For those just starting with SEO, it can be daunting to invest in expensive keyword research tools.
That’s why we’ve created this free keyword research tool, leveraging Semrush’s extensive database of 25.23 billion keywords.
This tool assists in pinpointing low-competition keywords, sparking ideas for blog content, and providing insights into monthly search volumes.
Our own experience at Backlinko.com stands as a testament to the power of keyword research.
By employing these strategies, we’ve achieved top-ten rankings for over 13,000 keywords.
In the following sections of this guide, we’ll demystify the often complex SEO metrics and jargon associated with keyword research tools. We’ll also offer strategies to maximize the benefits from your keyword analysis.
Furthermore, when you’re prepared to delve deeper into search engine optimization, we provide a comparison of the top seven keyword research tools, guiding you to make an informed decision for advanced SEO execution.
What Is a Keyword?
Before diving into keyword research and the best tools for it, let’s understand what a keyword is.
A keyword is a word or phrase that users enter into a search engine to find relevant information online. Keywords are crucial because search engines use them to understand web page content and determine its relevance to search queries.
Optimizing content for relevant keywords, especially those with significant search volume, is a fundamental aspect of SEO.
It helps improve a website’s visibility in search engine results pages (SERPs), driving more organic traffic to your site.
Understanding Keywords and Their Search Volumes
To ensure your page ranks high in the SERPs, you need to carry out keyword research to find popular keywords with high search volumes to target.
Create content that’s relevant to these high search volume keywords and matches user search intent.
The search intent of a keyword refers to the reason users are searching for it.
There are four main types of search intent:
Search intent, also known as keyword intent, is one of Google’s many ranking factors, so you need to pay close attention to it if you want your pages to rank.
Another vital factor during keyword research is search volume.
Keyword search volume is the average number of times a keyword is searched for during a specific period, generally calculated monthly. It provides insight into how popular certain keywords are and how much potential organic search traffic you could drive to your site by targeting them.
Determining High Search Volumes for Keywords
There’s no definitive answer, as it depends on factors like search intent, keyword competition, industry type, and seasonality.
For instance, in the tech industry, 500 searches per month for a keyword might be considered low. However, in the niche collectible vintage typewriter industry, 500 monthly searches might be high.
However, the collectible vintage typewriter industry is, naturally, more niche, and so 500 monthly searches for an SEO keyword related to this industry may be considered high.
Context is key. A keyword search volume of 200 per month might be low in one niche but high in another.
Factors Influencing Keyword Search Volume
- Seasonality: Fluctuations in search volumes during specific seasons or events.
- Trending Topics: Current events and trends can temporarily boost keyword search volumes.
- Industry Growth: Growing industries experience a surge in related keyword search volumes.
- Local Modifiers: Adding location-specific terms enhances local SEO by targeting regional search intent.
Why Keyword Search Volume Matters in SEO
In the realm of SEO, keyword search volume is a cornerstone.
Here’s why:
1. Identifying High-Traffic Potential
Keywords with high search volumes indicate a high level of user interest. By targeting these keywords, you give your site a good chance of receiving a significant amount of traffic.
However, simply targeting a keyword with a high search volume isn’t enough. You need to make sure the content you create is highly relevant to the keywords you target and matches the user’s search intent.
2. Uncovering Market Trends
Analyzing the search volume of keywords over time also helps in identifying market and search trends. In this way, it serves as a window into the evolving interests of your target audience.
If you notice the search volume for a certain keyword steadily increasing or suddenly spiking, it’s a good indicator of the topics your audience is currently interested in.
3. Enhancing Your Content Strategy
Keyword search volume is your compass in crafting a content plan or even a full strategy that resonates with your audience. Rather than creating content for keywords that you think your audience will be interested in, search volume data enables you to write relevant content that you know they’ll be interested in.
This knowledge can guide your entire content campaign and help to ensure user engagement remains high and your rankings continue to improve.
