Free SEO Tools

Why use free keyword research tools?

You might be wondering why you should use a free tool to find keyword ideas, related keywords, and ideas for where to kickstart your link building. A good keyword research tool can tell you where your website is right now so that you can start creating a stronger SEO strategy to reach your goals. For example, if your SEO performance is lacking and you’re not coming up in Google search results, using a free backlink checking tool might reveal that you just don’t have a strong backlink profile. If that’s the case, you’ll know you need to focus on generating backlinks.

When you need SEO data, keyword research tools can tell you more than Bing Webmaster Tools, Google Webmaster Tools, and Google Analytics. It’s not that these tools are a substitute for one another, but rather, keyword research tools provide SEO metrics you won’t find anywhere else.  

SEO tools can help you plan your SEO strategy

There are numerous free tools you can use to get the data you need to rank your site better in the search results. The best free SEO tools include comprehensive data like where your backlinks are coming from, your monthly search volume, and how competitive your targeted keywords are, including long tail keywords.

Whether it’s for link building or improving organic search, SEO tools can help you create a stronger SEO strategy that will get you the results you’re after.

What do keyword research tools do?

In short, good keyword research tools will help you increase your ranking in the SERPs by performing a variety of functions. Here’s an overview of what each type of tool can do for you.

What does a backlink analysis tool do?

A backlink analysis tool is an especially helpful tool that helps you do two things:

1. Find out where all of your backlinks are located.
2. Identify link building opportunities by showing you the websites where your competitors have gotten backlinks.

A backlink analysis tool is one of the best free SEO tools around because it’s the easiest way to get an edge in your niche. If you want to be found in the search results, you need a solid backlink profile. Search engines like Google use backlinks as a strong ranking signal and it’s nearly impossible to rank without inbound links.

What do keyword generators do?

A keyword generator provides you with keyword suggestions using your seed keyword to generate relevant keywords that you can use to rank higher in Google’s search results. You’ll get a list of keywords along with the estimated search volume and competition. This will help you find the low-hanging fruit keywords that will be easier for you to target. These are the keywords with less competition and a higher search volume.

If you’re trying to target a particular keyword, a keyword generator will help you find related, LSI keywords. Google and other search engines don’t just rely on main keywords to determine your ranking. Search engines derive the context of your content by analyzing all of your words and phrases. No matter how much page optimization you perform, if you don’t incorporate important and relevant LSI keywords into your content, search engines won’t know when to serve your site in the search results for equally related searches. The more related searches you can rank for, the better. As long as those searches are truly relevant to your content.

Here are the twelve most useful, free keyword research tools you’ll find on the ‘net

1. Ahrefs Keyword Generator

Generating keywords using the Ahrefs keyword generator is a breeze. Best of all, you don’t need a paid account to use this tool. Enter your seed keyword and you’ll get 100 fresh ideas pulled from a database of more than 8 billion keywords.

You’ll get all the important stats like how competitive each keyword is and what the monthly search volume is. What makes this tool unique is the fact that it will also give you questions related to your seed keyword. This is especially helpful because questions have become an important part of SEO. Many people who use mobile devices use voice search and it’s natural for them to ask questions rather than make statements.

If you want to upgrade to a paid account to get more keyword research features you can, but the free SEO tool is one of the best.

2. AnswerThePublic

On the topic of questions and SEO, the free tool from AnswerThePublic is phenomenal. This is yet another unique tool that provides you with questions people are asking related to your seed keyword. If you want to capture more mobile visitors, you’ll definitely want to use this tool to source questions you can use for your headings. Headings are an important part of on page SEO, and you may have noticed more sites are using questions for headings for this reason.

You can also use questions in your meta tags and descriptions as well as bulleted lists throughout your pages. The more relevant questions you include in your content, the better chance you have at ranking higher in the search results.

The only downside to using this tool is that you’re limited to three daily searches. However, you can download your results to use at your convenience.

3. Google Trends

Google Trends has been around for a while and it’s one of the most underestimated SEO tools around. If you’ve been stuck on using Google Keyword Planner, and you haven’t checked out Google Trends yet, you’re in for a treat.

Once upon a time, keyword research tools would tell you exactly what people are searching for in Google. While Google no longer gives access to all of their real-time search data, you can get around this somewhat by using Google Trends. When you enter your target keyword, you’ll get a list of phrases that are currently trending on Google or YouTube, depending on which setting you choose.

If you’re marketing based on current trends like breaking news stories and current events, this tool will be exceptionally useful. You can also find out how certain topics have trended over time to see if certain trends are worth targeting or if they’re old news.

4. Keyworddit

Keyworddit is perhaps the holy grail of keyword research tools. If you’re familiar with Reddit, you know it’s a goldmine for finding out what people want to talk about and learn. When you search for keywords here, you’ll get a list 500 keywords, including their search volume.

The only hangup with this SEO tool is that you can only get ideas for keywords by searching specific subreddits. Unfortunately, not every subreddit is in their database, which means you may not get any use from this tool. Only subs with a minimum of 10,000 subscribers are put into the database. However, if relevant subs are included in their database, you just might get lucky.

