8 Best Free Keyword Research Tools That Will Dominate in 2024

61% of B2B marketers say that organic traffic generates more leads than any other marketing effort, according to a statistic published by Intergrowth.

That’s a lot. And it makes one thing pretty straightforward: you need to put your efforts into catering organic traffic to your site. To do that, you’ll need keyword research tools that can shine the game of your content creation.

Today, we’re listing the top 8 FREE keyword research tools that you can use to enhance your business’s content creation efforts. Whether you’re a B2B or B2C business, these tools will help you create more valuable and targeted content.

But for the unattended, what is keyword research in digital marketing?

Jump to Any Section:

What is Keyword Research?

Why Do You Need Keyword Research?

Basic Terminologies in Keyword Research

List Of Top 8 Keyword Research Tools

Frequently Asked Questions

In The End: Which is The Best FREE Keyword Tool?

What is Keyword Research?

In layman’s terms, keyword research is a strategy of finding keywords related to your industry that people are searching for online. The idea is to generate content around those keywords and capture leads or drive conversions.

You do keyword research with the help of specific tools, mostly paid, offering a free version but with restrictions. For example, you may seek keyword research for blog posts, YouTube videos, etc.

Why Do You Need Keyword Research?

It’s simple. You need keyword research for your business because:

It’ll help you understand what people are searching for related to your industry or niche.
It’ll help you increase your organic traffic and increase your rank on search engine page results.
It’ll boost your content creation efforts.
Ultimately, it’ll help you generate leads and conversions.
It’ll help your business to form a base of loyal customers online.

Basic Terminologies in Keyword Research

CPC stands for Cost Per Click. It tells you how much an advertiser will pay when someone clicks on ads.
SD stands for SEO Difficulty. It helps you to understand how hard it is to rank a particular keyword in SERP.
PD for Paid Difficulty. It refers to how difficult it is to rank a keyword via PPC marketing.
SERP stands for Search Engine Results in Page, which analyses top-ranking pages for a proper keyword.
DA stands for Domain Authority. It is a metric set by Moz. You can use it to predict a website’s ability to rank on SERPs on a scale of 100. Some tools call it Domain Score, Domain Rank, or Website score.
Seed Keyword is a short-tail keyword. Unlike long-tail keywords, it’s usually one-two words long and has high search volume and competition.

List Of Top 8 Keyword Research Tools

1. Google Keyword Planner

Google Keyword Planner is one of the best keyword research tools for beginners to advanced users. It allows you to research keywords, cost per click (CPC), and search volumes.

You can find your keyword’s average monthly searches, competition, average CPC, keyword ideas, and more. However, you need to run an ad campaign to get accurate keyword data.

You don’t need any membership to use Google Keyword Planner. It’s entirely a FREE tool. It’s perfect if you’re just starting your business or trying to learn.

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2. Ubersuggest

Ubersuggest is a goldmine for keywords. Even in its free version, it shows a lot of information. By entering a keyword or term, it displays your search volume, cost per click, SEO difficulty, paid difficulty, and so on.

Ubersuggest also shows you keywords and content ideas and lists the top websites for that particular keyword. The free version is limited to 3 searches per day.

Further, it’s one of the cheapest SEO tools in the industry – $12/month or $120 for a lifetime subscription in 2023. You also get a 7-day free trial. Visit Ubersuggest to see updated pricing.

The beauty of Ubersuggest lies in its simplicity: it’s for beginners and experienced digital marketers.

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3. Moz Keyword Explorer

Moz needs no introduction when it comes to anything SEO-related. Moz’s keyword research tool allows you to dive deep into monthly search volumes, organic difficulty, organic click-through rate (CTR), and similar keywords for your particular keyword.

Moz’s Priority Score is a feature that tells you if the keyword you are targeting is worth it or not.

The Search Engine Results Page shows the top blogs on any particular keyword. The free version provides up to 10 queries per month. However, you can buy Moz Pro if you need more.

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4. Semrush Keyword Magic Tool

A whopping 7,000,000 marketers have already used Semrush. And they’ve been awarded “Best SEO Software Suite” by UK, US, and European Search Awards.

Semrush is one of the most expensive keyword research tools in the market. However, it also offers a free version (10 searches per day) and a trial for you to get your hands on.

