Google Keyword Planner<\/a><\/h3>\n![\"Google](\"https:\/\/contentcreationv4.local\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/Google-Keyword-Planner-1024x371.png\")
<\/p>\n
Google Keyword Planner is the go-to keyword research tool for many search engine marketers – both AdWords and SEO professionals. There is a reason why – it is free, well known and it comes straight from the source. Many 3rd party keyword research tools for SEO actually use the Google keyword planner data to create\u00a0their keyword datasets.<\/p>\n
Though Keyword Planner is great and offers a lot of benefits, it only goes so far in finding good keywords for SEO. Its fallback is in finding great long tail keywords. No fear, there are many other keyword tools in this list that you can use to complement the Google Keyword Planner to maximize your keyword research and SEO.<\/p>\n
Pros:\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n\n- The data is straight from\u00a0the source (Google)<\/li>\n
- Pretty accurate\u00a0relative search volume<\/li>\n
- See suggested bid amount to derive commercial intent<\/li>\n
- Find related keywords<\/li>\n
- See keywords that are relevant to a particular web page<\/li>\n
- Allows you to combine Keywords to find new keyword combinations<\/li>\n
- Export your Keywords<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Cons:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n<\/del>Finding related keywords is limited<\/li>\n- Not as good for Long Tail Keywords<\/li>\n
- LOTS of people use this tool, so the keywords it spits out can be more competitive<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Update<\/strong>:\u00a0Sadly, it seems that Google is giving the SEO folk less and less information. First, they took away our keywords data in analytics, and now they are giving us ranges of search volume in the Google keyword planner. The exact keyword volume is only available to people who have an active AdWords campaign.<\/p>\nGoogle Analytics<\/a><\/h3>\n![\"google-analytics-google-store\"](\"https:\/\/contentcreationv4.local\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/google-analytics-google-store-1024x371.png\")
<\/p>\n
Google Analytics is a great place to find keywords for your website. Of course, you need to already have some traffic coming in. If your site isn’t\u00a0brand new and you have a flow of traffic already coming into your site, you can find many long tail keywords to target. You can find tons of\u00a0keywords that you are already ranking for (say on page 2 of SEPRS), that have a lot of room for improvement.<\/p>\n
Not Provided:<\/strong> In the good old days of SEO, Google used to give you a huge amount of data in regards to what keywords people used to find your website. Google does not give you this amazing data anymore. They do give you some great data still, but it is not as much as back in the day.<\/p>\nIn your google analytics account, if you go to\u00a0Acquisition > All Traffic\u00a0> \u00a0Channels > Organic Search, you will see keywords that people used on Google to find your website.\u00a0You can still see a lot of great keyword data from\u00a0Google, but now you also see the dreaded “Not provided” metric, instead of the full data set of keywords.<\/p>\n
![\"google-analytics-not-provided\"](\"https:\/\/contentcreationv4.local\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/google-analytics-not-provided-300x256.png\")
<\/p>\n
Use Queries:<\/strong> A great way to get more information on keywords that your website is already ranking for is to look at the “Queries” in Google Analytics. This is under the Search Engine Optimization section. To access this data though, you must first connect your Google Analytics account to your search console<\/a> (webmaster tools) account.<\/p>\nThen once set up, you will start getting some great keyword data from Google. Remember, these are keywords that your site is already ranking for somewhere, so it is a good place to see keywords that need some love. If you optimize and write more content for some of these keywords, chances are you will get even more traffic from them because your rankings and or click through rate will increase.<\/p>\n
Pros:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n- See keywords you already are showing up on SERPS\u00a0for<\/li>\n
- See lots of long tail search queries<\/li>\n
- These are great keywords that you can optimize and write content for<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Cons:\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n\n- Doesn’t show as many new topics or keyword opportunities<\/li>\n
- Google doesn’t provide as much keyword data as they used to (Not Provided Keywords)<\/li>\n
- Does not show competition or CPC information (which is good to see commercial intent)\n
\n- Tip<\/strong>: Use keywordkeg<\/a> Chrome extension to see CPC\u00a0data.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Google Search Console<\/a><\/h3>\n![\"Search](\"https:\/\/contentcreationv4.local\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/search-console-search-analytics.png\")
<\/p>\n
Search analytics – Queries:<\/strong>\u00a0Remember how analytics used to show us more keyword data? Now we are left with that dreaded “not provided.” Well, to get some of that juicy keyword data back, you need to go to\u00a0search console or integrate search console with analytics.<\/p>\nIf you go to search console and go to Search Traffic > Search analytics > Queries\u00a0<\/strong>you can see what keywords your pages are showing up for in search results. You can then export this data and bring it into GKP to see which keywords are valuable (traffic volume\/CPC cost). This way you can focus on keywords that you are already somewhat relevant for, and that are higher quality keywords.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/contentcreationv4.local\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/search-console-search-queries.png\")
<\/p>\n
Content Keywords:<\/strong> When you use the “Content Keywords” and “Search Queries,” you can see how Google is reading your website. Does it match what you are trying to accomplish with the pages and keywords you are optimizing for?<\/del><\/p>\nIf not, then there may be some issues with Google’s ability to crawl your <\/del>website or your optimization is not on point.<\/del><\/p>\nThe “Search Queries” is the same information from the Google Analytics example above. Using these two things in the search console does not necessarily give you any new ways to find new keywords. What it does give you, is an understanding of how Google sees your website. It’s essentially a glimpse inside the Google algorithm, empowering you to increase the relevancy of your website.<\/del><\/p>\nUpdate<\/strong>: Google got rid of the Content keywords<\/em> feature.<\/p>\nGoogle Trends<\/a><\/h3>\n![\"Google](\"https:\/\/contentcreationv4.local\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/Google-Trends-.png\")
<\/p>\n
The popularity of keywords<\/strong>: Google trends is a great way to find out which keywords variants are more popular. You can type in two keywords (separated by a comma), or several if you needed to find the most popular keywords typed into Google.<\/p>\nHistory of keyword popularity<\/strong>: This is another great insight, that you cannot get in many other keyword research tools. Since you are going to be doing a lot of work on SEO, it is best to spend it on optimizing for keywords that are not on a downward trend in popularity.<\/p>\nTrends Vs Keyword Planner:<\/strong> One anomaly I have noticed between using Google Trends and Keyword Planner, is that sometimes the data doesn’t match. Sometimes I will type in two keywords into trends, and it will show keyword A is more popular than B. When I type the same keywords into keyword planner it shows keyword B is more popular than A (via search volume). This only happens rarely, and I would assume that they are pulling data from different sources.<\/p>\nBing Keyword Research Tool<\/a><\/h3>\n![\"Bing](\"https:\/\/contentcreationv4.local\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/Bing-Keyword-Research-tool-1024x407.png\")
