Arguably one of the most important things to do in digital marketing is keyword research. It not only lays the groundwork for your Search Engine Optimisation and content marketing campaigns but it also gives insight into what your target audiences are searching for on search engines like Google and Bing.
To effectively and efficiently find keywords that reach out to your desired audience, utilising keyword research tools would speed up your keyword research process and assist in the suggestion of keywords that are incorporated into your SEO and content marketing campaigns.
Here are the 10 best keyword research tools and their list of pros and cons to getting you started on your Keyword Research journey right away.
New to the concept of Search Engine Optimisation? Check out our article on what SEO is as well as our step-by-step tutorial on SEO.
According to Statista, Google takes up 86.86% of the global market share of search engines – It’s no doubt that if one has to choose a search engine to target when optimising their website through SEO, Google would most likely be their top choice.
To successfully optimise a website, the right SEO keywords are needed and this is where the Google Keyword Planner comes in handy.
A feature that can be found within Google Ads, the Google Keyword Planner not only obtains the necessary information needed for SEO directly from Google itself but also displays information in a clear and concise manner.
This enables businesses to easily grow and produce more content, making it an excellent starting point if one is looking to optimise an existing or newly created website.
Here’s how you can access the Google Keyword Planner in Google Ads:
As keyword trends tend to evolve over time, it’s important for one to constantly discover new keywords in order to keep up with the ongoing trends. By discovering new keywords for your ad campaigns, you will also be able to reach out to your desired target audience based on what they’re searching for on the internet.
An all-in-one SEO tool created by Neil Patel, Ubersuggest dives into the important factors of SEO such as Backlink Data and Keyword Suggestions.
Apart from yielding keywords that are unavailable in the Google Keyword Planner, Ubersuggest’s Keyword Suggestions tool also categorises results by letter and even displays how the keywords are explored by users.
A newly added feature allows you to get keyword ideas that are better in terms of its specificity by simply keying in your competitor’s domain into the search box on the page.
Driven by clickstream data with comprehensive SERP analytics, Ahrefs brings new keywords to its Keyword Generator’s database every month and has the highest number of keyword suggestions as compared to its rival tools.
Ahrefs not only helps to measure the effectiveness of the searches through a click-through rate analysis but also enables the filtering of keyword suggestions by keyword difficulty as well as search volume – with trends dating back to September 2015.
Gathering keyword suggestions from multiple platforms such as Google, Bing, YouTube, and more, Soovle brings autocomplete suggestions and yields good keyword results from an array of sources at no cost.
This fast, efficient, and easy-to-use keyword research tool allows users to save their preferred keyword suggestions with their ‘drag and drop’ saved suggestions feature.
Delivering some of the most popular keywords with its massive database of 1 trillion keywords, Wordstream is a free keyword research tool that works similarly to the Google Keyword Planner.
By presenting the keyword results in a coherent manner, Wordstream keeps things comprehensive for its users and would be a favourable keyword research tool for anyone who has to do keyword research even though it was first developed in consideration for the users of Google Ads.
With six contrasting keyword research tools available in this all-in-one marketing toolkit, SEMrush enables users to conduct keyword research according to their needs.
If you want to outperform your competitors, this would be a great tool to utilise as their comprehensive keyword research tools allow users to observe rival SEO campaigns as well as discover the keywords that their competitors are paying for.
Apart from allowing you to observe your rivals, you will also be able to optimise your campaigns by knowing how your keywords rank and whether it’s ranking better or worse so necessary improvements could be made.
One of the keyword features, Keyword Magic Tool, is a user-friendly and comprehensive keyword research tool with more than 20 billion keywords available in the database. With this tool, you will be able to get an overview of the keyword’s Search Volume, Keyword Difficulty, Trend, Competitive Density, and more.
If you are looking to target consumers in the middle or bottom of the marketing funnel who are either considering or are generally ready to make a purchase, KeywordTool.io would come in handy.
Designed to provide niche-specific suggestions, this free keyword tool utilises Google Autocomplete – a feature that speeds up the search process of users, to produce hundreds of long-tail keywords that are more specific and targeted, as well as single or multi-worded suggestions that may be long enough to fall under the same category.
Visualising suggestions into a search cloud similar to a mind map and categorising them into 5Ws and 1H (What, Why, When, Where, Who, and How). Answer the Public provides an insight into what consumers are searching for on popular search engines like Google and Bing.
First released in 2014, KWFinder has at least a billion keywords in its database to date.
Other than the basic functions like helping its users to discover new keywords, this extensive keyword research tool also filters out keywords that are futile, have a high difficulty score, or garner low traffic – keywords you really need to think about targeting based on your business objectives.
Possessing a wide variety of SEO tools, the Moz Keyword Explorer makes use of clickstream data gathered from sources like mobile apps, search engines, and more to provide some of the most creative keyword suggestions.
Finding a suitable keyword research tool that aligns with your business goals may require time and patience. However, it would be an asset to any brand or business as it helps to identify keywords that convert and drive traffic to your website.
We hope that this article has helped in creating a better understanding of each keyword research tool before deciding upon one that is best suited for your needs. Explore our diverse collection of articles and guides which touch on everything related to digital marketing here.
Designed to help you manage and optimise your very own SEO campaigns through actionable strategies and hands-on learning, our WSQ Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) Course covers the most up-to-date search marketing strategies.
With actionable and hands-on learning, you will also get to use some of the tools mentioned in this article.
If you are interested to learn more than just Search Engine Optimisation, at Equinet Academy, we have 5 other Core Modules of Digital Marketing that include:
Ultimately, this will lead to the learners attaining a Certified Digital Marketing Strategist Certificate. Please feel free to also browse the wide array of digital marketing courses we offer in-person in Singapore or online.
Article Written By
Kevin started in digital marketing, specialising in Search Engine Optimisation after leaving a career in banking and finance. He now has almost 10 years of experience gathering thousands of auditing hours on 300+ websites in all industries such as F&B, finance, insurance, e-commerce, medical and b2b services, serving clients such as MSIG Insurance, Bizcover Insurance, TWG Tea, Aura Group, Merger Markets (Acuris) and dozens of local SME’s, across Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, the United States and Singapore.
Article Written By
Kevin started in digital marketing, specialising in Search Engine Optimisation after leaving a career in banking and finance. He now has almost 10 years of experience gathering thousands of auditing hours on 300+ websites in all industries such as F&B, finance, insurance, e-commerce, medical and b2b services, serving clients such as MSIG Insurance, Bizcover Insurance, TWG Tea, Aura Group, Merger Markets (Acuris) and dozens of local SME’s, across Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, the United States and Singapore.
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