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My Top 5 Free Keyword Research Tools

SEO By Gloria Rand

Getting your website, blog or social media posts found online depends on implementing a successful search engine optimization strategy. And the first step in launching any SEO program starts with keyword research.

Once you come up with a list of words that you think people are using to search for your product or service, don’t just start writing copy with those words. What you think are effective words and what other people are actually using to search may be quite different. So it pays to double check your words with some online keyword tools. You may find some alternative keywords and long-tail search phrases that will be more effective in reaching your target audience online.

Here are a few of my favorite resources for keyword research:

Free Keyword Research Tools

1. Google AdWords

Even though Google AdWords is meant to be a resource for pay-per-click ads, you can still search for words that can be used to help your site rank organically. Simply type in a keyword or a URL of your own website or a competitor’s site, and Google will give you 100 related keywords and phrases to choose from. You can export all of these words into a CSV file. Or if the results include too many keywords or phrases that are not related to your query, choose the ones you do like, and select the “more like this” option to get additional words to choose from.

2. Wordtracker’s Keyword Suggestion Tool

Unlike Google AdWords, this search tool gives you only ten results for free. While Wordtracker is an excellent resource for long tail keywords, you have to pay to take full advantage of the service. Here is an example of the results Wordtracker provided for the phrase “business networking groups”:
Wordtracker free keyword tool results

You can sign up for a free seven day trial, which will give you 100 results for each query. After that, the service costs $69 a month and delivers up to 2,000 keywords per search. You can also measure the level of competition for any keyword in Wordtracker’s database and check KEI or the Keyword Effectiveness Index to hone in on words with high traffic and low competition.

3. KeywordDiscovery.com – As with Wordtracker, you’ll have to sign up for a free trial account to use Keyword Discovery’s service. The free version allows you to do 50 searches per day, but you only get 10 results each time. Those results include trends, but you can’t check domains.

Keyword Discovery sample results

When you click on “analyze,” Keyword Discovery gives you the percentage of searches that generated a click on one of the search results. if you subscribe for their basic plan at $69.95 a month, you get full access to all the keyword databases. You can do 1,500 searches per day. Up to 1,000 results will be displayed, including three domain research results.

4. SEOBook.com – Unlike Wordtracker & KeywordDiscovery, SEOBook.com provides a free account that lasts indefinitely. (I’ve been using it for over 2 years.) Their keyword results are powered by Wordtracker.com but this tool also delivers results from Google, Yahoo, Bing, Google Trends, Quintura, Compete, Keyword Discovery & Wordstream.

SEO Book Keyword results

Of course, as with the other tools above, you get much more functionality if you sign up for SEOBook’s paid membership. This service is the most expensive by far at $300/month. But it includes over 100 training modules covering keyword research, pay per click marketing, site optimization; member only training videos; and much more. There’s no contract, and you can cancel at any time.

5. SEMRush.com – As a free keyword research tool, SEMRush is pretty robust. As a registered user, you will get more opportunities than unregistered, but you are limited to 10 results per request, 10 queries per day. The good news is that those results include ad volume, CPC (cost per click), competition of advertisers for that term, number of search results for that query on Google, and the volume of searches over the last 12 months.

You can also see a list of websites that delivered results for a particular search term. When you click on one of those sites, you’ll be able to see that site’s related keywords – giving you some new keyword possibilities to consider.

Another useful feature, especially if you write pay-per-click ads, is the ability to see which websites bought ads for the search term. You can even click on the Ad icon to see the copy with the search term in it:

Keyword example

In the interest of full disclosure, SEMRush allowed me to use their professional account for free for the last few weeks so that I could do a full test-drive of their capabilities. As someone who has been getting along with ten results at a time from Wordtracker or Keyword Discovery, and 100 more keywords from Google, I have to tell you that SEMRush has spoiled me.

Being able to access thousands of keywords at a time – not only from my search term, but to check those of competing websites has been terrific. Paying $69.95 a month for the ability to export up to 10,000 results per domain into a CSV or Excel file is a good deal, if you ask me. And the fact that you can perform up to 3,000 queries per day is another bonus. Plus, SEMRush doesn’t generate random keywords, unlike the other sites do. Instead, the company provides a statistical analysis of the occurrence of keywords in its results. And, a SEMRush spokesperson pointed out to me that theirs is the only tool to include valuable data relative to a keyword’s value/profitability – another good point in their favor.

Which keyword tool is your favorite? Please comment below!