<\/p>\n
Though Bing has a smaller dataset than Google, it is still a good way to find keywords. You may be surprised to find a couple of gems in Bing’s keyword research tool that you would have to spend a lot of time digging for in Google Keyword Planner.<\/p>\n
You should see similar data in Bing that you do from Google Keyword Planner, the main difference is that Bing’s data is from a much smaller dataset. Though the relative search volumes\u00a0and other information should be similar.<\/p>\n
Pros:\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n\n- Get similar keyword info from Google Keyword Planner<\/li>\n
- Shows Trends information next to keywords<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Cons:\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n\n- Smaller data set than google<\/li>\n
- Not as\u00a0many features as Google keyword planner<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Keyword Planner Alternatives<\/h2>\n
The Google keyword planner tool is often used by SEOs, but it is meant for Adwords (CPC). It was not developed with SEO in mind. There are many other free third-party keyword tools that have some great\u00a0added features that SEOs love.<\/p>\n
The following are some keyword tools that are similar to Google Keyword Planner, yet offer some other beneficial\u00a0functionality:<\/p>\n
Term Explorer<\/a>\u00a0(Freemium)<\/h3>\n![\"Term](\"https:\/\/contentcreationv4.local\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/Term-explorer-1024x640.png\")
<\/p>\n
Term explorer is a great alternative to google keyword planner. Though you only have 5 “tiny jobs” and 5 keyword analysis credits on the free account, it is still useful. If you enter a seed\u00a0keyword, a tiny job will result in 1,000 keywords. You can then sort by volume, CPC, negative keywords, keywords with an exact match domain, etc.<\/p>\n
The keyword analysis section of this tool helps in finding out how competitive your chosen keywords are. The analysis seems fairly accurate, but to really get much use out of the keyword analysis, you would need to upgrade your account to a paid plan. 5 keyword credits are not very much; you might as well do it manually with Moz’s toolbar at that point.<\/p>\n
SEOBook Keyword Tool<\/a><\/h3>\n![\"Seobook](\"https:\/\/contentcreationv4.local\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/seobook-kw-tool.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
SEOBook’s free keyword research tool offers some interesting features. You can include Google trends information for your seed keyword. You can also put a checkmark on \u201cmore\u201d to get links to Google search results, yahoo, bing, google trends, etc.<\/p>\n
One other cool feature of Aaron Wall\u2019s keyword tool is that it shows you CPC cost and Monthly Value. This is great information that may give you a clue as to the\u00a0commercial intent for the given keywords. After all, if people are bidding on a keyword so much to raise the price, it must be making other people money.<\/p>\n
Pros:\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n\n- Links to other great resources (for example click on the google link to show you the Google SERP for that keyword)<\/li>\n
- Allows you to click on related keywords, to see related keywords to that<\/li>\n
- Shows CPC data and monthly value (good to see the commercial intent of keywords)<\/li>\n
- Export your keywords to CSV<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Cons:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n- You have to sign up for a free account (this is a small drawback)<\/li>\n
- Not as many keywords generated as google keyword\u00a0planner<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
7Search Keyword Suggestions<\/a><\/h3>\n![\"7search](\"https:\/\/contentcreationv4.local\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/7Search-PPC-Keyword-Tool-1024x370.png\")
<\/p>\n
The 7search tool is okay. It’s actually pretty bad at giving you any results based on long tail seed keywords. It does give you much more if you put in shorter, broad keywords. But this is data you can just get from Google Keyword Planner.<\/p>\n
Pros:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n- See CPC data<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Cons:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n- Not very much keyword data<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Wordstream<\/a>\u00a0(Very Limited Freemium)<\/h3>\n![\"Wordstreams](\"https:\/\/contentcreationv4.local\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/WordStreams-kw-tool-1024x511.png\")
<\/p>\n
Though this is a mainstream keyword tool, the free version of Wordstream’s\u00a0tool is\u00a0another “meh” keyword tool. It basically gives you less information than Google keyword planner. You would need to upgrade to a paid account to get any benefit from their\u00a0keyword tool.<\/p>\n
Pros:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n- More well-known company<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Cons:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n- Not very much keyword data<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Wordtracker<\/a>\u00a0(limited freemium)<\/h3>\n![\"Wordtracker](\"https:\/\/contentcreationv4.local\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/Wordtracker-Keyword-Research-Tool-1024x423.png\")
<\/p>\n
Another very well known company in the keyword research game. Their free keyword research tool is a very well designed (UI) tool. It gives you some good data, but it is limited in how much it spits out for the free version.<\/p>\n
One great feature of this keyword tool is it gives you competition data on a (limited) set of keywords related to your seed keyword that you enter.<\/p>\n
Pros:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n- See Competition<\/li>\n
- See KEI (Keyword Effectiveness Index)\n
\n- Note<\/strong>: Don’t rely on KEI. KEI is not the whole story, you should also consider the commercial intent<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Cons:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n- Not very much keyword data<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
SERPS Keywordini<\/a><\/h3>\n![\"Keywordini](\"https:\/\/contentcreationv4.local\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/Keywordini-Tool-1024x471.png\")
<\/p>\n
Keywordini is a pretty good free keyword tool for SEO. It’s similar to Google keyword planner in that you can retrieve quite a lot of keywords (though not as much as GKP). What separates this from Google Keyword Planner is that it also shows the keyword value. You can sort by keyword value or by search volume.<\/p>\n
Pros:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n- Pretty good amount of keyword data<\/li>\n
- Download results<\/li>\n
- See calculated keyword value (Multiplies search volume by CPC)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Cons:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n- Not as much data as google keyword planner<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Keyword Discovery<\/a><\/h3>\nThe “traffic” numbers may seem much smaller on this keyword tool than on other keyword tools. One thing you need to consider is that all numbers, even Google keyword planner, represent a relative comparison of traffic.<\/p>\n
This keyword tool does not base its data only on Google, but it also gets data from a variety of different search engines. The drawbacks to this keyword tool are that you only have access to 100 keywords, and you don’t get to see any other data like CPC, or the value of the keywords.<\/p>\n
