There are many many tools available for keyword research, some are free, some are cheap, and some are expensive. There are two that I use depending on my goals for the quarter or the month. I recommend checking a few out to see which one fits your budget and your style. Most have free trials, and some even have free versions that you can use with limitations instead of a paid subscription.
Before you go any further on learning how to do keyword research, you’ll want to have a tool by your side so you can follow along. Here are the two I use regularly.
I love Keysearch for its simplicity and affordable price, and it’s what I use most of the time. The screenshots in this blog are from Keysearch. Keysearch gives you everything you need, including unlimited searches, competitive analysis, and even keyword research for channels other than Google (I haven’t vetted these, but the option exists).
This is my “daily driver” if you will, because it gives me enough data to make decisions if I need it once I have the bulk of my content plan in place for the quarter.
Snag a 7-day free trial here and follow along while I teach you how to do research!
This is one of the best things to use to do keyword research, especially as you’re developing your website structure and initial content plan, because it gives you all the data you need to make solid assessments of keywords and find the best ones easily.
I spin up my subscription about once a quarter when I want to spend considerable time digging into the details of my competitors, doing backlink analysis, and especially when I’m refining or developing my content strategy. It’s expensive, which is why I don’t have this all the time (it pains me every time I shut it off), but the data is soooo good. SEMrush does have a freemium version, so if you’re curious about it, grab a free trial and then just keep your freemium version any time you want to do a deep dive into a specific keyword.
If you can swing it, I highly recommend grabbing a subscription for at least a month when you’re ready to really start getting your website and content SEO strategy in place.
Grab a 7-day free trial here to compare it against Keysearch.
Like I mentioned, there are tons of tools out there. Here’s what to look for if you want to explore other tools: