Review: Top 10 SEO Keyword Research



What is the best keyword research tool for SEO?

Here are the best ten tools you can use to conduct proper keyword research. Listed below is the list with no particular order in mind.



1. Ahrefs Keywords Explorer





Ahrefs Keywords Explorer is an SEO keyword tool. The aim is to help generate thousands of unique keyword ideas. And keyword analysis within a few minutes. It relies on clickstream data to estimate keyword search volumes for ten different search engines. It also provides up-to-date metrics on return rate, clicks per search, % of clicks, and % of paid clicks. The goal is to enable users to optimize their pages for the largest search traffic potential. The tool is for freelancers, online marketers, and big/small agencies.



How it works





To get started, access your Keyword Explorer and select your preferred search engine. Then enter your focus keyword and click the 'search' button to proceed. Immediately, you'll see four metric sections. Each shows metrics for keyword difficulty score and average monthly search volume. Plus, clicks and PPC, and global importance.



Unique features

• Parent Topic for the target keyword
• Comprehensive SERP overview and positions history
• Accurate keyword difficulty score



Pricing

Ahrefs offer four different paid plans:

• Lite: $99/month or $990/year
• Standard: $179/month or $1,790/year
• Advanced: $399/month or $3,990/year
• Agency: $999/month or $9,990/year



2. Moz Keyword Explorer





Moz Keyword Explorer can help generate 500 million keyword suggestions. And 180 million new ranking keywords. It's ideal for researching competitor keywords for smarter keyword targeting. It'll also analyze keywords by search volume for 170 Google search engines. Guess what? It'll come with over 95% accuracy. The tool provides an organic CTR score and priority score. It shows your page's % of clicks and suggests keyword options. It's for agencies, individuals, and mid-sized business teams.



How it works





Select your preferred domain option from the drop-down menu. And enter a URL or keyword in the search bar to get started. Then, you'll see a keyword overview report for your searched URL. You'll also see keywords that include monthly search volume. Plus, difficulty score and organic CTR score.



Unique features

• Accurate organic CTR and priority score
• Detailed keyword overview report
• Free 30-days trial  



Pricing

Moz offers four different pricing plans for their Pro package.

• Standard: $99/month or $948/year
• Medium: $179/month or $1,716/year
• Large: $249/month or $2,388/year
• Premium: $599/month or $5,748/year



3. Semrush





Semrush is a platform to uncover long-tail keywords and ad group ideas relevant. The platform is super quick for keyword research. It helps unveil new low-cost and low-competition keywords. And you can choose to steal traffic from your competition. Semrush is for freelancers, SEO agencies, eCommerce agencies, SMBs, and big enterprises. It's also a great keyword finder for every PPC campaign. It'll help in increasing your brand's visibility. 



How it works 





Semrush features the "Keyword Magic Tool," where you can conduct your keyword research. To get started, you'll enter a focus keyword in the tool's search box. What next? Semrush will return as many related searches as possible immediately. This is by number and by volume. Then you can use the 'advanced filter' box on the platform. Pick the top searched-related questions and most affordable keywords. Plus, keywords with the lowest keyword complex score to bid.



Unique features

• 50+ SEO tools
• Reliable keyword difficult analysis
• Ideal for running a long-tail keyword search



Pricing

Semrush offers three different pricing plans:

• Pro: $119.95/month
• Guru: $229.95/month
• Business: $449.95/month



4. Ubersuggest





Ubersuggest is a free SEO keyword research tool. It offers valuable keyword suggestions and content ideas for any target keyword. It provides up-to-date metrics on search volume. Plus competition analysis and Google trends for each keyword. It offers you a competitive advantage over others in your industry. How? By showing you their domain overview. It entails their organic keywords, paid keywords, total traffic, and paid Ad cost. This tool is for individuals, companies, freelancers, enterprises, and agencies.



How it works





Ubersuggest is pretty easy to use. To get started, enter a keyword or a competitor's domain inside their search bar. Then Ubersuggest will return insightful data for you. The tool shows you different levels of data for every search keyword. It ranges from keyword overview (on search volume, SEO difficulty score, and CPC cost). And also keyword ideas, content ideas, top-ranking pages, and keyword rankings.



Unique features

• Detailed competitor's domain overview
• Top SEO pages report
• Seasonal Google trends for each keyword  



Pricing

Although this is a free research keyword tool, Ubersuggest still charges a small fee for feature upgrades. Their pricing price includes:

• Individual: $12 USD/month
• Business: $20 USD/month
• Enterprise / Agency: $40 USD/month



5. KWFinder





KWFinder, developed by Mangools, is one of the most intuitive SEO Keyword Research Tools. It offers in-depth keyword analysis and exact search volumes. The tool is unique for finding hidden long-tail keywords with low SEO difficulty scores. Plus conducting proper local keyword research. KWFinder makes it more fun for you to find easy-to-rank keywords. This tool is not only for freelancers. Small businesses, new startups, blogs, eCommerce stores, and heavy sites also need it.



How it works





You'll need to create a Mangools account to get started with your keyword research. Then, enter your keyword or competitor's domain and specify location and language. Then click "Analyze." KWFinder will return many related keywords with exact search volume. You'll also get trends, CPC, PPC, difficulty score, and Google SERP results. All valuable SEO metrics will be accessible on your dashboard.



Unique Features 

• Supports location-specific long-tail keyword search
• Offers unlimited competitor's keywords search
• Supports simultaneous login up to 10



Pricing

KWFinder offers three different pricing plans:

• Mangools Basic: $29.9/month billed per year  
• Mangools Premium: $39.9/month billed per year
• Mangools Agency: $79.9/month billed per year



6. Long Tail Pro





As the name suggests, Long Tail Pro is a keyword tool pro for finding long-tail keywords and ideas. It's suitable for niche sites and micro-niche sites. It offers five (5) SEO tools that are useful for conducting keyword research. It also helps with SERP analysis, rankings, site auditing, and monitoring backlink opportunities. Long Tail Pro can help you generate long-tail keywords. You’ll get those with low-cost and low competition within seconds. You can use it to optimize your site for SEO. This tool is for marketing professionals, SEO consultants, affiliate marketers, and agencies.