Strategies to Leverage Keyword Search Volume for SEO Success
Harnessing the power of keyword search volume can significantly bolster your SEO efforts.
Here’s how:
1. Comprehensive Keyword Research
Keyword search volume data is an integral part of in-depth keyword research. It’s one of the best ways for you to gauge the interests of your target audience and ensure the content you create matches their search intent and provides value.
Getting users to convert with high-quality content is more important than driving huge numbers of users to your pages that are unlikely to convert.
“I would rather have 100 readers that convert at 10% than 10,000 readers that convert 0.01%. If you’re going after a lower quantity of traffic but users are really satisfied with it and want to convert, then that’s success. It’s not all about huge volumes of traffic. Start with creating the best quality content and trying to convert it as best as possible, which will compound more over time.”
2. Analyzing Competitor Keywords
Competitor keyword research is a crucial keyword research process that involves analyzing and identifying the keywords that your competitors are targeting in their online content, including websites, blog posts, and online advertising. This type of research helps you understand the keyword phrases and term your competitors prioritize to attract and engage their audience.
This analysis will allow you to identify keywords that your competitors are targeting successfully and where they may be underperforming. The insights you gain will help you discover potential opportunities or areas to differentiate your strategy.
For example, let’s say your competitor is focusing on highly competitive high-search-volume keywords, yet they are not ranking well for them. In such a scenario, instead of targeting these high-search-volume keywords, consider aiming for keywords with lower search volume that are easier to rank for.
3. Utilizing Long-Tail Keywords
As long-tail keywords typically have lower search volumes than short-tail terms, they also tend to have less competition.
By identifying less competitive long-tail terms and incorporating them into your keyword strategy, you can maximize the results of your SEO efforts. Concentrating solely on high-search-volume keywords that are highly competitive won’t yield quick and favorable rankings.
Therefore, it’s essential to diversify your keyword strategy by targeting a well-balanced mix of long-tail keywords and search queries with higher search volume. This approach will significantly increase your chances of achieving success.
4. Continuous Monitoring and Analysis
Once you’ve done your keyword research and created the content for your search terms, you’ll need to keep a close eye on them. This means tracking the search volumes of your target keywords to gauge their efficiency.
You should use a tool such as Semrush’s Keyword Overview to monitor increases and decreases in the search queries you’ve targeted. Then, you can assess how these fluctuations are affecting your other performance metrics such as click-through and conversion rates, as well as the ranking positions of your pages.
Selecting the Right Tool
Now that you’re up to speed on keyword search volume, it’s time to take a look at the seven best keyword research tools currently available for gathering search volume data. I’ll be focusing on the free versions of these tools unless there is no free version available.
Let’s dive into the best free tools for keyword research available to help you improve your SEO strategy.
1. Semrush
Good For: Accuracy, trending terms, database coverage
Best Feature: Keyword Magic Tool
Free Plan: Analyze up to 10 competitor domains per day with Domain Overview, track up to 10 keywords per day with the Position Tracking tool, and much more.
As the study we mentioned before shows, Semrush’s algorithm updates make it the most accurate tool for search volume data, and its database has much better coverage than other tools.
For example, 3.82% of the keywords in GKP’s database were “not found” and this rose to a MASSIVE 18.22% for Serpstat. Meanwhile, only 1.78% of the keywords in Semrush’s database were “not found”. In my opinion, this makes it the best keyword research tool available.
2. Google Keyword Planner (GKP)
Good For: Pay-Per-Click (PPC) keyword research
Best Feature: Forecasts for PPC campaigns
Free Plan: The full version is completely free
Google Keyword Planner is a feature that’s included within the Google Ads platform. I’d say it’s a powerful keyword research tool for paid ads, but it’s not as good for organic keyword research.
Still, in Semrush’s keyword search volume study, Google Keyword Planner achieved a 40.94% search volume accuracy score in the head-to-head with Semrush, which got 59.06%. Although it was still way behind Semrush, it did a lot better than many of the other tools.