Pros:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n- It uses datasets for multiple search engines<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Cons:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n- You’re limited to 100 keywords<\/li>\n
- It doesn’t show CPC data<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
K-Meta<\/a><\/h3>\n![\"K](\"https:\/\/contentcreationv4.local\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/k-meta-keyword-research-tool-1024x431.png\")
<\/p>\n
Kollin over at K-meta sent me an email about their free keyword tool. Surprisingly I missed this one in my original list! It looks like a solid tool.<\/span><\/p>\nThough this tool does have some keyword analysis features, the strength of this tool seems to lie\u00a0in the domain analysis features. It looks like it is similar to SEMrush and Similarweb in the way it analyzes domains and what the domains rank for.<\/p>\n
Being able to see what keywords your competitors rank for is great information to have, so this tool might be another great keyword research tool to add to your bookmarks!<\/p>\n
All In One SEO Tools (Paid)<\/h2>\nSEMRush<\/a>\u00a0(Free Trial)<\/h3>\n![\"Semrush](\"https:\/\/contentcreationv4.local\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/semrush-keywords-1024x442.png\")
<\/p>\n
One of my favorite keyword tools<\/strong>: SEMrush is one of my absolute favorite\u00a0keyword tools. Not because it gives you a gazillion keywords, but because it shows you what keywords websites are actually ranking for in the wild. Though, yes it does give you a lot of keywords to work with.<\/p>\nIt allows you to enter in specific web pages like a blog post, or a home page of your competitor to see what keywords they are ranking for in\u00a0Google. It also tells you the position that they rank for each keyword.<\/p>\n
Keyword competitiveness:<\/strong> They also have a keyword competitiveness tool that is useful when doing bulk keyword research.\u00a0Semrush is one of the\u00a0only keyword tools\u00a0I have come across that shows bulk competitiveness of keywords on their free version. The competitiveness is very important data. Sure you can and should use Moz’s toolbar to individually look at the competitiveness, but it is nice to have a tool that does this in bulk.<\/p>\nI have not found another keyword tool as good as SEMRush. The only drawback is the free version is limited to the number of keywords it will show in the keyword reports. However, if you are serious about SEO, blogging, or content marketing, it is well worth the monthly cost.<\/p>\n
Backlink analysis: <\/strong>Off the subject of keyword analysis, as an added benefit to SEMRush’s keyword functionality, you can also spy on your competitor’s backlink profile. It is important to do backlink analysis, and SEMrush does offer some fantastic tools for this. However, if you wanted to dig even deeper into your backlink analysis, then Majestic SEO or Ahrefs may be better options. Just know that\u00a0the keyword research you can do in SEMrush is second to none.<\/p>\nAhrefs<\/a>\u00a0(Paid)<\/h3>\n![\"ahrefs-keyword-research-google\"](\"https:\/\/contentcreationv4.local\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/ahrefs-keyword-research-google-1024x767.png\")
<\/p>\n
Ahrefs is a fantastic tool for keyword research. It’s actually one of my favorite tools.<\/p>\n
With Ahrefs, you can scrape competitors websites (on the domain level or on the page level) so you can see what keywords they rank for. With this knowledge, you can essentially reverse engineer their content.<\/p>\n
With this information, you can map out the best keywords for your content and do topic modeling site. Ahrefs and SEMrush are pretty comparable when it comes to keyword research. Although I do like SEMRush’s keyword magic tool. But, Ahrefs does have a comparable keyword tool to the keyword magic tool. Also, recently Ahrefs added question queries to their too, which had been lacking in Ahrefs (SEMrush always had this).<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Serped.net<\/a>\u00a0(Paid)<\/h3>\n![\"serped-net-overview\"](\"https:\/\/contentcreationv4.local\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/serped-net-overview-1024x709.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\nIf you were looking for an all in one solution, Serped.net is a great way to go. This is easily my favorite SEO tool, in terms of value. What I like about Serped\u00a0is connects to other tools (like Moz, Majestic, SEMrush, etc). So instead of having to pay for all of these separate tools to get access to each companies metrics, it’s nice to just have to pay for this one tool.<\/p>\n
It has several keyword research tools, including:<\/p>\n
\n- Ultimate research (general keyword research, big list of keywords)<\/li>\n
- What ranks where (like Aahrefs and SEMrush)<\/li>\n
- Keyword analyzer (great for seeing how competitive a keyword is)<\/li>\n
- Long Tail Keywords (find long tail keywords, drill down)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
![\"serped-traffic-estimate\"](\"https:\/\/contentcreationv4.local\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/serped-traffic-estimate-1024x557.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\nWhat’s nice about serped is you can search for keywords just like any other tool. However, you can keep drilling down into each keyword to get long tail keywords and topics.<\/p>\n
If you’re looking for a solution that offers amazing value serped is a great all in one SEO tool.<\/p>\n
SpyFu<\/a>\u00a0(Freemium)<\/h3>\n![\"Spyfu](\"https:\/\/contentcreationv4.local\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/SpyFu-Keyword-Research-Tool-1024x574.png\")
<\/p>\n
If SEMrush didn’t exist, I would probably use Spyfu much more. Similar to SEMrush, Spyfu gives you quite a bit of data, both dealing with keywords and variety of other things. However, just like SEMrush, you would need to upgrade to a paid plan to see the full data set.<\/p>\n
It is actually quite\u00a0similar to SEMRush. You can type in a competitor’s website and see what keywords they are ranking for.\u00a0You can also look at your\u00a0competitor’s backlink profile and other important data.<\/p>\n
Another great benefit that spyfu has is you can look at how competitive a keyword is to rank for.<\/p>\n
SimilarWeb<\/a> (very freemium)<\/h3>\n![\"Similar](\"https:\/\/contentcreationv4.local\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/Similar-web-organic-keywords-1024x525.png\")
<\/h3>\n
Similarweb works the same way that\u00a0SEMRush works. You can type in a competitor’s website to see\u00a0competitive analysis data. The drawback to this tool is that the keyword section isn’t very robust, at least for the free version. To get more data you have to upgrade to the premium version. SEMrush’s free and paid version seems much more robust.<\/p>\n
KWFinder<\/a>\u00a0(Very Limited Freemium)<\/h3>\n![\"Kwfinder](\"https:\/\/contentcreationv4.local\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/KWFinder-tool-1024x466.png\")
<\/p>\n
Keyword finder has a great UI, however, this tool is very limited in their free version. Also, it doesn’t look like their keyword competition feature is that accurate.<\/p>\n
KeywordRevealer<\/a>\u00a0(Very Limited Freemium)<\/h3>\n![\"Keyword](\"https:\/\/contentcreationv4.local\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/keyword-revealer-kw-difficulty.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Keyword revealer is a cool little SEO keyword tool, that used to be completely free. However, now you are only allowed three searches per day.\u00a0With this tool, you can enter any seed keyword, and it will give you a list of keywords with monthly searches data, CPC, estimated profit, domain availability, etc. You can then click on the little evaluate button and it will bring you to the following screen:<\/p>\n
