Our Giant List of the Best Paid and Free Keyword Research Tools for SEO!

A woman with glasses holding a cup looks closely on a laptop with a frowning face
Share This Post

The key to success with your website is to use the right keywords and keyword phrases in your web-based advertising. The key to success in building a successful online presence is to ensure that your website speaks the same language as your potential visitors, and uses keywords to draw in new clients. Keywords are one of the most important factors in search engine optimization.

You should understand what kind of customers you’re dealing with, what kind of information they will be seeking, and what words they will be using to search. These are SEO Keywords that help your website rank above all the others. These SEO words are specific keywords that you use with every webpage and blog post on your website. Not only do you need to use specific SEO keywords for your website, but this is also a process that needs to be updated every few months so that your website maintains priority listing in website searches.

Luckily for you, there are websites that research SEO keywords for you and we’ve compiled a list of the best websites to help you find your SEO keywords.

  1. Mangools.com

 

 

Mangools is a suite of five search engine marketing tools for SEO Keywords. They are KWFinder, SERPChecker, SERPWatcher, LinkMiner, SiteProfiler. When you log in to Mangools, you’ll see your dashboard page. You’ll automatically have access to all of the apps in this portal. From here you can track all of your SEO keywords used through the Keyword Finder. This is their most popular tool and the one first used. Generally speaking, the suggestions that KWFinder spits out are super good. Most keyword research tools just split out variations of the same keyword and automated variations. KWFinder not only does this but finds words related to the original search terms that might be better options for you as well, opening up your website to new avenues you might not have thought about before. These are called “lateral terms”.

“Lateral” keywords are very valuable to SEO keyword searches. Why? Because they give you keywords and topics that you might not have come up with on your own. This helps give you a heads up over your competitors. The best part is that Mangools.com only gives you the keywords it thinks will work for your website and not a hundred other useless keywords that you have to search through, making Mangools.com’s KWFinder the best tool on the market.

  1. Soovle

soovle logo

Soovle offers suggestions from Google, Bing, YouTube, Amazon, Yahoo, and others in one place. Once you find your keywords you can then download your favorite keywords to a CSV file. The user interface is simple and features a search box, multiple search engines, a Soovle link, and a couple of symbols. The Soovled Link is the first link that is found when running a search on a particular computer. When you’re looking for the right keywords, the search engine Soovle is an invaluable source of information. Soovle is a supplementary keyword search tool.

Soovle should be used to find broad topics that can be broken down into keyword targets. Basically, it takes a broad word like “Exercise” and gives you specific keywords that you can use like “exercise mat”, “exercise bench”. Some of these may also be solid keyword targets, but there’s no solid information on how well these keywords will work for your website. You’ll need to do some further research to find out if any other keywords are not as competitive. If you don’t like the keywords you are finding, you can adjust the filters to words you want to use and words you don’t want to use.

  1. Jaaxy

 

jaaxy
Photo credits to Jaaxy

This keyword searcher claims to be the perfect SEO keyword search that can not only find your specific keywords but also alphabetize them and tracks your site ranking. Early reviews show that this isn’t the case and Jaaxy has a few lagging issues. The topics chosen may not be current and this means you will have to do your research to make sure that the trends you’re looking for are actually a solid trending topic. Some more recent reviews do say this information has been fixed, but there are still varying results listed. Jaaxy is known for its fast and reliable support teams to help answer questions and the website offers both a hub of articles and tutorials and a community to help answer questions.

The good thing about Jaaxy is there’s almost no learning curve that comes with the software. Jaaxy is incredibly user-friendly and especially attractive for beginners. Jaaxy is also an online platform, meaning there’s no software to download. This fact also means that prices are pretty low because there’s no licensing that comes with downloadable software. Even still, they can be more expensive than other online companies that offer more benefits to their programs. You’re also limited by the targets you get to choose when searching. You can’t select the language of the searcher or location.

  1. SERPSTAT

serpstat
Photo credits to httpsserpstatcom

Serpstat is a great tool to use in your search for a great online presence. It can be used to search for keywords, backlinks, reviews, and other useful information. The best features are keyword research, rank tracking, and competitor analysis. You can use the internet to find out what keywords a site is ranked for and how much internet traffic it has. You can even narrow your search by comparing what other keywords competitors in your niche are using. The tool will save you a lot of time and energy and will also be beneficial to your business in the future. The tool will be particularly helpful in the event that you need to use PPC advertising. You can find out the estimated CPC and the competitive level of keywords as well.

Serpstat is a free, all-in-one search engine with over 20 tools. Competitor Analysis, Keyword Research, Backlink Analysis, Site Audit, and Rank Tracker, and many more come in this neat, power-packed software. Serpstat is the fastest-growing SEO tool on the market and has access to over 300,000 users who provide data and research information. You can do everything in one localized spot from finding your specific keyword to finding out what tactics your competitors are using, find the best backlinks for your blogs and website, find the best topic ideas for your content marketing, check your website for SEO errors.

