Ultimate List of 42 Free Keyword Research Tools
Keywords are very important for optimizing your website. If your pages are properly optimized, they can bring you much more targeted visitors from search engine result pages.
There are several ways to find keywords for your pages. One of the best and most popular is to use free keyword research tools.
Today i’m going to talk about online tools (free tools, browser extensions and free versions of paid services) and desktop software (free and paid with free trial period).
Keyword research tools cannot fetch real-time data about keywords for every search, so they cache information.
Here is my list of free keyword research tools that will help you to find appropriate words and phrases for your website.
Free online keyword research tools
1. Google AdWords Keyword Tool
Probably one of the best free keyword research tools for SEO available online is Google’s own keyword tool. Just enter one keyword or phrase per line to see related keywords. You can apply different filters like broad, exact or phrase match types. You can also select different languages and countries to search for keyword phrases.
Google AdWords Keyword Tool also has a feature to show keyword ideas and statistics for desktop and laptop devices and different types of mobile devices (WAP, mobile devices with full internet browsers).
In keyword ideas tab you will see columns like Keyword, Competition, Global Monthly Searches, Global Local Searches, Ad Share, Google Search Network, Search Share, Approximate CPC (cost-per-click bid), Local Search Trends graph and Extracted From Webpage. I suggest you to enable all available columns by checking on Columns button on the right hand side:
After you finish you can download search results in CSV format. I highly recommend to use Google Keyword Tool because it’s free tool from Google and it has all features that are needed for keyword research.
This is a free keyword suggestion tool that makes good use of Google Suggest and other suggest services. You can choose a language and a source (Web, News, Shopping, Video or Recipes). Ubersuggest can get suggestions either from regular Web search or from search verticals. It takes your search term, adds a letter or a digit in front of it, and extracts suggestions for it. That way you can get more keyword ideas.
For example, i got 344 keyword suggestions for “search engine optimization” and 377 for “photoshop tutorials”.
I like the way of saving keywords. Click on “Select all keywords” button:
And then click on “Get” button on the right side:
And you’ll see a pop-up window with all keywords.
There are two ways you can do keyword research using this tool: by searching a keyword or by pasting a video link to find suggested keywords for that video.
I have found that Youtube Keyword Tool does not work correctly, it shows “Not enough data” for many keywords. You can solve this problem by creating Google AdWords account and post a video based on your keywords. Set the payout to $0.01 per view and you will get all keywords that you need. Play around with Broad, Phrase and Exact filters to get more search suggestions.
Another useful tool for keyword research from Google. With this service you can compare search volume patterns across specific categories, countries, time frames and properties. You can apply filters like Web Search, Image Search, News and Product Search.
There is another interesting option in Google Insights - you can change over time and compare information using world map. I’ll show you a screenshot:
5. Soovle.com
This is a free keyword research tool that compares the amount of search terms from the top providers on the internet (Google. Amazon, Wikipedia, Answers.com, Yahoo, Bing, Youtube, Netflix, Ebay, Buy.com, Weather.com) and shows the results in a visually appealing layout.
Please note that you can download results by clicking on Save button in the upper left corner.
Go to Alexa.com, then choose Site Info Tab and enter URL of any site. After that click on Get Details button:
On the next page choose Search Analytics tab:
At the end of the page you will find popular search queries that are relevant to this site.
You can get keywords from Bing’s organic search and analyze stats and suggestions based on up to 6 months of historical data. You can also get keyword suggestions (actual numbers, without averaging) in wide range of languages and countries. You have to create an account to access this service.
One more keyword research tool from Google, and it’s also free. If you want to compare multiple keywords, enter them with commas. You can compare up to 5 search terms.
9. GetRank Keyword Suggestion Generator
Nice tool, it allows you to get keyword suggestions from Google, Yahoo and Wordtracker. I got 46 suggestions for “photoshop tutorials”.
10. Yahoo Clues
Discover what users are searching for on Yahoo. For example, Yahoo Clues lets you discover the top searched keywords for sport leagues, teams or athletes. You can compare trends between men and women, or across different countries.
This free online tool finds search patterns which correspond with real-world trends, which is very useful for SEO specialists and website owners.
Google Correllate also shows maps for web search activity:
12. SEO Book Free Keyword Suggestion Tool
This tool is powered by Wordtracker. You have to create an account to use this tool. SEO Book Free Keyword Tool shows related search results and semantically related phrases. You can export keyword data in CSV file. It is free, you just need to get SEO Book free membership.
13. SEO Book Keyword Typo Generator
With this tool you can generate a list of typos and common misspellings for your keywords.
Browser extensions for keyword research
You can find keywords not only using free online tools. You can also analyze keyword density on your competitors pages from top 10. That will give you additional keyword ideas. Browser extensions is a great way to analyze keyword density of any page.
14. SeoQuake
I use SeoQuake pretty much every day since 2007. This browser extension is available for Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Opera and Safari.
It’s very easy to check keyword density of any page with SeoQuake. Just right-click on it’s icon and choose Keyword Density:
On the next page you will see detailed information about keywords:
You can analyze even keyword cloud and 2-word keywords, 3-word and 4-word, which is really helpful for long-tail keyword research:
This video will show how to use keyword density feature in SeoQuake:
15. KGen
KGen (short for Keyword Generator) is a Mozilla Firefoх add-on that allows you to see what keywords are used on visited pages for their SEO optimization.
KGen add-on scans webpage and shows how many times each keyword appears, it’s weight and average position in the page.