Like SEMRush and spyfu, the keyword competitiveness in this keyword tool seems to be more accurate compared to the keyword finder tool:<\/p>\n
However, the drawback to this tool is that you have to individually click on each keyword whenever you want to see their competitiveness. Other tools will spit it out in bulk which is nice. If you wanted to analyze the competitiveness of each keyword, you might as well look it up manually with Moz toolbar.<\/p>\n
Moz Keyword Explorer<\/a> (very freemium)<\/h3>\n![\"Moz](\"https:\/\/contentcreationv4.local\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/Moz-Keyword-Explorer-1024x454.png\")
<\/p>\n
If you are in the SEO world, you are surely familiar with Moz. They used to have another keyword tool, but it didn’t have a freemium version, so I wasn’t able to include it in this list of free keyword tools. Recently they created a new keyword tool, and I have to say I am very impressed.<\/span><\/p>\nI was\u00a0so impressed that I instantly became a Pro subscriber, just for their keyword research tool. The other moz pro tools are just icing on the cake for me, as I get most of the benefit from their keyword explorer tool.<\/p>\n
The freemium version is limited to only 2 keyword research queries a day, so it is very limited for the freemium version. However, unlike other free keyword tools, this tool is probably the best free keyword tool for estimating competition (difficulty in ranking a keyword).<\/p>\n
They even take this a step further and include\u00a0some other pretty great metrics such as:<\/p>\n
\n- Accurate search volume:<\/strong>\u00a0Moz’s keyword volume is supposed to offer more accurate data than Google keyword planner. Where GKP gives fairly accurate relative search volume, Moz’s data is supposed to offer more accurate real-world volume. At moz, they have, what appears to be a confidence interval of 90-95% with their keyword volume data. This just means their search volume predictions should have a 90-95% accuracy rate.<\/li>\n
- Difficulty<\/strong>: Their competition metric is amazing. It’s not perfect by any means (I think manual keyword research always gives the best results). However, their difficulty metric is probably the best out there regarding accuracy. The higher the difficulty score, the harder it is to rank. Note that this is on an algorithmic scale, so it’s exponentially harder to rank for a term the higher the difficulty score.<\/li>\n
- Opportunity<\/strong>: This takes into account ads and other SERP features that tend to take clicks away from organic search results. Given the keyword entered, if there are a lot of ads and other things that take away from organic CTRs, it will give you a lower opportunity score. So the higher the opportunity score, the better because you should get a higher CTR on organic SERPS.<\/li>\n
- Potential<\/strong>: This metric takes into account all the other metrics to give you a final potential score. In the paid version, you can also enter your own “importance” score, which the final potential score takes into account.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
When this tool came out, I emailed\u00a0Rand Fishkin<\/a>\u00a0about some suggested features I thought would make it even better. They seemed very receptive to suggestions and sounded like they already had plans to implement some of my suggestions. What this communicates to me is they seem to really want to make the app better. They are likely implementing the lean startup with this tool so we’ll probably see a lot of good iterations in the future.<\/p>\nOverall this is a great tool, and I highly recommend it. It seemed very polished. However, to get the most benefit from\u00a0this tool, you must be a moz Pro subscriber, which can be steep for some that just want simple keyword research ($100+\/mo). If you are serious about keyword research, blogging, SEO, and your budget allow it – Moz Pro may be a great option.<\/p>\n
For those on a budget, you can get by with using manual keyword analysis. You can also use Moz’s free SEO toolbar to manually gauge competition levels (sadly they took away some functionality – such as showing the full number of links).<\/p>\n
Autocomplete (Google Suggest)<\/h2>\n
I’m sure you are aware of the google autocomplete that triggers when you start typing in search phrases:<\/p>\n
![\"Google](\"https:\/\/contentcreationv4.local\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/Google-autocomplete-screenshot.png\")
<\/p>\n
Google only gives you so much autocomplete keywords. Many keyword tools will scrape the Google (and more) autocomplete to give you a whole list of keywords that you can use in your SEO campaigns. Here are some of the autocomplete scrapers:<\/p>\n
Ubersuggest<\/a><\/h3>\nUbersuggest is one of the original popular Google suggest keyword scrapers. How this keyword tool works is, you start by entering a Seed keyword. Then it will add every letter in the alphabet (and numbers) after your seed keyword.<\/p>\n
You could do the same thing manually by entering in your seed keyword into Google and adding each letter of the alphabet. However, it is much more efficient to use a tool like ubersuggest to find all these great keywords.<\/p>\n
Shows Monthly volume\u00a0and CPC:<\/strong> This keyword tool also shows you monthly search volume and CPC data which is definitely nice to have so you don’t have to manually enter them into the Google Keyword Planner tool.<\/p>\nScrape beyond Google:<\/strong> You can also select whether you want to scrape images, shopping, YouTube, or news. Beyond that, you can put a checkmark next to all the keywords that you want to use, then export only the selected keywords. You can also export the full list of keywords if you wanted to.<\/p>\nFilter Keywords:<\/strong> You can also filter by certain keywords. For example, if I typed in keyword research and saw a large list of autosuggest keywords, I can filter it down further to narrow my results. Say I added the filter word “tools,” it would only display “keyword research tools” as a base, rather than “keyword research” as a base. It’s just a nice way to narrow your keywords.<\/p>\nPro tips:<\/strong><\/p>\nYou can use an asterisk (also known as a wildcard –> *) before or after your keyword to get even more keywords.\u00a0For example instead of typing in \u201ckeyword research\u201d, you can type in:<\/span><\/p>\n\n- * keyword research<\/span><\/li>\n
- What * keyword research<\/span><\/li>\n
- How * keyword research<\/span><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Ubersuggest will fill in the gaps where the asterisk (*) is, and you can get some great long tail keywords doing this technique.<\/span><\/p>\nPros:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n- Scrape web, YouTube, shopping, and news<\/span><\/li>\n
- You can download as a CSV or text file of keywords<\/span><\/li>\n
- You can filter your keywords to narrow it down<\/span><\/li>\n
- There is a word cloud feature<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Cons:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n- It does not add every letter of the alphabet before your seed keyword, only after<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\nNote<\/b>: Ubersuggest was acquired by Neil Patel – now it is neilpatel.com\/ubersuggest. Many ponder whether he will start charging for this classic, well-known tool. I actually think he will keep it free since I believe this acquisition was an ingenious strategic move to acquire backlinks. If that is the case, my hat’s off to you Neil.<\/div>\n
KeywordTool.io<\/a><\/h3>\n![\"Keywordtool.io\"](\"https:\/\/contentcreationv4.local\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/Keywordtool.io_-1024x435.png\")
<\/p>\n
