Keyword research is one of the first steps of effective SEO and a key factor to increase your organic search traffic. But choosing the best keyword research tool that fits your needs can be challenging for someone who is just starting out with SEO.

If you’re just starting on your SEO journey, make sure to read our guide on how to conduct PPC Keyword research.

How do Keyword Research Tools work?

The best Keyword Research Tools can help you identify the top keywords that audiences are looking for on search engines.

Gathering a list of related keywords for your business or website can help you plan a better strategy to optimize your website and attract visitors or customers. 

The best keyword research tools can even let you see which keywords your competitors are using.

Here’s our list of the top 10 best keyword research tools on the market today to help you grow your organic traffic with ease.

KWFINDER

KWFinder has a user-friendly interface to research keywords with low SEO difficulty. It also allows you to research keywords in any language or location for more precise statistics. 

We like their filters feature that helps refine searches for more accurate keyword suggestions according to your needs.

Their most affordable plan starts at $29.90, but you can also try their 10-day free trial.

Keyword Surfer (Free!)

If you’re looking for a no-fuss option that’s also free, we’ve got you covered with Keyword Surfer. It is a chrome extension that shows you search volumes on any search you type on google.

To use the extension, you simply type in a keyword into google, and Keyword Surfer will show you the number of searches that are made every month on Google, Bing, and Yahoo. All you have to do is hover over the numbers to see the search volume for each engine.

Their global search feature allows you to get results for 19 countries including the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, and others. You’re also able to turn off the global search volume to focus on a single country.

The developers have promised to keep the extension free forever, so it won’t hurt to give it a try.

SEMRUSH

Our list wouldn’t be complete without the best keyword research tool on the market, SEMRush. It is with good reason that top marketers use it, as it is one of the most complete tools available to help you with social media, content marketing, digital marketing, and more.

The tool includes everything needed for keyword research and SEO, offering insight into your competitor’s keywords, monthly search volume, trends in popularity, keyword difficulty analysis, and worldwide CPC distribution statistics.

Their All-in-One SEO plugin integrates with WordPress to allow you to find additional related keywords.

You can try Semrush for free with their 7-day trial. 

Majestic

If you’re running a small business or blog and don’t have as many resources to invest in advanced SEO support, you can try Majestic. It is a complete SEO Tool that includes several features in one from keyword competition insight to website analysis.

Their keyword generation tool is different from other options in the market since instead of relying on third-party data, they use AI-based NLP algorithms.

Their most affordable plan starts at $49.99 per month.

AHREFS

Ahrefs is one of the best keyword research tools available. It’s similar to SEMrush both in popularity and in its included features that can monitor your brand and track its performance. It is supported in over 171 countries and offers keyword suggestions, difficulty scores, research, and metrics.

Ahrefs has an extensive SERP overview that gives you an idea of how competitive different keywords are and how many results appear for them. You can see the keywords ranking for the first position, second position, etc., as well as their search volume and click-through rates (CTR). Ahrefs also shows rank distribution charts that show which pages of your website rank for specific keywords. This feature helps you understand if you have enough pages optimized for your target keyword/s.

Their most affordable plan starts at $99 per month.

LONG TAIL PRO

Long-tail keywords are normally longer and more specific than regular keywords. They usually get less traffic but have a higher conversion value due to being more niche.

Long Tail Pro is a tool to help you research keywords for your niche site. The tool provides additional focus on your ranking metrics against your competitors.

It’s very effective in improving your organic traffic and conversions.

Their most affordable plan starts at $37per month. They also offer free hands-on training and trial Webinar.

GOOGLE KEYWORD PLANNER (Free!)

Google’s Keyword Planner is a free keyword research tool that helps you discover new ideas for AdWords campaigns.

Keyword Planner provides information about search volume and competition to help you understand how relevant your ad topic is to your audience. You can also explore related keywords, see the average cost-per-click that advertisers use when they bid on Google search terms and save your favorite keywords so you can easily access them later.

It is important to note that while Keyword Planner is extremely accurate, it doesn’t deliver much value if you are trying to find broad terms with high search volumes or more specific longtail keyword phrases. It also does not provide any information about the difficulty of capturing traffic from competitors for specific keywords

If you have a well-established business with an existing online presence, then Google’s Keyword Planner will be a tremendous asset for your paid search efforts. If, however, your website is brand new or you’re still building its online visibility, then don’t rely on this tool as it will surely lead you astray by suggesting highly competitive keywords that have very little traffic available for capture.

Questiondb

If you’re looking for a tool to show you the most popular questions online users are interested in, try Questiondb. This tool is helpful for bloggers, content writers, and developers who have ideas for new articles or apps but don’t know what people are interested in reading about. 

Their database makes it easy to search for questions with the most up-votes sourced directly from Reddit, using more than 48 million questions. You can filter questions by topic or popularity.

Their most basic search feature is free and it’s helpful for casual ideation and understanding readers, but for more accurate results their Pro plan is $15 per month.

SpyFu

If you’re interested in analyzing your competitor’s SEO strategies, ads, and keywords, then SpyFu is for you.

SpyFu collects data and shows how a website has ranked for specific keywords in the past. It is extremely useful for comparing your own website to either your direct competitors or any other site in the industry.

If you’re working in a very saturated niche, we recommend you try it out. You can view historical changes of rank, as well as its difficulty rating.

Their most affordable plan starts at $39 per month.

Growthbar

GrowthBar is a tool that will save you time by automatically showing keyword suggestions and ranking difficulty in all your search results.

It also generates content outlines through AI, which you can integrate on your website or blog to easily access word count, keyword data, longtail keyword suggestions, and more.

You can try Growthbar with their free 5-day trial option or subscribe to their most affordable plan for $29 per month.