3. Moz
Good For: Quick and easy (but fairly limited) search volume data
Best Feature: Keyword “Priority” score
Free Plan: The 30-day Moz Pro trial gives you access to all of the tool’s features
Moz is a good all-round SEO tool that has a pretty decent keyword research tool. However, in the search volume accuracy tests in Semrush’s study, it only scored 24.29% compared to Semrush’s score of 32.39%.
4. Ahrefs
Good For: Keyword Difficulty score
Best Feature: Keyword volumes for Google, Bing, YouTube, and Amazon
Free Plan: This is a free browser tool
In a head-to-head comparison with Semrush, Ahrefs was WAY behind in accuracy. It was accurate 39.53% of the time compared to Semrush’s score of 60.47%. Still, the Free Keyword Generator is easy to use and quickly gives you access to keyword search volumes.
The biggest downside is that you can only view this data for 10 keywords. To access more data, you need to pay for an Ahrefs account.
5. Serpstat
Good For: Both SEO and PPC keyword research
Best Feature: Allows you to access data from many different databases
Free Plan: 10 keyword searches per day
Serpstat has a wide array of features you can use for your SEO and PPC campaigns.
6. Sistrix
Good For: Analyzing both Google and Amazon keywords
Best Feature: Ability to bulk upload up to 10,000 keywords
Free Plan: Free 7-day trial of any of the paid plans
The Sistrix “Toolbox” contains a simple keyword research tool. It enables you to retrieve monthly volume data for keywords across search engines and Amazon. All you need to do is sign up for a free trial and log in.
7. Mangools
Good For: Getting a wide variety of data about keywords
Best Feature: Keyword “Trend” data column
Free Plan: 5 keyword searches per day, 25 keyword suggestions, 50 daily tracked keywords
In terms of free keyword research tools, Mangools is pretty competitive with what it provides as part of its free plan and trials. Still, in its head-to-head with Semrush in the previously mentioned study, Semrush’s search volume data was closer to the GSC reference data (61.46% of the time) than Mangools’ data (38.54% of the time).
Which is the Best Keyword Research Tool?
Based on the results of Semrush’s study and supporting data, Semrush is a highly effective keyword research tool.
It features an intuitive user interface, accurate search volume data, an extensive database, and precise trending term insights.
How do you use Semrush to access search volume data?
Well, there are several different features for this. To begin with, let’s take a look at the Keyword Magic Tool.
First, sign up for a Semrush account, and then log in. Click “Keyword Magic Tool” at the left of the page.
Type in a keyword and click “Search”.
You’ll see a list of keywords containing your and other related keywords. The “Volume” column tells you the average monthly search volume for each term in the keyword list, and the “KD %” column gives a score out of 100 to each term, indicating how hard it would be to rank for it.
You can see that the volume for “running shoes” is really high and the keyword difficulty percentage is 95, meaning it would be incredibly hard to rank for this term.
The long-tail keyword “white running shoes” has a lower difficulty score of 27 and has a relatively high search volume, so that will be a good keyword to target instead.
Next up, let’s check out Semrush’s “Keyword Overview” tool. You can then enter up to 100 keywords, and choose your location.
On the next page, you’ll see the search volume for your location and the keyword difficulty percentage. You’ll also see the volume for other locations.
Now, let’s take a look at the Keyword Gap tool, which allows you to compare your keyword profile with your competitors’.
Enter your domain and up to four competing domains, and click “Compare”.
On the next page, scroll down to view a table of keywords you share with your competitors. You’ll see the search volume for each term and the search engine rankings that you and your competitors occupy for these terms.
This allows you to benchmark the performance of your keywords against your competitors. You can also identify how search volume correlates to your search engine rankings.
The variety of excellent tools on offer is just one of the reasons why we think Semrush is the best keyword research tool around.