Apart from keyword volume, CPC, SEO difficulty, and paid difficulty, you get options for sorting and organizing. You can apply filters and find long-tail keywords from around 120 geographical databases.

One of its features, the Keyword Gap, makes Semrush different from other keyword research tools. With its help, you can compare against your rival to know who ranks higher in your niche. You can add up to 5 domains for comparison.

See Semrush’s pricing.

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5. Keyword Sheeter

Keyword Sheeter pulls 1,000 ‘auto-complete suggestions’ from Google within a minute.

If you need to generate long keyword ideas fast, Keyword Sheeter is for you. You need to create an account, put the keyword in the box, and click on sheet keywords.

It looks so bare and offers a ‘tantrum-free experience. The cherry on top is that you can export the whole list of keywords for free.

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6. Keyword Surfer

Keyword Surfer is a free Google Chrome extension from Surfer SEO.

Its flawless design makes it one of the most convenient keyword research tools. Once you download and enable the extension, you’ll see several metrics such as search volume, CPC, monthly traffic, and keyword ideas the next time you search for something on Google.

One of its unique features, which we like, is its “Free AI Article Outline Generator.” If you’ve got no clue about how your article might look with keywords you’re researching, use the “Generate Article Outline” button, which appears on the right side in SERPs.

Let artificial intelligence give you a head start!

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7. Ahrefs Keyword Generator

Ahrefs is a renowned industry name with a database of over 8 billion queries.

The free version gives you 100 keyword ideas with exact phrase matches and questions for your seed keyword. The first ten results show KD, recently updated status, and search volume.

You can also use filters to find easy keywords to rank for. You can also find keyword ideas and results from Bing, YouTube, and Amazon.

See Ahrefs pricing.

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8. Keyword Tool

Many industry experts and digital marketers recommend Keyword Tool. It uses the autocomplete feature of Google, YouTube, Bing, Amazon, eBay, Play Store, Instagram, and Twitter.

This small and intuitive tool offers a clean UI but doesn’t show search volume, CPC, or competition. Further, you can find keywords within search results or export all (or selected) keywords.

See Keyword Tool Pro pricing.

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Frequently Asked Questions

1. What is keyword research?

People use specific terms while performing a search on search engines like Google. Keyword research is the process of researching those search terms. If you use these terms in your content, your chances of ranking high in search engine results increase. You can do keyword research with keyword research tools.

2. How do you do keyword research?

First, make a list of keywords you identify your business with. Then search those keywords on keyword research tools. Try to find the sweet spot – keywords with high search volume and low search difficulty. Then cater your content around it!

3. What is the best keyword research tool?

Best is subjective. However, there are many keyword research tools. Some of them are Google Keyword Planner, Ubersuggest, Moz Keyword Explorer, Semrush Keyword Magic Tool, Keyword Sheeter, Ahrefs Keyword Explorer, and Keyword Surfer.

4. What is keyword SEO difficulty?

SEO difficulty tells you how difficult it is to rank a particular keyword in search engine results or SERPs.

5. What are free keyword research tools?

Google Keyword Planner, Ubersuggest, Soovle, Keyword sheeter, and Keyword Surfer are some of the free keyword research tools.

6. How do I find my competitor keywords?

You can use keyword research tools such as Ubersuggest, Moz Keyword Explorer, Semrush Keyword Magic Tool, and Ahrefs to find your competitor keywords.

7. What are the two types of keywords?

Short-tail and long-tail keywords are the two types of keywords. The former typically has a high search volume, unlike the latter. The best and wise option is to target two kinds of keywords.

In The End: Which is The Best FREE Keyword Tool?

In our opinion, Keyword Surfer is the best free keyword tool of all. It’s not technical, offers a clean UI, and shows results from various locations.

Nonetheless, there’s nothing such as best. It’s our own choice and fits best to our needs. So we’d suggest you try these free keyword research tools and find out for yourself.

Further, you can deepen your research with other keyword research tools like Soovle, KW finder, GrowthBar, Longtail Pro, and Serpstat.

And if you’re already using any of the above keyword research tools — which one do you recommend? Or have we forgotten to include any tools?

Abhishek Singh