Keyword research is the secret to ranking your content well in SERPs (Search Engines Result Pages) and running a successful digital marketing campaign. Keywords research are the cornerstone of every SEO strategy and this is why it is important to find the best keyword research tools for SEO in 2019. Fortunately, there are many keyword research tools available on the internet, both free and paid, that can be used to generate relevant keyword ideas. Even so, choosing the best keyword research tool may be an overwhelming task considering that there are numerous options available and most people don’t have the know-how about them.
In this article, we are going to take you through an in-depth look at the top 5 keyword research tools to help you identify the best for your business.
1. SEMrush
SEMrush is not your typical keyword research tool. It offers one of the most impressive lists of features and the easiest research tool interface. SEMrush provides short and long-tail keyword research and keywords for both PPC and organic traffic. It also shows you the keywords your competitors rank for.
Unlike other tools that require you to enter a seed keyword, SEMrush only needs you to enter the URL of your top competitor’s site, and it will generate all the keywords it is ranking for. Using this acquired information, you can choose the perfect long or short tail keywords depending on what your competitors are doing and your SEO campaign strategy.
Key Features of the SEMrush:
- Comprehensive Organic Research- This feature enables you to search for keywords that are doing well on Google and Bing. It goes further to provide detailed information on the keywords such as the cost-per-click (CPC), innovative organic competitors, a change in a domain’s position, keyword trends, number of results volume and ad copies.
- Research long tail keywords- SEMrush keyword research tool can also generate low-volume keywords. It collects all long-tail keywords that have a search volume of at least ten queries per year. These types of keywords are great, especially if you are facing less competition, but still want to rank high in the search engine results.
- It provides matching keywords and phrases- SEMrush provides a detailed Full Search Report that enables users to find different search queries for alternative targeting or what is known as Latent Semantic Indexing. This tool analyzes the most common keywords on domains that are ranked above 100 for various search terms on Google or Bing. The resulting keywords also come with alternative keyword variations.
- Uses regional database for international SEO- SEMrush is built to generate 28 local keyword databases that can be used when targeting international regions. In addition to this feature, this tool has keyword research capabilities in 16 languages and is therefore suitable for multilingual websites.
- Competitive Analysis- SEMrush generates the keywords your competitors use to rank high on search engines. It goes further to get estimates of the value of these keywords through several web performance indicators. You can see the Keyword’s position, search volume, and average CPC. You can also use this tool to access your competitors landing pages, to enable you to analyze your own content optimization objectively. This way, you can create content around the keywords that your competitors are using to rank higher.
- Analyze Keyword Difficulty- SEMrush has a keyword difficulty tool that instantly calculates and determines a keywords’ difficulty percentage. This keyword difficulty feature outlines keywords with less competition. It helps you understand how difficult it might be to rank when you use certain keywords. It also indicates the number of pages that have used the same keywords and how they rank. It combines these two metrics to outline your chances of ranking high clearly.SEMrush also enables you to identify the keywords your competitors are using to rank organically, and the paid keywords they are focusing on. Hence, you can quickly know which keywords are working best for them and use this information to your advantage.
Other features of SEMrush include:
- It can generate long tail keywords for multinational and multilingual websites
- Price:
- $79.95 to access their services for a month
- $69.96 to subscribe for an ongoing monthly recurring payment
- $149.95 to access additional features, users, and more keyword tracking
2. KWFinder
The KWFinder is a newly built long tail keyword research tool with one of the best interfaces and clear Geo-targeting options. The Geo-targeting feature enables you to narrow down your keyword research in a particular country, or even city. It can be used on multilingual websites since it is available in more than 40 languages. This cloud-based tool has thousands of exclusive features that can help boost your keyword research. It is dedicated to profitable keyword research only.