Ubersuggest vs Keywordtool.io<\/strong><\/p>\nUbersuggest.io and KeywordTool.io are two very\u00a0popular Google autosuggest scrapers. They have been longtime favorites to online\u00a0marketers and SEO professionals because\u00a0the ease at which you can generate new keyword ideas for content topics.\u00a0<\/span>Keywordtool.io is very similar to Ubersuggest, except there are a couple of notable differences.<\/p>\nUbersuggest shows search volume \/\u00a0CPC:<\/strong>\u00a0One area that Ubersuggest beats keyword tool is the search volume and CPC data. Keyword tool wants you to upgrade to Keyword Tool Pro to see this data, whereas ubersuggest shows monthly volume and CPC for free. <\/span><\/p>\nKeywordtool.io produces more keywords:<\/strong> However, the keyword tool beats ubersuggest by spitting out more keywords. The way they do this is adding the alphabet before, as well as after your seed keyword. Ubersuggest only does this after your seed keyword. Note that you have to type in a short seed\u00a0keyword (1-2 word phrases) to benefit from\u00a0the increased amount of keywords.<\/span><\/p>\nFor example, I typed in \u201ckeyword research\u201d into both or suggest and keyword tool, and I got similar results. However, when I typed in \u201cmarketing\u201d to both keywordtool.io and ubbersuggest, keywordtool.io\u00a0ended up spitting out double the keywords.<\/span><\/p>\nPros:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n- Generate more keywords than other competing keyword tools<\/li>\n
- It has a feature where you can get questions based on your keyword<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Cons:<\/strong><\/p>\n
<\/p>\n- \n
- The data is straight from\u00a0the source (Google)<\/li>\n
- Pretty accurate\u00a0relative search volume<\/li>\n
- See suggested bid amount to derive commercial intent<\/li>\n
- Find related keywords<\/li>\n
- See keywords that are relevant to a particular web page<\/li>\n
- Allows you to combine Keywords to find new keyword combinations<\/li>\n
- Export your Keywords<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Cons:<\/strong><\/p>\n
- \n
<\/del>Finding related keywords is limited<\/li>\n- Not as good for Long Tail Keywords<\/li>\n
- LOTS of people use this tool, so the keywords it spits out can be more competitive<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Update<\/strong>:\u00a0Sadly, it seems that Google is giving the SEO folk less and less information. First, they took away our keywords data in analytics, and now they are giving us ranges of search volume in the Google keyword planner. The exact keyword volume is only available to people who have an active AdWords campaign.<\/p>\n
Google Analytics<\/a><\/h3>\n
<\/p>\nGoogle Analytics is a great place to find keywords for your website. Of course, you need to already have some traffic coming in. If your site isn’t\u00a0brand new and you have a flow of traffic already coming into your site, you can find many long tail keywords to target. You can find tons of\u00a0keywords that you are already ranking for (say on page 2 of SEPRS), that have a lot of room for improvement.<\/p>\n
Not Provided:<\/strong> In the good old days of SEO, Google used to give you a huge amount of data in regards to what keywords people used to find your website. Google does not give you this amazing data anymore. They do give you some great data still, but it is not as much as back in the day.<\/p>\n
In your google analytics account, if you go to\u00a0Acquisition > All Traffic\u00a0> \u00a0Channels > Organic Search, you will see keywords that people used on Google to find your website.\u00a0You can still see a lot of great keyword data from\u00a0Google, but now you also see the dreaded “Not provided” metric, instead of the full data set of keywords.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\nUse Queries:<\/strong> A great way to get more information on keywords that your website is already ranking for is to look at the “Queries” in Google Analytics. This is under the Search Engine Optimization section. To access this data though, you must first connect your Google Analytics account to your search console<\/a> (webmaster tools) account.<\/p>\n
Then once set up, you will start getting some great keyword data from Google. Remember, these are keywords that your site is already ranking for somewhere, so it is a good place to see keywords that need some love. If you optimize and write more content for some of these keywords, chances are you will get even more traffic from them because your rankings and or click through rate will increase.<\/p>\n
Pros:<\/strong><\/p>\n
- \n
- See keywords you already are showing up on SERPS\u00a0for<\/li>\n
- See lots of long tail search queries<\/li>\n
- These are great keywords that you can optimize and write content for<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Cons:\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n
- \n
- Doesn’t show as many new topics or keyword opportunities<\/li>\n
- Google doesn’t provide as much keyword data as they used to (Not Provided Keywords)<\/li>\n
- Does not show competition or CPC information (which is good to see commercial intent)\n
- \n
- Tip<\/strong>: Use keywordkeg<\/a> Chrome extension to see CPC\u00a0data.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Google Search Console<\/a><\/h3>\n
<\/p>\nSearch analytics – Queries:<\/strong>\u00a0Remember how analytics used to show us more keyword data? Now we are left with that dreaded “not provided.” Well, to get some of that juicy keyword data back, you need to go to\u00a0search console or integrate search console with analytics.<\/p>\n
If you go to search console and go to Search Traffic > Search analytics > Queries\u00a0<\/strong>you can see what keywords your pages are showing up for in search results. You can then export this data and bring it into GKP to see which keywords are valuable (traffic volume\/CPC cost). This way you can focus on keywords that you are already somewhat relevant for, and that are higher quality keywords.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\nContent Keywords:<\/strong> When you use the “Content Keywords” and “Search Queries,” you can see how Google is reading your website. Does it match what you are trying to accomplish with the pages and keywords you are optimizing for?<\/del><\/p>\nIf not, then there may be some issues with Google’s ability to crawl your <\/del>websiteor your optimization is not on point.<\/del><\/p>\nThe “Search Queries” is the same information from the Google Analytics example above. Using these two things in the search console does not necessarily give you any new ways to find new keywords. What it does give you, is an understanding of how Google sees your website. It’s essentially a glimpse inside the Google algorithm, empowering you to increase the relevancy of your website.<\/del><\/p>\nUpdate<\/strong>: Google got rid of the Content keywords<\/em> feature.<\/p>\n
Google Trends<\/a><\/h3>\n
<\/p>\nThe popularity of keywords<\/strong>: Google trends is a great way to find out which keywords variants are more popular. You can type in two keywords (separated by a comma), or several if you needed to find the most popular keywords typed into Google.<\/p>\n
History of keyword popularity<\/strong>: This is another great insight, that you cannot get in many other keyword research tools. Since you are going to be doing a lot of work on SEO, it is best to spend it on optimizing for keywords that are not on a downward trend in popularity.<\/p>\n
Trends Vs Keyword Planner:<\/strong> One anomaly I have noticed between using Google Trends and Keyword Planner, is that sometimes the data doesn’t match. Sometimes I will type in two keywords into trends, and it will show keyword A is more popular than B. When I type the same keywords into keyword planner it shows keyword B is more popular than A (via search volume). This only happens rarely, and I would assume that they are pulling data from different sources.<\/p>\n
Bing Keyword Research Tool<\/a><\/h3>\n
<\/p>\nThough Bing has a smaller dataset than Google, it is still a good way to find keywords. You may be surprised to find a couple of gems in Bing’s keyword research tool that you would have to spend a lot of time digging for in Google Keyword Planner.<\/p>\n