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About the Author
Known as The Insightful Copywriter, Gloria Grace Rand is also an inspirational speaker, author and host of the Live. Love. Engage. podcast. Prior to launching her SEO Copywriting business in 2009, Gloria spent nearly two decades in television, most notably as writer and producer for the award-winning PBS financial news program, “Nightly Business Report.”

Gloria turned to writing as a way to communicate, since growing up with an alcoholic father and abusive mother taught her that it was safer to be seen and not heard. But not speaking her truth caused Gloria problems such as overeating, control issues, and an inability to fully trust people. After investing in coaching & personal development programs, and studying spiritual books like “A Course in Miracles,” Gloria healed her emotional wounds. Today, she helps entrepreneurs develop clarity, confidence and connection to the truth of who you are, so you can create a business that has more impact, influence and income!

16 thoughts on “My Top 5 Free Keyword Research Tools”

  1. WOW!! Great info, Gloria!
    I had NO idea how to do any of this…
    thank you for sharing and educating!

    Reply
  2. Gloria,
    thanks.
    Seems like you enjoy playing with words.

    I understood “the ability to see which websites bought ads for the search term” as finding URLs by keywords.
    Is it possible to searche vice versa:
    to find keyword phrases by URL?

    Reply
    • Yes, you could type in the URL for a particular domain and see what keywords come up. You can do that both in Google Adwords and SEMRush. You have to pay for that privilege with KeywordDiscovery.com.

      Reply
  3. Gloria,
    I am new to WP.com blogging, so, from a curiosity, I clicked “Press This” button in your article for the 1st, and, I think, the last time in my life.

    It produced my own article
    http://keycaptchaured.wordpress.com/2011/08/25/my-top-5-free-keyword-research-tools/
    w/o giving credits to you as original author.

    This is the same story as, for example, retweeting in twitter when a copyist (especially news bot aggregators, concentrators, etc.) receive credits becoming top twitterer, an author of a tweet on paper.li, mentioned as as an author “via”, etc., etc.

    I am writing article(s) on it as well as some questions/suggestions to forum/support as well as studying some related questions on using categories and tags + other WP.com features like voting (and its influence on search-ability), etc., for which I’d like to keep it “mine” for while if you do not mind.

    Aah, yes, it has gotten 17 downvotes though, I believe, not from 17 ppl but from one bot-assisted person.
    This is a valuable illustration to issues I’d like to reference in discussions for which to keep it, if you do not mind?

    Reply
  4. It’s interesting that you posted this today, because a friend of mine suggested that bloggers include a bio at the end of every post for just such occasions, so people will know who wrote the article. I plan to go back and edit my old posts to add one. I’m also trying to start including “by Gloria Rand” at the beginning of each article too, especially since I’m now having guest bloggers participate from time to time.

    Reply
  5. Gloria,

    Thanks for such an informative post – very timely for me. As I have started my biz, Social by Design, the first of this year, this is one of the things I KNOW I must do – but gets cluttered with all the other things I think I have to do. Sound familiar? 🙂 Much of that is b/c this is simply not my area of expertise & didn’t quite know where to start first. The confused mind does nothing – so thanks for “unconfusing” things a bit – and here’s to me taking a couple of steps in the right direction!

    Best,
    Kim Wennerberg
    http://www.facebook.com/socialbydesign

    Reply
  6. All great advice, thanks Gloria! I’ve followed you on twitter and facebook now too! I am kaydeeweb – Kelly

    Reply
    • Thanks Kelly! Unfortunately, I’ve hit a follower limit on Twitter, but as soon it’s removed I’ll follow you back!

      Reply
  7. These are not only your favorite SEO tools but also every SEO guys like these tools because these are reliable and trusted sources where you can find your desired keywords. Google Adwords is main keyword research tool where I think all the other tools get the real data and make a report according to this data.

    Reply
  8. Great stuff. Can you explain a little about track back-ing? I am just learning about it and it sure seems to be a great way of getting good back links. I would be curious to know if you could maybe write your next post on it…thanks. Jaime

    Reply
    • A trackback is a link to a blog article that you include in your own article. I appreciate your suggestion, Jaime, and think this topic will be good to expand on in a full article. Watch for it coming soon… 🙂 Gloria

      Reply
  9. Good list.
    Very helpful content for maximizing the keywords used in your blog, site, etc. I believe it is always important to optimize every copies, blogs, letters, sites, pages and others on the search engine, and you start by optimizing keywords. i haven’t heard or seen some of this search tools, so thanks for sharing. I always like the idea of using Google Adwords.
    Nice Post.

    Reply

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