a sense that it is an on-demand survey that helps content-creators and entrepreneurs find out what their target demographic’s online interests are.
They have simplified the marketing research process that even a beginner wouldn’t find keyword research daunting. It gives instantaneous results too!
Just type in a keyword or a set of keywords related to your niche.
In the second box, type in or paste the link sof the social media sites or websites that you’d want to scrape keywords from. Or, you could just pick a category of starter sites from their list.
Faqfox then generates a list of titles and content containing your desired keywords. Click on the links and check which posts have a high engagement (likes, comments, shares, etc). These will give give you an insight on your demographic’s level of interest about a specific set of keywords.
8. lsigraph
With Lsigraph’s propriety formula called the LSV (Latent Semantic Value), they were able to generate specific sets of highly targeted long tail LSI (Latent Semantic Indexing) keywords that are semantically linked to a main keyword.
Lsigraph’s free keyword research tool is one of most highly underrated gems out there. It gives you access to precise search volume data, competition levels, language search based options, and you’ll be able to discover top performing content relevant to your niche.
Free users are only allowed 3 searches per day and if you sign up, you’ll be allowed 8 searches per day.
9. KWfinder
KWfinder is an intuitive and easy to use keyword research tool that helps you find long tail keywords to easily rank high in search engines. It is used by big brands like Airbnb, Adidas, Skyscanner and Deloitte to name a few in their marketing research.
It claims that it literally is the only keyword research tool that you’ll ever need, and in my experience they really walk the talk.
They offer a FREE 10 day trial and you can use ALL of their features. All you need is to sign-up. No credit card required.
10. Keywordrddit
Reddit is known for its passionate online community. It is proven to be a great source of keywords and thank god there is a simple tool to easily determine hot topics and trends from reddit.
Keywordrddit is one of my favorite discoveries. It is a reddit keyword scraper tool that generates long tail keywords.
Type in the name of the sub reddit related to your niche and click Get Keywords.
It can generate up to 500 keywords in just seconds from the subreddit that you chose and you’ll be able to see the average monthly searches per keyword.
Of course, a keyword with a high search volume is a good keyword to choose. Click on Context to see posts and contents with those keywords. Check the number of comments.
It is pretty straightforward and simple and if used with other keyword research tools to gather more data about the level of competition, impressions, clicks and other metrics, you’re sure to have a winning keyword right there.