5. YOAST

yoast seo for everyone logo

For quick installation and configurations, Yoast is easy to use and helps guide you through the common configuration options. Yoast tries to be helpful for both beginners and those who are used to SEO content and you can customize as needed. The focus on white hat SEO topics like improved content, keywords, descriptions, and titles is really appreciated by someone who does not use gray and black hat SEO tactics.

The only problem with Yoast is that it is only compatible with WordPress, and sometimes the errors that it finds are not actually errors within the WordPress page or blog that can be corrected by the user. After installing Yoast, the wizard will help you get started on making your website more search-friendly. It’s a simple process and should take only a few minutes. Then, when you create content, you have to take a real-time look at what you are doing right and what you are not doing correctly in order to make that content as good as possible. Yoast can get expensive if you include the price of the WordPress hosting you have to purchase which can run up to $400 a year. On top of that, Yoast comes with free, basic, and premium options that offer a wide arrange of tools on every level. However, most beginner users can begin with free tools.

  1. Google Search Console

google search console logo

If you are not convinced that you have the technical know-how for SEO and keywords, then the Search Console from Google can help. The search engine has a plethora of helpful tools that can assist you in searching for a great match for your search. The platform has a great tool for finding out if your site is performing well or not, can help you easily index your website, and make sure it’s being found by searchers. It can also be helpful for bringing up any issues your keyword search might be having.

The only problem with Google Search Console is that support isn’t always at the ready. Sure there are plenty of tutorials and how-to’s, but they aren’t always updated or as helpful as they could be for beginners, is if you have any technical questions about the search you’ll have to do hours of research and troubleshooting or hire someone who understand how to do it, which could come at extra costs. The search engine should be integrated into any website that you visit, and this will enable you to do a thorough keyword analysis of the pages you are looking at. It helps to increase the number of clicks on your post and speed up the process of it getting crawled.

  1. SEMrush SEO toolkit

semrush
Photo credits to semrush

The toolkit was first released in 2008 and has since been expanded to include other features. The search engine can be found on the SEMrush easily accessed dashboard that is great for beginners. You will find that the keyword analysis report is comprehensive and includes a summary of all the domains that you manage. The toolkit also lets you compare the performance of your pages with other websites and see where you rank in comparison. For example, you could analyze backlinks from other websites to yours. You can also use their tools to find out where your competitors are getting their references from and what drives customers to their websites. Once you have that information, you can compare it to your own and build your SEO campaign down to the smallest of details with this toolkit. “Traffic Sources Comparison” provides you with an overview of digital marketing channels for a bunch of competitors at once. Bounce rates is the percentage of visitors who visit a website and then leave without going back to that page or any other pages on the same site. The domain overview is not only about providing you with an idea of what your competitor is doing to improve its online presence. It’s possible to find out what kind of search engine your domain is using, what kind of search engine is using it for, and what kind of performance it has for your website. It might not be a great toolkit for beginners not used to the technical jargon, but it has a pretty nice price tag at $99 a month for access to all premium tools.

  1. SEO Spider

scrimmingfrog
Photo credits to httpswwwscreamingfrogcouk

SEO Spider is a search engine optimization tool made by Screaming Frog, a UK-based company. While SEO Spider might not offer a lot of great features compared to the others on the list, what it does offer is what it’s best at: it’s the ability to quickly search out URLs and track down broken pages. This way, you don’t have to spend endless hours checking the links yourself. It can also find out if a page has a missing title or meta tag that is not right and check the number of links that are placed on that page. One thing that sets this SEO toolkit apart is the ability to actually schedule searches and crawls as you need on the paid version.

There’s a free and a paid version of SEO Spider. The free version has some basic features, including crawling redirects, but it only supports 500 URLs. That makes the “Lite” version of SEO Spider suitable only for smaller domains. The paid plan has more advanced features and offers free tech support for a little over $180 a month. If you’re running a large business and require to purchase multiple licenses for your project, Screaming Frog offers discounts for those who buy more than five licenses at one time.

  1. Majestic SEO Tools

majestic-logo
Photo credits to majesticcom

Majestic SEO Tools has been growing in popularity since 2011. It is also considered to be one of the oldest search engines available. This tool focuses on keyword searching with backlinks. Backlinks are highly important to the search engine’s performance and Majestic has a lot of backlink data. Users have the option of searching through the fresh index or the historic index. The fresh index is updated and crawled daily, while the historic index is known for its lightning-fast retrieval.

