Let’s be honest about it. Keyword research is the basic foundation of any SEO strategy. With several types of keyword research tools available today, many SEOs end up using more than one tool for keyword research, often leading to loss of data and difficult workflow processes. This article will look at the best SEO keyword research tools available for all platforms to help you manage a scalable and easy SEO keyword research process. No more switching between tools and managing multiple spreadsheets!
Which Is Better? Online Keyword Research Tools Or Local?
Keyword research tools are all going online these days with a freemium SaaS approach. That is, you’ll have access to all your data online via the online tool. Stand-alone keyword research tools are becoming clunky and obsolete for the following reasons.
- Mass keyword research is not possible via single IPs (blocking you from Google searches)
- Only available on one machine.
- Difficult to manage data as it is locally stored.
- Not collaborative between teams.
I’ve used many machine-dependent tools, and they were all great. The only problem is that at some point, Google blocks me from even regular searches because the keyword research tool has been running mass searches from my IP. Then I have to use captchas (and many of them) or buy additional licenses for anti-captchas!
Online keyword research tools, on the other hand, are easier to use. I can access them from home or the workplace, and I get the same data, tools, and reports. Also, most of them have a team and share functionalities, so if I share it with my marketing team, they have an easy way to do it – which I love!
Let’s take a look at some of the best online keyword research tools that will help you work more quickly and efficiently and create better workflows.
KeywordTool.Io (Free + Paid)
Talking about dedicated SEO keyword research tools, KeywordTool comes up top my mind for various reasons. Accurate data, Ease of use, and Robust features. It’s a straightforward tool that does just one thing right – keyword data mining, nothing else. They still use the same data on other SEO keyword research tools, but it is presented more excellent and more accessible.
Keyword Tool uses Google Autocomplete data to generate a list of relevant long-tail keyword suggestions from the original stem keyword you suggest. So, these are realistic keyword data that people use to search Google for terms related to your original term. Now, if you were to Google and checked all the auto-complete suggestions, you would be limited to getting only a bunch of related keywords, but with KeywordTool.io, you will get a lot more related searches and search volumes for those keywords.
It is a free tool with just the basic options and a paid version with more robust features.
SERPStat Keyword Research Tool
Serpstat is a keyword research tool that can be used for both SEO and PPC keyword research. While it gives all the keyword data like any other tool, it also offers some excellent filter options, which I find very handy. For example, on top of keyword search volume on search engines, paid search ad bids for each of those keywords, and the number of webpages available already on the web, it also lets you filter by…
- Minimum and maximum search volume on Google.
- Domain position for a particular keyword.
- Cost per click and search results filters.
- Filter elements like Video, Wikipedia, Maps, Images, and News.
You can export all the keyword data to spreadsheets.
Uber Suggest – Research With Google Suggest
Google Suggest is a fantastic source for mining Google search data. It will show you suggestions based on what honest people search on Google. (How Google Suggest Works – SEL) Uber Suggest is a tool that will let you mine keyword data from Google Suggest. This is how it works. If you type in any keyword, showing you a list of related searches by real people. This data is valuable because regular keyword search tools like Google AdWords Tool don’t show you this data.
Plus, you can get precise information based on your niche keyword. For example, you could create combinations of your primary keyword (the keyword you typed in) with more combination phrases like “SEO Tips (for), (by), etc.”. Uber Suggest shows you a list of alphabetically ordered combination keywords so you can pick and choose from them. (See image below).
Keyword.Io (Fast Keyword Research)
When all other tools focus on getting keyword research data from Google, Keyword.io, a free keyword research tool, goes a step or two beyond and lets you search for what keywords people are looking up on Amazon, Bing, Wikipedia, YouTube, Playstore, and even Fiverr. That is a lot of data. And like many other tools, you don’t have to register an account to use it. You can load up the website and start using it as it is. What I don’t like about this software is that it doesn’t give you search volumes, and you must upload it to the Google AdWords tool to check it.
KW Finder (Amazing Interface)
This is a great keyword research tool that I loved using. Not because they show data that isn’t available elsewhere but because they have a sweet interface. In the tool, you’ll find two panes. At first, you can check for keyword search volumes, showing you (just like any other tool) trend, search volume, CPC, and difficulty level.
Clicking on each keyword opens up more details on the second pane, including “difficulty level” (a score out of a hundred) and the google search results for that keyword. Here, the keywords rank different domains and metrics, including Domain Authority (Moz), number of social likes, and the like. What I don’t like about the tool is that you must register to keep accessing it, and there are limits in the free plan.
Google Trends (Historical Data)
Google Trends is a free keyword research tool from Google that lets you find trends in search by entering multiple keywords. It enables you to filter by location, search history, and category. It shows you how much interest there is on the internet around a particular keyword, what caused the interest and where the traffic is coming from, along with related keywords.
What I like about Google Trends is that it lets you find the historical search interest for a term and find related keywords to it. You can make a comparison between two words or two time frames.
I wouldn’t recommend Google Trends for search volume-based keyword research, but for more insightful analysis like the general interest level for a particular brand, person, or keyword.
So there you have it. Six fantastic keyword research tools that will help you find potential keywords for your startup website. Keyword research is not about what tools you use but the long-term strategy behind it. But these tools are good enough to kick start your startup journey.