One of the most critical features of the KWFinder is that it shows you the top sites that rank for your keyword, as well as their social metrics. It shows your search volume, trend, CPC, and the level of difficulty in results. It is able to generate long-tail keywords with low competition to help you rank higher on search engines. KWFinder also enables you to search by country and language. It shows you the keyword’s interest over time, letting you know its popularity amongst users.
KW Finder is our top pick! Great ease of use, price, and results.
Key Features of the KWFinder:
- Keyword Search Volume- A keyword is of minimal use if no one is searching for it. Hence, you need to make sure that you are targeting relevant keywords to help you rank higher in the search engine results. KWFinder provides a significant number of keyword ideas. These keywords come with comprehensive metrics like the monthly search volume of a keyword, the average CPC, and its pay per click competition score. These metrics help you decide which keywords are worth your time and effort.
- SEO Difficulty- It is a well-known fact that a good number of online searchers do not click beyond the first page of search engine results. You, therefore, want your page to appear in the top 10 search results. Luckily, the KWFinder provides an SEO difficulty score. This score indicates how difficult it is to rank when using certain keywords on search engine results. It helps you identify which keywords are worth targeting.
- Refines keyword research by location and language- This feature is especially useful for users looking to concentrate on a particular target market that is concentrated in one geographical area. The KWFinder recognizes 40 languages. With these languages, it can narrow down keywords to some areas or countries to give you a more localized insight of the keywords used by your target market.
- Competitor Analysis- KWFinder enables you to see the top ranking websites for each keyword and what their SEO difficulty rank is. This way, you will be able to determine how strong your rank should be to meet or exceed their position. Also, you will be able to see the quality of your competitors’ content which will give you a chance to create content that is just as good or even better.
Other features of KWFinder include:
- It provides an overtime graph that shows the popularity or trend of certain keywords. This feature enables users to keep their content updated.
- It provides SERPs for your keyword, which includes the number of retweets and Facebook likes or the listed URLs.
- This tool has a free account that enables you to generate keyword lists and transfer them to Excel easily.
- Price:
- It offers a free plan that is limited to 5 keyword research daily.
- The paid plan of USD 12/month provides more features and information on the keywords and competition to its subscribers.
3. Long Tail Pro
Long Tail Pro is a paid cloud-based software for keyword research that offers two paid plans to its customers. It is ideal for those looking to find keywords for niche/micro-niche sites and long tail keywords. According to the numerous studies and research conducted on SEO, long tail keywords rank high compared to short keywords. This tool can generate thousands of profitable, calculated and targeted long tail keywords for any niche.
Key Features of the Long Tail Pro:
- Keyword Research- Unlike other keyword research tools, the Long Tail Pro displays a list of possible combinations to create a long-tail keyword for your website. Although these multi-word keywords may not have significant search volumes, they increase your chances of high search engine ranking. This tool also has a feature that enables you to customize the results to keywords with certain search volumes.
- Analyze Competition- This feature is available to the Long Tail Pro premium subscribers. Once the keywords have been generated, you can click on any of its columns to see how competitive each keyword is. Also, this tool produces the top 10 search results on its competitor analysis tab. These details are important since they show you all the relevant information related to ranking such as domain authority and links.
Other features of Long Tail Pro include:
- It is able to determine a domain’s strength, metrics and page strength.
- It generates keywords that are relevant to your niche.
- You can customize challenging targets.
- It can filter real-time keywords by CPC, advertiser competition, local searches and more
- It enables you to track the ranking of the keywords on your domain
- This tool lets you narrow down your research for better results through its filters
- Price:
- $97 for a once off purchase.
- $97+ $17 per month for access to all new pro features
4. Google Keyword Planner
This is one of the best keyword research tools available on the internet. The Google Keyword Planner is a feature of the Google AdWords advertising platform. Although it is designed for advertising, it can be used to do organic keyword research by customizing the results from one of your competitors. To gain access to these features, you need to create an AdWords account.