This tool isn’t a replacement for standard keyword research tools, but it’s an excellent supplement when you want to know what people are talking about. It’s excellent in this way to get ideas for creating content to use in your link building campaigns. For example, you can see what kind of problems people are having and thanks to crowdsourcing, you just might come across the solutions, too.

5. Keyword Sheeter

Keyword Sheeter pulls data from Google’s Autocomplete database. Google’s autocomplete isn’t a database full of actual phrases people search for – Google removed public access to their searches many years ago – however, this tool is excellent for finding keyword ideas.

When you type in a keyword and run your query, the keywords will keep loading at 1,000 per minute until there are no more or you choose to stop it. There are advanced options that allow you to narrow your results to searches related to books, news, products, images, and even YouTube.

Once you generate keywords from this tool, you can save your results to Google Keyword Planner and you can pay for more detailed reports such as:

• Search volume CPC bids
• Exact keyword results
• All in title results checker
• Top 100 SERPs
• Term explorer difficulty
• Full sheet report
• Full backlink SERP report

This is one of the best free SEO tools around because of the volume of data you can get at no cost.

6. Keyword Surfer

Keyword Surfer is a Chrome plugin that generates keywords automatically when you search for a keyword, provided you have it enabled. The keyword ideas are displayed on the right side of your browser.

While it’s not exactly a traditional keyword research tool, it’s an excellent way to generate ideas for your blog posts and other content marketing needs.

7. Keyword Tool Dominator

Keyword Tool Dominator is similar to Google Trends, but with a twist. It’s designed to tell you what search trends are currently happening, but it pulls data from Google, Bing, Amazon, YouTube, Etsy, eBay, and Walmart. This is excellent because eCommerce businesses aren’t left out. The only downside is you only get two searches in a 24-hour period. If you want to perform more keyword research, you’ll need to buy a plan.

8. Moz Keyword Explorer

Known for being an authority on SEO, it’s no wonder Moz Keyword Explorer is an excellent keyword research tool. It’s so good, it’s one of the best SEO tools you can find online. In fact, it’s one of the best free tools and paid SEO tools available.

This tool will give you a lot of juicy details about the keywords you’re researching. For instance, you’ll get the monthly search volume, competition, and organic search CRT. Moz even adds in their own unique data they call a priority score.

Last, but not least, this tool will give you a bunch of suggested keywords, which makes it worth using on a regular basis. The only snag with a free account is the limit of ten monthly searches. However, used strategically, you can get a big bang for your buck here.

9. QuestionDB

QuestionDB is another wonderful tool for finding content ideas. The results are aggregated from various question-based websites, like Quora and also Reddit. If you can’t find any of your preferred subreddits in the Keyworddit database, you’ll find plenty of questions with this tool.

If you want to dive deep, you can look at the source for each question to know where it came from, then follow the link to see what people answered. While you can run unlimited searches with a free account, you’re limited to 50 results per search. If you’re serious about content marketing, this is one of the paid SEO tools worth getting.

10. SEMrush Keyword Magic Tool

Similar to Moz, SEMrush is an authority on SEO and has an excellent free SEO tool for keyword research. When you run a report with the Keyword Magic Tool, you’ll get the standard data like monthly search volume, competition, and keyword difficulty.

Without a paid account, SEMrush only allows ten complimentary searches per day per free tool. Since this tool provides similar results as others that also limit your daily searches, you can be resourceful and use each tool to maximize your efforts.

11. Soovle

Soovle is another SEO tool that works great for eCommerce businesses. It’s a keyword generator and keyword research tool all in one. You’ll get results from sites like Wikipedia, Amazon, eBay, and YouTube.

If you just need a simple keyword tool to give you ideas for content, Soovle may be exactly what you need. You won’t get search data, but it’s a good keyword tool to spark your creativity or give your content marketing team more ideas.

12. Ubersuggest

Ubersuggest is a unique tool that provides some benefits you can’t get from other keyword research tools. This tool is part of Neil Patel’s website, and will give you the basics like search volume, SEO difficulty, paid ad difficulty, and CPC. However, it will also tell you how many backlinks you need to rank for your given phrase. This can be beneficial for your link building campaign.

You’ll also get a list of related blog titles along with how many people click on and share each article. This is a solid keyword research tool and is worth getting a paid account for because the free version limits your searches to three per day and one website only.

Should you use paid keyword tools?

With so many free SEO tools out there, you might be wondering if it’s worth using paid keyword tools. The answer depends on your needs. If you find that you get the most beneficial data from a tool that limits your daily searches, it’s probably worth getting a paid account. However, if you’re not sure if a tool is benefiting you just yet, hold off on getting a paid account until you know it’s worth the investment.

Another point to consider is convenience. If you and your team are constantly switching between free accounts just to save a few bucks, you’re wasting your time. It’s better in this case to get a paid account with a reliable, reputable SEO tool. Successful search engine optimization doesn’t require you to spend a certain amount of money, but there’s value in the convenience of having all of your data stored in one account.