You should see similar data in Bing that you do from Google Keyword Planner, the main difference is that Bing’s data is from a much smaller dataset. Though the relative search volumes\u00a0and other information should be similar.<\/p>\n
Pros:\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n
- \n
- Get similar keyword info from Google Keyword Planner<\/li>\n
- Shows Trends information next to keywords<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Cons:\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n
- \n
- Smaller data set than google<\/li>\n
- Not as\u00a0many features as Google keyword planner<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Keyword Planner Alternatives<\/h2>\n
The Google keyword planner tool is often used by SEOs, but it is meant for Adwords (CPC). It was not developed with SEO in mind. There are many other free third-party keyword tools that have some great\u00a0added features that SEOs love.<\/p>\n
The following are some keyword tools that are similar to Google Keyword Planner, yet offer some other beneficial\u00a0functionality:<\/p>\n
Term Explorer<\/a>\u00a0(Freemium)<\/h3>\n
<\/p>\nTerm explorer is a great alternative to google keyword planner. Though you only have 5 “tiny jobs” and 5 keyword analysis credits on the free account, it is still useful. If you enter a seed\u00a0keyword, a tiny job will result in 1,000 keywords. You can then sort by volume, CPC, negative keywords, keywords with an exact match domain, etc.<\/p>\n
The keyword analysis section of this tool helps in finding out how competitive your chosen keywords are. The analysis seems fairly accurate, but to really get much use out of the keyword analysis, you would need to upgrade your account to a paid plan. 5 keyword credits are not very much; you might as well do it manually with Moz’s toolbar at that point.<\/p>\n
SEOBook Keyword Tool<\/a><\/h3>\n
<\/p>\nSEOBook’s free keyword research tool offers some interesting features. You can include Google trends information for your seed keyword. You can also put a checkmark on \u201cmore\u201d to get links to Google search results, yahoo, bing, google trends, etc.<\/p>\n
One other cool feature of Aaron Wall\u2019s keyword tool is that it shows you CPC cost and Monthly Value. This is great information that may give you a clue as to the\u00a0commercial intent for the given keywords. After all, if people are bidding on a keyword so much to raise the price, it must be making other people money.<\/p>\n
Pros:\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n
- \n
- Links to other great resources (for example click on the google link to show you the Google SERP for that keyword)<\/li>\n
- Allows you to click on related keywords, to see related keywords to that<\/li>\n
- Shows CPC data and monthly value (good to see the commercial intent of keywords)<\/li>\n
- Export your keywords to CSV<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Cons:<\/strong><\/p>\n
- \n
- You have to sign up for a free account (this is a small drawback)<\/li>\n
- Not as many keywords generated as google keyword\u00a0planner<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
7Search Keyword Suggestions<\/a><\/h3>\n
<\/p>\nThe 7search tool is okay. It’s actually pretty bad at giving you any results based on long tail seed keywords. It does give you much more if you put in shorter, broad keywords. But this is data you can just get from Google Keyword Planner.<\/p>\n
Pros:<\/strong><\/p>\n
- \n
- See CPC data<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Cons:<\/strong><\/p>\n
- \n
- Not very much keyword data<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Wordstream<\/a>\u00a0(Very Limited Freemium)<\/h3>\n
<\/p>\nThough this is a mainstream keyword tool, the free version of Wordstream’s\u00a0tool is\u00a0another “meh” keyword tool. It basically gives you less information than Google keyword planner. You would need to upgrade to a paid account to get any benefit from their\u00a0keyword tool.<\/p>\n
Pros:<\/strong><\/p>\n
- \n
- More well-known company<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Cons:<\/strong><\/p>\n
- \n
- Not very much keyword data<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Wordtracker<\/a>\u00a0(limited freemium)<\/h3>\n
<\/p>\nAnother very well known company in the keyword research game. Their free keyword research tool is a very well designed (UI) tool. It gives you some good data, but it is limited in how much it spits out for the free version.<\/p>\n
One great feature of this keyword tool is it gives you competition data on a (limited) set of keywords related to your seed keyword that you enter.<\/p>\n
Pros:<\/strong><\/p>\n
- \n
- See Competition<\/li>\n
- See KEI (Keyword Effectiveness Index)\n
- \n
- Note<\/strong>: Don’t rely on KEI. KEI is not the whole story, you should also consider the commercial intent<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Cons:<\/strong><\/p>\n
- \n
- Not very much keyword data<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
SERPS Keywordini<\/a><\/h3>\n
<\/p>\nKeywordini is a pretty good free keyword tool for SEO. It’s similar to Google keyword planner in that you can retrieve quite a lot of keywords (though not as much as GKP). What separates this from Google Keyword Planner is that it also shows the keyword value. You can sort by keyword value or by search volume.<\/p>\n
Pros:<\/strong><\/p>\n
- \n
- Pretty good amount of keyword data<\/li>\n
- Download results<\/li>\n
- See calculated keyword value (Multiplies search volume by CPC)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Cons:<\/strong><\/p>\n
- \n
- Not as much data as google keyword planner<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Keyword Discovery<\/a><\/h3>\n
The “traffic” numbers may seem much smaller on this keyword tool than on other keyword tools. One thing you need to consider is that all numbers, even Google keyword planner, represent a relative comparison of traffic.<\/p>\n
This keyword tool does not base its data only on Google, but it also gets data from a variety of different search engines. The drawbacks to this keyword tool are that you only have access to 100 keywords, and you don’t get to see any other data like CPC, or the value of the keywords.<\/p>\n
Pros:<\/strong><\/p>\n
- \n
- It uses datasets for multiple search engines<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Cons:<\/strong><\/p>\n
- \n
- You’re limited to 100 keywords<\/li>\n
- It doesn’t show CPC data<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
K-Meta<\/a><\/h3>\n
<\/p>\nKollin over at K-meta sent me an email about their free keyword tool. Surprisingly I missed this one in my original list! It looks like a solid tool.<\/span><\/p>\n
Though this tool does have some keyword analysis features, the strength of this tool seems to lie\u00a0in the domain analysis features. It looks like it is similar to SEMrush and Similarweb in the way it analyzes domains and what the domains rank for.<\/p>\n
Being able to see what keywords your competitors rank for is great information to have, so this tool might be another great keyword research tool to add to your bookmarks!<\/p>\n
All In One SEO Tools (Paid)<\/h2>\n
SEMRush<\/a>\u00a0(Free Trial)<\/h3>\n
<\/p>\nOne of my favorite keyword tools<\/strong>: SEMrush is one of my absolute favorite\u00a0keyword tools. Not because it gives you a gazillion keywords, but because it shows you what keywords websites are actually ranking for in the wild. Though, yes it does give you a lot of keywords to work with.<\/p>\n
It allows you to enter in specific web pages like a blog post, or a home page of your competitor to see what keywords they are ranking for in\u00a0Google. It also tells you the position that they rank for each keyword.<\/p>\n