Key Features of the Google Keyword Planner:
- Keyword Analysis- This tool is able to give you more relevant keyword suggestions than any other tool. Other than that, it outlines the average monthly searches, the average CPC, competition level and many other essential characteristics of the keyword you have entered. These features enabled you to refine your content and make it precise for your target market. It is highly recommended since it can generate alternative keyword ideas from just inputting the URL of your landing page.
- Keyword Trend- The Google keyword finder is able to generate keywords that will trend during a certain time and their volume estimates. You have the option of breaking down the trends by devices. For instance, you can check for the mobile trends and compare them to the overall trend. If most of the searches come from mobile devices, you should create content that is mobile friendly. If you opt to break the trend down by location, you can tailor your content in a way that it speaks to the people of that area.
- Generates Local keyword faster- It indicates search volume for your keywords and groups them into ad groups. It then examines their search trends, mobile trends and breaks them down by device or location based on your target market. This way, it is able to generate your keyword researchers faster compared to other research tools.
- Search Volume trends- It can get search volume trends and traffic forecast for your keywords including the predicted clicks and estimated conversions over a period of time. Therefore, marketers can use this feature to plan their PPC campaigns depending on the seasonal changes and the demand for a particular keyword. Google Keyword Planner can also be used to create relevant content depending on a keyword’s traffic.
Just to add as another great free tool us Uber Suggest by Neil Patel.
Price: Free
5. Ahref
Just like Semrush, Ahref is a keyword research tool that offers an estimated ranking for keywords. It shows the ranking of keywords for both Google and Bing or Yahoo. The keyword generation on Ahrefs is powered by clickstream data. The keyword database of Ahref is updated every month.
You can filter the keyword list from the tool on the basis of keyword difficulty and search volume. The given 2 criteria are always available for all the keywords in the database. This tool will also show you keywords for many other criteria like clicks, clicks per search and return rate.
The tool has started showing search volume trends since September 2015. The keyword difficulty is calculated based on the backlink profile of the top 10 pages in the SERP.
Key Features of Ahref Keyword Generator:
- Large Keyword Database- Ahref is powered by one of the largest international databases. The database boast of 4.3 billion words and phrases from 100+ countries. This huge collection of keywords is the reason why Ahref is a widely recommended keyword research tool today.
- Accurate Keyword Metrics and Filters- Along with showing the best keywords, this tool will also give you keyword metrics. Keyword difficulty score and search volume is shown for every displayed keyword. With the help of these metrics, you can get the best keywords that can drive high traffic and with less ranking difficulty.
- Location Specific Keyword Suggestions- The tool shows keyword suggestions from more than 100 countries. You can select the best keyword from your location to get ranked on the top of SERPs.
- Create Custom keyword Lists- In order to save your selected keywords for future references, you can create a custom list of keywords. Later you can export this keyword list for easy access.
- Keyword Suggestions from Seed Keywords- You can put upto 10 seed keywords in this keyword research tool and you will get a list of best-related keywords. There are many keyword generation algorithms that will give you the best possible results.
Other features of Ahrefs include:
Price:
- Lite- 7-day trial for $7, then $99/month
- Standard- 7-day trial for $7, then $179/month
Investing in the best keyword research tool will help to drive more traffic towards your website. It will enable you to understand what people are looking for and what will benefit your business or website the most. It is for this reason that you need to invest in the best keyword research tool to do the work for you.
Although SEMrush is the most expensive keyword search tool for SEO, it provides you with features that will help boost your overall SEO strategies. This is not to say that the other keyword search tools are not useful. As outlined above, all these tools have their merits. For instance, the KWFinder is ideal when you are more interested in determining trends and comparing the popularity of various keywords or phrases. The Google keyword planner is recommendable for basic keyword research, especially for SEO on a new website. Even so, it is important that you use the best keyword research tool. Hopefully, this article can assist you in making the right choice when picking the right keyword research tool for your business in 2019.
Although not listed Ahrefs is a great overall research and SEO tool that does an ok job and boasts to have the largest database of keywords although from our tests not the best.
