20 Free Keyword Research Tools – Comprehensive Insight
Dainis Graveris
Before you write any good article or optimize website, you have to know how and why you have to select right keywords. SEO is very easy to overuse and do even worse, if you for example start to do keyword stuffing or repeating the same words over and over again without good thought. For regular content like blogs, people always like to argue about what you need to put in the first place – SEO or your readers. I am thinking you must do both – using simple but consistent and smart SEO and try to write as compelling article as possible to your readers.
If you haven’t already I strongly you suggest to read the first post -
How To Create Popular Blog With Keyword Research, Heatmaps And SEO? from series to get little starting overview.
In that case you’ll get good search rankings because of SEO and trackbacks,comments you’ll get if article will be really good. ( of course, don’t forget about PageRank – new blogs usually don’t rank very well in Google). I must also mention, how good is to establish community, who actively discuss article in comments – Google just love content, which updates regularly. In short – people who add comments to article actually update and continue your article, plus each comment is taken as article update – very important aspect!
Okay, I got a little bit away from main article discussion – this time as promised I am featuring free keyword research tools, which are the most popular now.
Note, at the end of article you’ll find also several non-SEO tools, but still which can be used seriously to optimize your site, help to choose right keywords and understand niche you are optimizing your site to! I suggest you at least visit all of these sites, so you pick your favorite tool because really all tools differentiate a little bit from each other.
Enjoy this article and remember there are several more series to come soon, where I will try to explain how I do my SEO as well as link you to several more useful resources and articles you really should read!
1.Google search based keyword tool
The Search-based Keyword Tool provides keyword ideas:
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Based on actual Google search queries;
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Matched to specific pages of your website with your ad and search share;
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New to your Adwords account (typically excluding keywords matching those already in your account).
I thought it will be better to add official product introduction, than explaining what this tool does with my words to give you good overview.
2.Google AdWords: Keyword Tool
Use the Keyword Tool to get new keyword ideas. Select an option below to enter a few descriptive words or phrases, or type in your website’s URL. This tool gives you approximate keyword search volume statistics for Google search network and because of Google growing and dominating search network, you really can get pretty precise results.
3.Google Insights for Search
Google Insights is a powerful tool that offers features not available on most other free tools. For seasonal or fluctuating niches, you can view stats by year or a specific time period. For regional niches, you can view stats by country, state or even city. The graphical reports are great for seeing trends. One of the only downsides is that they don’t show absolute search volume but instead normalized data that is shown on a scale up to 100. Also since the data is normalized the detailed stats are limited.
4. Google Trends
Use commas to compare multiple search terms – one more great product from Google allowing you to research and compare trends.
5.Free Keyword Suggestion Tool from Wordtracker
Wordtracker helps website owners and search engine marketers identify keywords and phrases that are relevant to their or their client’s business and most likely to be used as queries by search engine visitors.
Use the free keyword suggestion tool from Wordtracker to help your website rank higher in the search engines. This tool can generate up to 100 related keyword phrases and show daily searches.
If you use Internet Explorer 7, or Firefox 2 or 3, you can add the Wordtracker Keywords search to your browser.
6.SEO Book Keyword suggestion tool
This tool is powered by Wordtracker, get comprehensive overview about different search volume statistics for Google, Yahoo!, MSN daily estimonials – export whole list to Excel *.csv file for later research!
Top Paying AdSense Keyword Lists
Also good introduction to this tool – definitely suggest you to watch this video.
7.Good Keywords v3
Free and downloadable Windows software helping you to get out more of Google keyword research, worth checking out!
8.SEMRush
What you may do there:
- Discover competitors’ sites with common Google keywords;
- Get list of Google keywords for any site;
- Get list of AdWords keywords for any site;
- Check your competitors landing-pages for SE and AdWords traffic;
- Investigate long-tail keywords for any domain;
- Get estimated SE and AdWords traffic for any domain;
- See sites’ spending for AdWords;
- Get hidden related (and low-cost) keywords to optimize your AdWords campaign;
- Find potential advertisers for any site;
- Find potential traffic sellers for your site.
9. Free Search Term Suggestion Tool
Trellian KeywordDiscovery keyword data is compiled and collected from a number of search engines to provide a far more accurate cross section of searches performed world wide. This tool can generate maximum 100 keywords and collect search term data from over 200 search engines world wide.
10.KGen
KGen (Keyword Generator) is Firefox extension that allows you to see what keywords are strong on visited web pages. This plugin retrieves every words of a page and lets you know how many time they appears on her and their weight in the page (a word in the title of a page has a stronger weight than a word in a paragraph).
11.Wordpot Free Keyword Tool
Try this free keyword research tool,which is quite usable, but creators limit your access trying to sell you paid version, generally you still can get pretty good overview.
12.NicheBot Classic
Type a keyword or keyword phrase and get the top 50 most popular keyword listings.