Majestic SEO Tools cannot be mentioned without “Majestic Million”. This is a list of the top 1 million sites and is a fan-favorite among Majestic SEO Tools users. For just $50/month, you can have access to the Lite version. With this starting package, you have access to a bulk backlink checker, a record of referring domains, IPs, and subnets as well as Majestic’s integrated “Site Explorer.”

Majestic does not have any type of search engine, such as Google, and does not have any type of customer feedback. There’s no doubt that Majestic can take your SEO game to the next level, but we must warn you that those who don’t have a technical background may want to choose a different tool on this list that has less technical jargon.

  1. Moz Pro

moz logo
Photo credits to mozcom

Moz Pro can also be used to find out what keywords are popular on a given website and tops websites for other keywords. This tool doesn’t just give keyword ideas though. With Moz Pro, you can identify with keywords and which keyword variations are most effective to target. On top of that, you also have a tool that analyzes your backlink profile and reveals your domain authority. Moz Pro is available from Microsoft for just $99 a month and includes all of the tools that Microsoft provides. The medium level has more features and is available for just $149 per month, with the option to get a 30-day free trial. If you pay your plan off yearly, you can get a 20 percent discount. You have the choice between an enterprise plan or an agency plan depending on the size of your SEO operation. With the enterprise plan, you get access to even more tools such as the local listings and STAT data analysis.

List of The Best FREE SEO Keyword Research Tools

Perhaps you are just starting out in SEO and don’t yet have the budget for a paid keyword tool. Don’t worry, we have you covered. Here are some tools that are free that will help get your started down the right path!

Our List of Free Keyword Research Tools

  1. Google Trends

Photo credits Flickrcom

When it comes to tools, it’s probably smart to trust the data that comes straight from the search engine you are trying to rank for. Google Trends has been around for years now, and it’s always been a great place for businesses to get their feet wet and understand the basics of what the behavior is for a keyword.

There are many things that you can learn from Google trends, but the most important feature is likely the ability to see the search popularity of a keyword over time. With this information, you can choose which keywords to target other keywords.

Let’s suppose for a moment that you are trying to rank an e-commerce store that sells cell phone cases. Would you rather choose to rank for the keyword cell phone cases or mobile cases? Without Google trends, your answer is probably an arbitrary choice with what you ‘feel’ to be the better keyword.

However, with Google Trends you can look at the historical data and see that one of the keywords has more traffic than the other. Or perhaps mobile cases have less traffic than cell phone cases, but you notice that over time the traffic for cell phone cases has continued to go down while mobile cases have gone up. This could suggest that overall people are using the word mobile more often than a cell phone in everyday conversations, which would make mobile cell phone cases a much more lucrative keyword.

Now, this is all hypothetical, and even with this information, it could not be an obvious choice as to what you should choose for your keyword. However, making an informed decision knowing these trends is much more powerful than just going by ‘feel’ or by what wording you and your circle of friends/acquaintances use.

  1. Keyword Generator 

If you have spent even a few months doing SEO, it is almost impossible to avoid the search behemoth that is Ahrefs. They are a well-established company that is known for crawling and storing massive amounts of data. With this, they can show you insights that you could never uncover yourself. One of the ways they show you this information is with their tool called the Keyword Generator.

The Keyword Generator is an excellent way to map out a content road map with just a single seed keyword. Through this shotgun method, you can simply put in the basic niche that your site serves and you are returned with a gargantuan amount of information.

Keyword generator will find up to 150 keyword ideas that are around your keyword with the Keyword Difficulty and the keyword volume clearly displayed. With just this information, you would be in a much better place to start your content production, but Keyword Generator does not stop there. With this tool, you also get access to a list of question queries that are related to your seed keywords.

From this information, you can begin to prune away the keyword ideas that have low volume and high difficulty. You can continue to eliminate keyword ideas until you have a solid list of keyword ideas that will set the foundation of your content marketing strategy.

One last piece of information, if you happen to be doing SEO in a different company or if you want to do SEO on a search engine that is not Google, Ahrefs offers features in both of those areas. It’s truly incredible the amount of value that Ahrefs provides, and even more incredible that this tool is still free.

  1. Answer the Public

Sometimes a tool is exceptionally useful simply by how easy it is to use. Answer the Public is one of those tools, and you can get that feeling just from the name of the site.

Similar to Ahref’s Keyword Generator, you just need to start with a “seed” keyword. Let’s stick with our previous example and pretend our “seed” keyword is “cell phone cases”.

From this “seed” you will be provided with hundreds of possible content ideas and keywords that you may want to target. The first list of keywords you are given relate to questions and queries about that “seed”

In our example, it would likely be something similar to:

  1. What cell phone cases are best?
  2. How durable are cell phone cases?
  3. Are cell phone cases expensive?
  4. When do I need a new cell phone case?

