Tools Available for Keyword Research

Keywords are one of the most important aspects of SEO and for relevant and useful keywords a precise keyword research is required.

Keyword research provides you meaningful keywords that enable your webpages to rank higher in search results. Thus, it can be considered the base of SEO is keyword research.

There are a number of tools available for keyword research. Some of the popular tools are described below:

Google Keyword Planner

It is one of the most used keyword research tools. It is a free tool which is integrated with Google Adwords. This tool requires you to create an Adwords account before you start using the tool. It gives you an idea about the competition level for each keyword and offers you filters and match types to find out profitable keywords.

Google Trends

It is also a free tool of Google which is designed to compare the traffic for a set of keywords. It allows you to enter multiple keywords, search history and category and use filter by location. You just enter the data and it will display how high a particular keyword ranks along with the reason for its popularity like press coverage, social media, etc.

SEMRUSH

It is designed to offer more than just keyword search. In this tool, you don't need to enter seed keywords like other tools, i.e. you just need to add your and competitor's URL, the tool will provide you all the keywords that are ranking for competitor's site. You can identify the keywords that you are not targeting. In the paid section of search you can find out the keywords your competitors are planning to bid on; you can use these keywords for your organic benefit.

Keyword Spy

It is an SEO optimization tool designed for keyword research. As the name suggests, it allows you to spy on competitors' keywords, to create targeted campaigns and to see their rank based on geographical location. Its free version offers several features; Domain spy tool is one of them which allows you to type the domain into the search box and provide you the data such as on what keywords a site spends most, how much a site is spending in paid search and who are the competitors, etc.

Keyword Discovery

It is one of the best keyword tools. It collects data from more than 200 search engines including the popular ones like Google and Yahoo. It provides regional or country specific databases, industry related keyword lists, online shopping keywords lists, etc. The tool also features various research options like filters, misspellings, keyword permutations, trends, etc.

Keyword Tool.io

It is a basic keyword research tool which can be useful if you are looking for long-tail keyword suggestions for your keywords. It is also a free tool; its basic version can be used even without creating an account. The basic version uses Google Autocomplete to create a list of related long-tail keywords. But, it does not provide information about search volume and cost-per-click for this information you have to upgrade to Keyword Tool Pro.

WordTracker

The tool helps you find best keywords related to your search keywords and also shows how much traffic a keyword gets. It is generally used by small organizations. It helps them to research keywords, develop a planned SEO platform and build new links.

Moz's Keyword Difficulty Tool

The tool is designed by Moz. It helps analyze the competitiveness of a keyword. When you enter a keyword, it shows the top ten ranking for that keyword. Then, it assigns a difficulty score for the keyword based on the webpages that are ranking for this word. It also allows you to export data into a CSV for deep analysis.