Non-SEO tools, but still extremely useful:
13.Synonyms Thesaurus with Antonyms & Definitions
Synonym.com is good web resource for English synonyms, antonyms, and definitions. Type in a word and the synonym finder will come up with a list of synonyms. Check out the most popular online synonym searches to find the right word for any occasion. Use the antonym tool to find find antonyms and check out the definitions feature to read the definition.
14.Thesaurus
Thesaurus.com is produced by Dictionary.com, LLC, a leading provider of language reference products and services on the Internet.
To use the thesaurus, simply type a word in the gold search box and click the ‘Search’ button. A list of synonyms and antonyms will be returned.
15.Delicious
Bookmarking service, but still very useful for searching keywords. I usually find similar popular articles or websites and check which tags are used to bookmark that page. Extremely useful!
16.Dictionary
Dictionary.com is a multi-source dictionary search service produced by Dictionary.com, LLC, a leading provider of language reference products and services on the Internet. Dictionary.com is hiring, please find information about career opportunities.
To use the dictionary, simply type a word in the blue search box that appears at the top of every page and then click the ‘Search’ button.
17.Wikipedia
Everybody knows wikipedia, but did you ever think about using it to research your niche – related categories, language people in your niche are using? Useful to visit from time to time in research purpose!
18.Keyword questions
People often type questions into search engines. Now you can find these questions, answer them and get some great search traffic. You’ll be targeting long tail keywords and providing content that readers want to read and link to. Also try the keyword tool the professional SEO uses. Enter a single or a short keyword to find the questions people are asking in your market.
19.Twitter Search
Keeping up with interesting news and people you care about is one dimension of Twitter, but what if you need to find out what’s happening in the world beyond your personal timeline?
There is an undeniable need to search, filter, and otherwise interact with the volumes of news and information being transmitted to Twitter every second. Twitter Search helps you filter all the real-time information coursing through our service.
20.MetaGlossary
MetaGlossary is able to precisely extract the meanings of terms and phrases from the often frustratingly unmanageable mass of information on the web. It provides you with concise, direct explanations for terms and phrases, not just endless links to sift through in search of a comprehensive definition.
Series coming up:
Introduction – How To Create Popular Blog With Keyword Research, Heatmaps And SEO?
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Free Keyword Research Tools – Comprehensive Insight (done)
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How I do keyword research – Behind the Scenes Overview
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Why And How Heatmaps Improve Your Blog?
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How To Optimize Images For Search Engines?
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Above The Fold – What Every Web-Designer Should know?
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Readers Participating: Keyword Research Experience And More SEO Tips
For Further Reading:
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Adam Bean
Posted 855 days ago 31Hi Dainis
You are spot on where you point out the following
“For regular content like blogs, people always like to argue about what you need to put in the first place – SEO or your readers. I am thinking you must do both”
If you write a brilliant article that no one can find then you aren’t helping anyone! Great content that can benefit your readers, should always be a priority. By SEO optimizing your blog posts you are also providing the readers a great service. As you are making your great content easy to find!!!
They go hand in hand IMHO.
Cheers Adam
.-= Adam Bean´s last blog ..Making Money it isn’t Dirty =-.
gregw
Posted 874 days ago 30I like your list. I made one a while back that has a few different ones and does not include some of the ones that you have referred to. You might want to check it out at Raief.com. I only listed 18 and then made a separate listing for search queries.
Ben Huebner
Posted 919 days ago 29Some really nice tools to find good keywords!
Keyword research is the first and most important step in SEO, I think with these tools there should be no problem to be successful with SEO, thanks!
.-= Ben Huebner´s last blog ..Massive PPV Traffic, is it a good deal? =-.
Bahrul Ulum
Posted 930 days ago 28Some of them I never heard …Great list. Very helpful. Big Thanks.
.-= Bahrul Ulum´s last blog ..Kerja Online Untuk Dapatkan Uang =-.
Xaby Web Design
Posted 931 days ago 27This is very true. And perhaps this might not apply much to US but here in SG, because the search volume for “hot” keywords here is so low (Singapore only has a population of 5 million), it is highly likely that you are better off paying for click thros via Adword than to pay a SEO consultant thousands for a SEO campaign.
Rob
Posted 938 days ago 26Im in the middle of creating a training doc and was looking for a reminder of some of the better methods. Great list, 1 or 2 I had not seen before which are pretty useful.
Another good one, check your competitores meta tags for some inspiration. Also Google search suggest!
Thanks again.
Sharon D
Posted 951 days ago 25Dainis,
You might want to add http://www.ispionage.com.
They have an integrated suite of keyword tools.
- Keyword generator/keyword research
- competitor keywords
- Keyword clean tool
- keyword grouping tool
And they have a free version… oh, real nice interface too :)
-Sharon
Stefanos
Posted 958 days ago 24Thanks for this list.They are all very useful tools. However, I was really impressed by the Thesaurus. This tool is really great for getting more ideas and discovering more keywords and key phrases relevant to the industry that your are working on.
Dave
Posted 962 days ago 23This newbie is defenitely something to add to this nice list
http://www.wordstream.com/keywords/
Dave
Rick
Posted 965 days ago 22Real nice list. SEO can be overwhelming at times, so it is nice to see some simple tools to help
.-= Rick´s last blog ..Does your company need a website? =-.