Keyword competitiveness:<\/strong> They also have a keyword competitiveness tool that is useful when doing bulk keyword research.\u00a0Semrush is one of the\u00a0only keyword tools\u00a0I have come across that shows bulk competitiveness of keywords on their free version. The competitiveness is very important data. Sure you can and should use Moz’s toolbar to individually look at the competitiveness, but it is nice to have a tool that does this in bulk.<\/p>\n
I have not found another keyword tool as good as SEMRush. The only drawback is the free version is limited to the number of keywords it will show in the keyword reports. However, if you are serious about SEO, blogging, or content marketing, it is well worth the monthly cost.<\/p>\n
Backlink analysis: <\/strong>Off the subject of keyword analysis, as an added benefit to SEMRush’s keyword functionality, you can also spy on your competitor’s backlink profile. It is important to do backlink analysis, and SEMrush does offer some fantastic tools for this. However, if you wanted to dig even deeper into your backlink analysis, then Majestic SEO or Ahrefs may be better options. Just know that\u00a0the keyword research you can do in SEMrush is second to none.<\/p>\n
Ahrefs<\/a>\u00a0(Paid)<\/h3>\n
<\/p>\nAhrefs is a fantastic tool for keyword research. It’s actually one of my favorite tools.<\/p>\n
With Ahrefs, you can scrape competitors websites (on the domain level or on the page level) so you can see what keywords they rank for. With this knowledge, you can essentially reverse engineer their content.<\/p>\n
With this information, you can map out the best keywords for your content and do topic modeling site. Ahrefs and SEMrush are pretty comparable when it comes to keyword research. Although I do like SEMRush’s keyword magic tool. But, Ahrefs does have a comparable keyword tool to the keyword magic tool. Also, recently Ahrefs added question queries to their too, which had been lacking in Ahrefs (SEMrush always had this).<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Serped.net<\/a>\u00a0(Paid)<\/h3>\n
<\/a><\/p>\nIf you were looking for an all in one solution, Serped.net is a great way to go. This is easily my favorite SEO tool, in terms of value. What I like about Serped\u00a0is connects to other tools (like Moz, Majestic, SEMrush, etc). So instead of having to pay for all of these separate tools to get access to each companies metrics, it’s nice to just have to pay for this one tool.<\/p>\n
It has several keyword research tools, including:<\/p>\n
- \n
- Ultimate research (general keyword research, big list of keywords)<\/li>\n
- What ranks where (like Aahrefs and SEMrush)<\/li>\n
- Keyword analyzer (great for seeing how competitive a keyword is)<\/li>\n
- Long Tail Keywords (find long tail keywords, drill down)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/a><\/p>\n
What’s nice about serped is you can search for keywords just like any other tool. However, you can keep drilling down into each keyword to get long tail keywords and topics.<\/p>\n
If you’re looking for a solution that offers amazing value serped is a great all in one SEO tool.<\/p>\n
SpyFu<\/a>\u00a0(Freemium)<\/h3>\n
<\/p>\nIf SEMrush didn’t exist, I would probably use Spyfu much more. Similar to SEMrush, Spyfu gives you quite a bit of data, both dealing with keywords and variety of other things. However, just like SEMrush, you would need to upgrade to a paid plan to see the full data set.<\/p>\n
It is actually quite\u00a0similar to SEMRush. You can type in a competitor’s website and see what keywords they are ranking for.\u00a0You can also look at your\u00a0competitor’s backlink profile and other important data.<\/p>\n
Another great benefit that spyfu has is you can look at how competitive a keyword is to rank for.<\/p>\n
SimilarWeb<\/a> (very freemium)<\/h3>\n
<\/h3>\nSimilarweb works the same way that\u00a0SEMRush works. You can type in a competitor’s website to see\u00a0competitive analysis data. The drawback to this tool is that the keyword section isn’t very robust, at least for the free version. To get more data you have to upgrade to the premium version. SEMrush’s free and paid version seems much more robust.<\/p>\n
KWFinder<\/a>\u00a0(Very Limited Freemium)<\/h3>\n
<\/p>\nKeyword finder has a great UI, however, this tool is very limited in their free version. Also, it doesn’t look like their keyword competition feature is that accurate.<\/p>\n
KeywordRevealer<\/a>\u00a0(Very Limited Freemium)<\/h3>\n
<\/p>\nKeyword revealer is a cool little SEO keyword tool, that used to be completely free. However, now you are only allowed three searches per day.\u00a0With this tool, you can enter any seed keyword, and it will give you a list of keywords with monthly searches data, CPC, estimated profit, domain availability, etc. You can then click on the little evaluate button and it will bring you to the following screen:<\/p>\n
Like SEMRush and spyfu, the keyword competitiveness in this keyword tool seems to be more accurate compared to the keyword finder tool:<\/p>\n
However, the drawback to this tool is that you have to individually click on each keyword whenever you want to see their competitiveness. Other tools will spit it out in bulk which is nice. If you wanted to analyze the competitiveness of each keyword, you might as well look it up manually with Moz toolbar.<\/p>\n
Moz Keyword Explorer<\/a> (very freemium)<\/h3>\n
<\/p>\nIf you are in the SEO world, you are surely familiar with Moz. They used to have another keyword tool, but it didn’t have a freemium version, so I wasn’t able to include it in this list of free keyword tools. Recently they created a new keyword tool, and I have to say I am very impressed.<\/span><\/p>\n
I was\u00a0so impressed that I instantly became a Pro subscriber, just for their keyword research tool. The other moz pro tools are just icing on the cake for me, as I get most of the benefit from their keyword explorer tool.<\/p>\n
The freemium version is limited to only 2 keyword research queries a day, so it is very limited for the freemium version. However, unlike other free keyword tools, this tool is probably the best free keyword tool for estimating competition (difficulty in ranking a keyword).<\/p>\n
They even take this a step further and include\u00a0some other pretty great metrics such as:<\/p>\n
- \n
- Accurate search volume:<\/strong>\u00a0Moz’s keyword volume is supposed to offer more accurate data than Google keyword planner. Where GKP gives fairly accurate relative search volume, Moz’s data is supposed to offer more accurate real-world volume. At moz, they have, what appears to be a confidence interval of 90-95% with their keyword volume data. This just means their search volume predictions should have a 90-95% accuracy rate.<\/li>\n
- Difficulty<\/strong>: Their competition metric is amazing. It’s not perfect by any means (I think manual keyword research always gives the best results). However, their difficulty metric is probably the best out there regarding accuracy. The higher the difficulty score, the harder it is to rank. Note that this is on an algorithmic scale, so it’s exponentially harder to rank for a term the higher the difficulty score.<\/li>\n
- Opportunity<\/strong>: This takes into account ads and other SERP features that tend to take clicks away from organic search results. Given the keyword entered, if there are a lot of ads and other things that take away from organic CTRs, it will give you a lower opportunity score. So the higher the opportunity score, the better because you should get a higher CTR on organic SERPS.<\/li>\n
- Potential<\/strong>: This metric takes into account all the other metrics to give you a final potential score. In the paid version, you can also enter your own “importance” score, which the final potential score takes into account.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