Now imagine this exact list except 10-50x longer. In my experience, Answer the Public usually gives you 100+ questions for most queries and occasionally can give over 200.

Then, Answer the Public will give you a list of possible prepositions centering around your “seed” that could be keywords you may want to tackle.

Examples would be:

  1. Cell phone cases without a screen protector
  2. Cell phone cases for iPhone 12 pro max
  3. Cell phone cases is it cool

This list can help give you an inside look at what your target audience is thinking about when it comes to your “seed” keyword.

Then, of course, Answer the Public gives you a list of comparisons that you may be interested in. What are the other products or solutions that prospective customers think about when referencing your seed keyword?

The best way to understand this feature is through an example:

  1. cell phone cases versus having no case
  2. cell phone cases or screen protector
  3. cell phone cases like otterbox

A great way to easily visualize possible competition and what the mental model is of your product from the lens of your prospective customers.

The final feature provided by Answer the Public is the Alphabeticals. The alphabeticals are basically just what Google autocompletes when you put in your seed keyword. What are the words that are being searched with cell phone cases?

This is almost always the largest list and is an excellent way to get a birds-eye view of your content strategy. From this huge list, you can begin piecing together trends and have a robust content strategy for your SEO.

  1. Keyword Surfer

surfer-logo
Photo credits keyword surfer plug in

Now, keyword surfer is a bit different than all the other services on this list because this tool is actually just a chrome extension. In fact, you can’t even use their site as a service, you MUST have the chrome extension to start getting results.

This tool functions as an additional helper each time you do a Google search. For that reason, it’s both one of the easiest and hardest tools to use. For those who are already well-versed with Google and want a singular place to do all keyword research, Keyword Surfer is here to answer your prayers.

However, for those who are new to SEO and need a bit more hand-holding, you will probably find better results with tools like Answer the Public. Answer the Public comes with a much more intuitive UI and just feels like a more complete product. Keyword Surfer genuinely feels like a tool that gets straight to delivering you value.

With each Google result, you are now also privy to the number of searches per month, which can then be dialed down by whatever country you are targeting.

This simple tool allows you to constantly be getting more information as you are doing keyword research of your competitors on Google. Even if this is not going to become your primary keyword tool, I highly suggest downloading this chrome extension because having it is always better than not.

  1. Keyworddit

keyworddit-logo
Photo credits toolbaseio

What really is the point of keywords?

It’s to understand your target audience in such an intimate way that you know exactly what information they are looking for and how they would look for it. Now, you could do a lot of technical analysis, or you could go straight to the source.

For those who have not used Reddit, it’s essentially a forum where there are millions of people who group together based on interest and interact with one another. By using Keyworddit you take advantage of this gold mine of information. All you have to do is enter the subreddit that is most similar to your niche and Keyworddit will go out and give you powerful keywords to target.

This data is excellent for SEO content creators who don’t really have much information about their domain. By using Keyworddit you skip tons of steps and mine the thoughts and opinions of your target market with the click of a button.

From this information, you can build a mental model of your target audience and find the keywords and content strategy that will provide them with the most value!

  1. You, The Reader

Each day, there seems to be a new way to scrape some information from the internet. I am a big believer in leveraging these tools, but there is still a lot of value in old-fashioned methods. For example, if you want to rank for a keyword that targets small restaurants, you should spend a few hours actually calling up restaurants or walking in and speaking with the owners. What are their pain points? What are they searching for? What are they looking for when they search for these things?

Ultimately, all these tools are just meant to augment the most powerful tool of all, you. You need to use multiple tools in conjunction with knowledge about your product. Only by understanding your target market better than the high-ranking competitors can you truly provide more value and beat them on the Search Engine Results Page.

Best of luck!

Conclusion

This list will help you find the right keywords to search for and create your website. Even if you don’t like to admit it, the internet is the very best place to build up your business. It’s the largest source of free organic traffic even if you’re paying for the best SEO service the web has to offer and If you’re looking for an easy way to find great, affordable budgets, there are plenty of free tools available. If you’re ready to take your website and business to the next level though, it’s clear Mangools has the most to offer to help you build your website, especially if you’re a beginner. Their amazing features, even at the basic level, are easy and helpful compared to other companies on the list.

Get a Free Consultation for Your Website
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

More To Explore

AI for generative engine optimization
What is Generative Engine Optimization

There has been a giant leap forward in search engine optimization (SEO) with the advent of generative engine optimization (GEO). At a time when AI

Wait! Before you go would you like to receive a FREE performance analysis to understand your companies marketing performance?

REQUEST A FREE PROPOSAL

(Includes a free competition analysis)

We just need a little info to get started

What's your monthly digital marketing budget?

Call us now at: 303-586-6728

FREE WEBSITE PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS

We’ll show you the roadmap to get more leads or sales from search engines.