Rapideo
Posted 993 days ago 21;)SEMRush
.-= Rapideo´s last blog ..Fifty First Worse Applications =-.
Eduard Blacquière
Posted 997 days ago 20This is definitely a good and complete list of free keyword research tools!
.-= Eduard Blacquière´s last blog ..There will always be shifts in media =-.
Mike McEvoy
Posted 999 days ago 19I’m familiar with some of these but there are a number that require digging into for the first time. Great list. Very helpful. Thanks.
.-= Mike McEvoy´s last blog ..7 Reasons Netbook Computers are great for students =-.
Jason Zuckerman
Posted 1000 days ago 18I really enjoy keyword research and I have used many of these tools. There were also loads which I have not explored and I expect to be very useful. I am so appreciative of the effort that has been made to uncover all of these.
.-= Jason Zuckerman´s last blog ..Treehouse =-.
Rapideo
Posted 1000 days ago 17ThAnKs ;)
.-= Rapideo´s last blog ..Sandbox, A security mechanism =-.
yasmin
Posted 1004 days ago 16nice list, thanks!
pusche
Posted 1006 days ago 15this is great, thank you so much :)
.-= pusche´s last blog ..von handys und smartphones =-.
Bunnygotblog
Posted 1009 days ago 14These are wonderful and a few I have been looking for . YOU ARE THE BEST!!!!
Erni
Posted 1010 days ago 13A really good article, with some nice tips. Never thought about the delicious idea. :)
libertacara
Posted 1011 days ago 12Nice. Thank you
AREA 1
Posted 1011 days ago 11Great & useful article! Thanks :)
.-= AREA 1´s last blog ..60 Websites to promote your articles on =-.
Alberto André
Posted 1011 days ago 9Nice post, the keywords are the “heart” of any seo work and these tools are very helpful to any keyword research.
ps: the image of “Google search based keyword tool” is the same of “Google AdWords: Keyword Tool”, is that right?
Dainis Graveris
Posted 1011 days ago 10Thanks, man!
Oh, snap, you’re right, fixing!
gautam hans
Posted 1011 days ago 3great list! i think keyword research will help me get on top of search engines and maybe get more traffic. This might help me finding new ways for search engine optimization
.-= gautam hans´s last blog ..Optimizing Title For Search Engine Optimization in Blogger =-.
Dainis Graveris
Posted 1011 days ago 6Thanks, but also note you should update content frequently – if you don’t use keywords – no matter how good SEO and research is, Google cannot rank you for keywords you are not using.
I mean, I am using this approach using simple SEO technics together with regular content!
Luis Lopez
Posted 1011 days ago 2Excellent tools for finding keywords you bring us here, normally I use the google adwords or trends, because i think they are the more accurate, because we all think more on google ranking than the others, and I also use the Kgen extension some times and now I can see you use the word XXXXXX 43 times. I also use as techniques Digg, I mean I look for the more relevant content en Digg about a design subject in the last time, and based on that I try to create something related to the main idea. I’m just starting so for the moment the results are relative.
Thanks Dainis I can’t wait for the next lesson.
.-= Luis Lopez´s last blog ..50+ HD Desktop Wallpapers For Your Inspiration – Abstract and 3D =-.
Dainis Graveris
Posted 1011 days ago 5Yes, Kgen is really good tool for keyword research..what kind of xxxxx word?:) I found I am using “free” keyword often.
Interesting approach about Digg – you mean breaking news or interesting idea you find? Never thought of using Digg in that way, since it’s totally based on power diggers and their submissions.
Thanks, Luis – after few days you’ll get next one:)
Luis Lopez
Posted 1011 days ago 7The XXXXX word from the Keygen was “keyword”, next “free”, I didn’t put it before because maybe you don’t want people knowing that, i don’t know, but anyway… About Digg, obviously is not like doing this you are gonna be the next one on he first page (not me at least) but based on what is popular on the moment, related to your niche you can find some good ideas for articles that could be interesting to the community.
Now I’m trying with more specific sites like Design Bump and Design Float , let’s if I can get something in coming weeks.
.-= Luis Lopez´s last blog ..50+ HD Desktop Wallpapers For Your Inspiration – Abstract and 3D =-.
Dainis Graveris
Posted 1011 days ago 8ah, no, no, I have no such secrets:)
I really suggest you to just get good friend network, who you can ask for upvotes and don’t worry so much about upcoming trends, but create several your own:)
Dicky
Posted 1011 days ago 1Wow, such a great list of Keyword Research Tools! I know Search Base Keyword Tool long time ago, but never look into it seriously…
.-= Dicky´s last blog ..30+ Breathtaking Landscape Wallpapers =-.
Dainis Graveris
Posted 1011 days ago 4Thanks, still for me actually a lot to research, though I think keyword is more crucial when starting new projects as blogs or websites, daily SEO flow for me is pretty simple:)