When this tool came out, I emailed\u00a0Rand Fishkin<\/a>\u00a0about some suggested features I thought would make it even better. They seemed very receptive to suggestions and sounded like they already had plans to implement some of my suggestions. What this communicates to me is they seem to really want to make the app better. They are likely implementing the lean startup with this tool so we’ll probably see a lot of good iterations in the future.<\/p>\n
Overall this is a great tool, and I highly recommend it. It seemed very polished. However, to get the most benefit from\u00a0this tool, you must be a moz Pro subscriber, which can be steep for some that just want simple keyword research ($100+\/mo). If you are serious about keyword research, blogging, SEO, and your budget allow it – Moz Pro may be a great option.<\/p>\n
For those on a budget, you can get by with using manual keyword analysis. You can also use Moz’s free SEO toolbar to manually gauge competition levels (sadly they took away some functionality – such as showing the full number of links).<\/p>\n
Autocomplete (Google Suggest)<\/h2>\n
I’m sure you are aware of the google autocomplete that triggers when you start typing in search phrases:<\/p>\n
<\/p>\nGoogle only gives you so much autocomplete keywords. Many keyword tools will scrape the Google (and more) autocomplete to give you a whole list of keywords that you can use in your SEO campaigns. Here are some of the autocomplete scrapers:<\/p>\n
Ubersuggest<\/a><\/h3>\n
Ubersuggest is one of the original popular Google suggest keyword scrapers. How this keyword tool works is, you start by entering a Seed keyword. Then it will add every letter in the alphabet (and numbers) after your seed keyword.<\/p>\n
You could do the same thing manually by entering in your seed keyword into Google and adding each letter of the alphabet. However, it is much more efficient to use a tool like ubersuggest to find all these great keywords.<\/p>\n
Shows Monthly volume\u00a0and CPC:<\/strong> This keyword tool also shows you monthly search volume and CPC data which is definitely nice to have so you don’t have to manually enter them into the Google Keyword Planner tool.<\/p>\n
Scrape beyond Google:<\/strong> You can also select whether you want to scrape images, shopping, YouTube, or news. Beyond that, you can put a checkmark next to all the keywords that you want to use, then export only the selected keywords. You can also export the full list of keywords if you wanted to.<\/p>\n
Filter Keywords:<\/strong> You can also filter by certain keywords. For example, if I typed in keyword research and saw a large list of autosuggest keywords, I can filter it down further to narrow my results. Say I added the filter word “tools,” it would only display “keyword research tools” as a base, rather than “keyword research” as a base. It’s just a nice way to narrow your keywords.<\/p>\n
Pro tips:<\/strong><\/p>\n
You can use an asterisk (also known as a wildcard –> *) before or after your keyword to get even more keywords.\u00a0For example instead of typing in \u201ckeyword research\u201d, you can type in:<\/span><\/p>\n
- \n
- * keyword research<\/span><\/li>\n
- What * keyword research<\/span><\/li>\n
- How * keyword research<\/span><\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Ubersuggest will fill in the gaps where the asterisk (*) is, and you can get some great long tail keywords doing this technique.<\/span><\/p>\n
Pros:<\/strong><\/p>\n
- \n
- Scrape web, YouTube, shopping, and news<\/span><\/li>\n
- You can download as a CSV or text file of keywords<\/span><\/li>\n
- You can filter your keywords to narrow it down<\/span><\/li>\n
- There is a word cloud feature<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Cons:<\/strong><\/p>\n
- \n
- It does not add every letter of the alphabet before your seed keyword, only after<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\nNote<\/b>: Ubersuggest was acquired by Neil Patel – now it is neilpatel.com\/ubersuggest. Many ponder whether he will start charging for this classic, well-known tool. I actually think he will keep it free since I believe this acquisition was an ingenious strategic move to acquire backlinks. If that is the case, my hat’s off to you Neil.<\/div>\n
KeywordTool.io<\/a><\/h3>\n
<\/p>\nUbersuggest vs Keywordtool.io<\/strong><\/p>\n
Ubersuggest.io and KeywordTool.io are two very\u00a0popular Google autosuggest scrapers. They have been longtime favorites to online\u00a0marketers and SEO professionals because\u00a0the ease at which you can generate new keyword ideas for content topics.\u00a0<\/span>Keywordtool.io is very similar to Ubersuggest, except there are a couple of notable differences.<\/p>\n
Ubersuggest shows search volume \/\u00a0CPC:<\/strong>\u00a0One area that Ubersuggest beats keyword tool is the search volume and CPC data. Keyword tool wants you to upgrade to Keyword Tool Pro to see this data, whereas ubersuggest shows monthly volume and CPC for free. <\/span><\/p>\n
Keywordtool.io produces more keywords:<\/strong> However, the keyword tool beats ubersuggest by spitting out more keywords. The way they do this is adding the alphabet before, as well as after your seed keyword. Ubersuggest only does this after your seed keyword. Note that you have to type in a short seed\u00a0keyword (1-2 word phrases) to benefit from\u00a0the increased amount of keywords.<\/span><\/p>\n
For example, I typed in \u201ckeyword research\u201d into both or suggest and keyword tool, and I got similar results. However, when I typed in \u201cmarketing\u201d to both keywordtool.io and ubbersuggest, keywordtool.io\u00a0ended up spitting out double the keywords.<\/span><\/p>\n
Pros:<\/strong><\/p>\n
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- Generate more keywords than other competing keyword tools<\/li>\n
- It has a feature where you can get questions based on your keyword<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Cons:<\/strong><\/p>\n
- You can download as a CSV or text file of keywords<\/span><\/li>\n
- What * keyword research<\/span><\/li>\n
- Difficulty<\/strong>: Their competition metric is amazing. It’s not perfect by any means (I think manual keyword research always gives the best results). However, their difficulty metric is probably the best out there regarding accuracy. The higher the difficulty score, the harder it is to rank. Note that this is on an algorithmic scale, so it’s exponentially harder to rank for a term the higher the difficulty score.<\/li>\n
- Accurate search volume:<\/strong>\u00a0Moz’s keyword volume is supposed to offer more accurate data than Google keyword planner. Where GKP gives fairly accurate relative search volume, Moz’s data is supposed to offer more accurate real-world volume. At moz, they have, what appears to be a confidence interval of 90-95% with their keyword volume data. This just means their search volume predictions should have a 90-95% accuracy rate.<\/li>\n
- It uses datasets for multiple search engines<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
- Not as much data as google keyword planner<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
- Not very much keyword data<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
- Note<\/strong>: Don’t rely on KEI. KEI is not the whole story, you should also consider the commercial intent<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
- Not very much keyword data<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
- More well-known company<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
- Not very much keyword data<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
- See CPC data<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
- Tip<\/strong>: Use keywordkeg<\/a> Chrome extension to see CPC\u00a0data.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
![\"Soovle](\"https:\/\/contentcreationv4.local\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/Soovle-keyword-tool-1024x422.png\")
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