How it works





Once you've installed Long Tail Pro software on your computer, open it. Click 'Find Keywords' on the top left of your screen. Then, add seed keywords and customize data, and pre-filter in the box provided for this purpose. Fill other necessary boxes. Click 'Generate keywords and Fetch Data' to display relevant results.



Unique Features 

• Unlimited export results
• Allows up to 200 manual keywords at once  
• Offers up to 400 long-tail keywords per single seed keyword



Pricing

Long Tail Pro's pricing plans include:

• Annual Starter: $297/year
• Annual Pro: $537/year
• Annual Agency: $1,177/year



7. MarketMuse





MarketMuse is an artificial intelligence tool. It can help with keyword and competitor research creation. The tool relies on AI to automate and speed up every stage of the content process. These include keyword and content research, innovation, and optimization for users. It helps collect, organize, and focus on content based on your best opportunities. This tool is not only for content marketers. Content strategists, SEO experts, marketing agencies, and eCommerce stores can use it too.



How it works





To get started with your keyword and competitor research using MarketMuse is easy. Enter the topic you want to cover inside the 'Creating Blog Content' search bar (add as many topics as you want). Then, you'll also need to enter the subheading topic into the space provided for this purpose. Then click 'Confirm Subheading.' MarketMuse will return tons of results on the questions related to the topic added.



Unique features

• AI-generated content briefs
• Supports real-time feedback
• Offers a seven-day unlimited free trial



Pricing

MarketMuse offers a 7-day unlimited free trial and two different pricing plans:

• Plus: $179/month
• Premium: $999/month







8. Google Keyword Planner





Google Keyword Planner is a simple Google Keyword tool. You can use it to discover new search keywords that are most relevant for your business. It's a Google AdWords Keyword Planner that provides accurate sources of search keywords. Where are the keywords from? It's from Google's search engine. The tool helps you discover bid estimates for each keyword. It'll help to determine which keywords best suit your advertising strategy and budget plan. This tool is for business teams and agencies.



How it works





To get started with this Google's keyword planner, click 'discover new keywords.’Select 'start with keywords.’Then enter keywords related to your business. You can also enter the URL of a domain or a page to find keywords. Then click 'Result,' and the tool will return tons of available keyword ideas from Google. The results will also show insightful data. These will be, on average monthly searches, competition. Plus, Ad impression share and top-of-page bids (for low and high range).

Unique Features

• Accurate keyword search volume
• Supports commercial keyword research using 'top of page' bid range
• Provides results that integrate well with AdSense monetization



Pricing 

It's available for free.



9. Keywords Everywhere





Keywords Everywhere is a Browser add-on keyword generator. You can use it to get accurate keyword search volume (monthly basis). Plus, CPC and competition data of keywords on many websites. It features a Browser extension that's compatible with either Chrome or Firefox. It supports long-tail keywords research. Plus relies on Google trends to estimate historical search volume. It can serve as a YouTube keyword tool to get important YouTube metrics. This tool is for individuals and freelancers.



How it works





To get started, first install the Keywords Everywhere Browser add-on on either Chrome or Firefox. After installation, enter your target keywords inside the search bar to search. Then you'll get to see your keyword metrics right below the search bar. These include related keywords and the popular keywords people also search for.



Unique features

• Offers thousands of keyword suggestions from Google and Bing
• Supports long-tail keyword research
• Compatible with 16 different APIs, including Google Search Console



Pricing

Keywords Everywhere offer 'pay-as-you-go' credit plans which include.

• 100,000 credits: $10
• 500,000 credits: $50
• 1,000,000 credits: $100
• 2,000,000 credits: $200
• 5,000,000 credits: $500
• 10,000,000 credits: $1000



10. Keyword Tool





Keyword Tool is one of the popular tools for keyword research. You can use it to discover thousands of relevant long-tail phrases related to your business domain. It uses Google Autocomplete to generate tons of hidden keywords that Google Keyword Planner fails to uncover. It offers in-depth keyword suggestions and analysis for many search engines. These include Google, YouTube, Bing, Amazon, eBay, Play Store, Instagram, and Twitter. This keyword tool, io, is for business owners. Plus, online marketers, freelancers, SEO experts, and content creators.



How it works





Keyword Tool is straightforward to use. To get started, type your focus keyword inside the search bar and press enter. The tool (Pro version) will return tons of keyword suggestions. And all available data, including search volume. Plus, Google Ads competition level and CPC related to the searched keyword.



Unique Features

•  Reliable keyword research tool
• Uses Google Autocomplete to discover hidden long-tail keywords across many significant search engines
• Ideal alternative to Google Keyword Planner



Pricing

Keyword Tool is free for users. However, the Pro version comes with two different pricing plans:

• Pro Basic: $69/month billed per year  
• Pro Business: $159/month billed per year 







Which Google tool is used for keyword research?



Recommending a particular one would be a difficult task. The reviewed tools are the best SEO keyword research tools you can find on the market at the moment. If we choose, Semrush is our most robust toolkit. In contrast, Long Tail Pro will be our best tool for discovering long-tail keywords.



In another category, the Keyword Tool (keywordtool.io) is our best free SEO keyword research tool. It's an excellent tool for unveiling tons of hidden keywords. It's also the best substitute for Google Keyword Planner.



Yet, narrow your search to keyword research tools. that suit your brand's SEO strategy and budget.