Free versions of paid online tools for keyword research
16. Ahrefs.com
Ahrefs is actually paid tool (i use Professional plan there), but it has some free functions that can be extremely useful for PPC and SEO keyword research.
For example, you would like to know what keywords your competitors use for promoting particular pages of their websites. Go to SERP’s Analysis tab, choose Organic Keywords and enter URL of any page of your competitor’s sites. You will get 10 organic keywords for this particular page.
Google, Bing and Yahoo data is available.
17. Wordtracker’s Free Keywords Suggestion Tool
With this free keyword tool you can get up to 100 related keyword phrases and show daily searches. It shows the estimated number of search engine queries for each keyword per day. So, if you need to do your keyword research on a monthly basis, just multiply results by 30.
18. Wordtracker’s Keyword Questions
Another cool feature from Wordtracker. Just type your keyword and it’ll show 100 questions related to this keyword. You can use questions for writing articles and finding new keyword ideas.
19. Actual Keywords Free Suggestion Tool
With Actual Keywords you can see 100 keywords for free without subscription. This tool also offers free keyword packages for downloading from it’s database including Auto Loan, Digital Camera, What Is and How To packages.
20. Semrush.com
Free version of Semrush has a limit of 10 queries per day and 10 results per each query. Semrush database has more than 95 million keywords and 45 domains.
21. KeywordDiscovery Free Search Term Suggestion Tool
You can get up to 100 keyword suggestions with KeywordDiscovery tool. Search term data is collected and compiled from over two hundred search engines worldwide.
22. Keyword Eye
This tool shows up to 100 keywords per report. You can get data from AU, BR, CA, DE, ES, FR, IT, RU, UK and US Google Keyword Database
Keyword Eye has an interesting feature - it shows a cloud of keyword suggestions. That how it looks like:
23. Wordpot
Wordpot free keyword suggestion tool shows estimated total daily searches done across all search engines.
Free version of Wordpot has a limit of 1 project and 25 searches per day. Synonyms, related word matches and associated word matches are also limited to 5 per day.
This is a free long tail keyword tool that allows you find keyword suggestions directly from Amazon.com. Please note that in free version access is limited to 3 uses per day.
25. WordStream Free Keyword Tool
Like with other free editions of paid services, you can get 100 keywords with WordStream. You cannot download results but there is an option to send it to your e-mail.
26. eBay Keyword Research Tool
Just type in your query and you will see a report like this:
27. eBaysaurus
This eBay Keyword Tool helps to find potentially related search queries.
With Terapeak you can find country-specific keywords for high traffic listings. It offers free trial for 7 days.
29. Keyword Country Free Keyword Research Tool
Another way to get 100 keywords for free. I couldn’t figure out how to download the results, so this service is not useful in comparison with previously mentioned tools.
30. Niche Bot Keyword Research
With Niche Bot you can get 20 daily searches and keyword tips for free.
31. Keyword Spy
This tool allows to get only 10 keywords in free version.
32. Web SEO Analytics Keyword Research Tool
This tool shows more than 100 keywords. For example, i entered “Photoshop tutorials” and got 110 phrases. After second search i got a message “You have reached your daily limit”. In free version you can’t download a report, but you can copy it.
33. Wordze
With this tool you can get Keyword Effectiveness Index (KEI) and competitor’s targeted search terms. It also offers Competitor SERP Keyword Extractor module. Wordze has a 30 day free trial.
34. SpyFu
With SpyFu you can take any website and get its keywords. This is a popular tool for spying on keywords that your top competitors in a niche are bidding on. It’s free version doesn’t show much information so it’s not useful unless you get paid subscibtion.
Free desktop software for keyword research
35. Good Keywords
This a free PPC keyword research software for Windows. It works with data from Google Keyword Tool.
36. Microsoft Advertising Intelligence
This is a desktop keyword research software that allows you to build and expand on your keyword list in a familiar excel interface. You can get actual Bing and Yahoo keyword data, including: relevance, cost history, volume, demographic and geographic.
Honestly, after installation i couldn’t find how to run Microsoft Advertising Intelligence. I figured it out after running my Excel :), i found a new tab there. You can see it on screenshot.
Paid desktop software for keyword research with free trial
There is one more software from Good Keywords - Keyword Strategy Studio. KSS helps to find unique and new keyword ideas that are based on the current searches, trends, buzz and popularity. It has a fully functional 30 day trial download.
38. Market Samurai
Article Samurai is paid software, but it has a free trial version. The good thing about it is that Keyword Research module works even after trial period.
This is a useful software for generating low-competition long tail keywords (Windows and Apple OS X). It has free trial. Just check out this video about Keyword Researcher:
40. Keyword Scout Lite Free Trial
Lite version offers many features for keyword research. For example, it has built-in Amazon keyword scraper.
41. Advanced Web Ranking Keyword Research Tool
All the features of Advanced Web Ranking including keyword research are enabled during the 30 day trial period (runs on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux).
42. Rank Tracker
Rank Tracker keyword suggestion module offers different research methods like competition search, misspelled words, etc. This tool works with AdWords, Yandex Wordstat, Keyword Discovery, Wordtracker, Bing and Semrush. You can use Rank tracker for free but you could not save projects and reports. It runs on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux.
There are two more tools for keyword research - Micro Niche Finder and Keyword Ninja (PHP script), but they do not have free trial period, that’s why i didn’t mention them in my post. Actually Micro Niche Finder has 30 day trial but you have to pay for it.
If you know more free keyword research tools - feel free to write about it in comments.
It took me about 5 days to find all this information and wrote this post. I’ll appreciate if you will share this article on Twitter, Facebook , etc.
