The problem we have been facing as Malaysia SEO expert is whenever we come across an SEO tool, absolutely free of charge, we tend to love using it. The next thing we know it is popular. Before we know what happened, it is a paid tool. Not much use, freely anymore. I don’t need to name names here.
We searched for some free keyword research tools that do not have a price tag, yet come with unlimited free usage, and found seven that deserve mention.
Not only that, we also paired the suggested search volume from these tools with actual data from Google Search Console, and guess what? We found two tools that are quite accurate, and you will be astonished by which ones they are.
Stick with me until the end, and if you’re still here, I’ll share a bonus tool along with a tip to find keyword opportunities. Let’s dive in.
Why Do Keyword Research?
First, let’s talk about why we need to do keyword research. The thing is, if no one is searching for a keyword, what’s the point of spending time, energy, and effort writing content, right?
Now, if you target a keyword that pits you against government or highly authoritative sites, what chances does your content have of outranking theirs if your site is still new?
Zero, almost. The objective of keyword research is, especially for new sites, to find out those keywords that boast a decent search volume-ideally above 100 searches monthly-and have low to medium competition.
1. Ryan Robinson
One keyword research tool that impresses me is the free tool provided by Ryan Robinson. If you check out his video about why he made the tool, you’ll probably be just as impressed because this tool is intended to stay free forever, with no limits. I hope it stays that way! It’s available at ryrob.com/keyword-tool/.
Assume we are conducting research on the search volume of the keyword “best WooCommerce plugins.” Hit submit, and you will realize that the keyword is voluminous enough in terms of search, with difficulty standing at medium.
That’s great, but you will have to go more in-depth. You can’t just trust this difficulty gauge alone, mainly if your website is somewhat new. In this case, therefore, I would search for the keyword in Google and install the Uber Suggest Chrome extension that will give you domain authority for each result. If most of the top 10 results are over 40, which they are in this case, the keyword is super competitive.
If you are accustomed to WordPress, then you know just how powerful sites like Hostinger and WPBeginner are in this niche, together with other big players like Kinsta and Themeisle.
For a new website, this would not be a keyword to target right away; however, this changes the moment your site is relatively established. Target keywords that have a minimum of 100 searches per month. Go for the ones whose SERPs contain some low and high authority sites so you can find your place easily.
Never go after key phrases that have all the top 10 results from high authority sites.
But once your site crosses the mark of more than 300 published articles, then your main target should be the creation of topical authority by covering different topics of your niche. It won’t matter as much with the competition level; you will want to make sure that there is enough search volume.
Back to the tool, it also suggests some related keywords that you might not have thought about. In this case, it suggests terms such as “WooCommerce subscription plugins” and “best security plugin for WooCommerce”, though some keywords might not have huge search volume.
This is an awesome tool that gives you more keyword suggestions. We will then compare its data with actual data from Google Search Console just to check how accurate this result is, using the target keyword “Rank Math Tutorial,” which shows less than 20 search volume. Now, let’s proceed with another tool.
2. HOTH
The HOTH uses Semrush-a well-known premium tool-for its keyword research. Luckily, we can make use of some of its features for free. This tool, courtesy of The HOTH-essentially a Google Keyword Planner-offers a bit more information than the previous tool.
You get cost-per-click information, competition levels, and a difficulty score that’s useful for advertisers. However, I believe that the competition level here applies to paid advertisements and not organic search, so take it with a pinch of salt.
As always, you’ll need to do your own competitive analysis directly on Google. This tool will also give you many more keyword ideas to help further in your research process.
One feature I like here is the keyword intent data. Hovering on an info icon will show what the intent behind the keyword is, be it informational, transactional, or otherwise. Well, understanding the search intent is actually quite crucial in doing keyword research. At least before you create your content, know the intent behind the keyword you’re targeting.
3. Ahrefs
Moving on, let’s talk about Ahrefs’ Keyword Generator, a part of their offering of free tools. While Ahrefs is a premium tool, they do have several helpful free tools; this keyword generator is one of them. You can do keyword research in Google, Bing, YouTube, and Amazon, but for now, let’s stay with Google.
As we have been doing with the other tools, we’ll search “best WooCommerce plugins.” One nice feature is it lets you choose a country for localized keyword research. Ahrefs also uses a so-called “Alphabetsoup” method, wherein the suggested keywords are set from what exactly people are typing into Google.
All you have to do is start typing a letter after the main keyword and it gives you keyword ideas that start with that exact letter. The number of suggestions, however, depends on the keyword.
Going, for instance, under the “Questions” tab and searching for questions like “what is vertical farming?”, it comes up with hundreds of question queries on the topic. Regarding KD, Ahrefs categorizes it from 0-10 as easy, 11-30 as medium, 30-70 as hard, and above 70 as super hard.
For the keyword we searched earlier, it shows a difficulty of 14, which is on the lower end of medium competition. But we have seen high-authority sites still top the number 10 results for that keyword, so take the data with caution.
Lastly, for “Rank Math Tutorial,” it also shows a search volume of 30, consistent with the HOTH’s data.
4. Keyword Surfer
Well, unlike other tools we have mentioned, this is a Chrome extension. This tool is used on Chrome, browsed, and searched by keyword “server Chrome extension.” Click this, then “Add to Chrome.”
Now, any time you do a search, they will show you the search volume of the query and some keyword ideas on the site. It gives you what you need without any fluff. You can toggle between data from specific locations by changing the country.
Perhaps the only thing that would make this Chrome extension complete, from an SEO viewpoint, is the domain authority data. Again, it also shows you the estimated traffic to a domain in a specific location, the length of the article, and the frequency of an exact keyword used on a page, among others.
Let’s search for “Rank Math tutorial,” and we can see here 20 per month.
5. Wordstream
Wordstream is a well-known brand name among SEOs. They are known for their premium tools and services for search engine marketing and pay-per-click campaigns for agencies and businesses alike. For free, they offer unlimited keyword research.
Navigate to wordstream.com/keywords, and here you’ll land with no account needed. Free tools always ask for sign-ups and most of them have limits. Anyway, let’s search for “best WooCommerce plugins” and see what we can get.
You can choose an industry and location, and once you hit “continue, ” you will have a list of keywords related to your seed keyword. Other columns are like the low and high range of top page bids and competition, which is mainly for people running ads, not actually for organic keyword research.
But we really focus on search volume. What I really like in this tool, though, is the fact that instead of giving just a seed keyword, you can add a URL, say rankmath.com in here, and it shows all the keywords Rank Math’s ranking for along with the search volume.
The only catch with this is that you can only view the keywords on the first page, but later in the course, there is another tool that will show you full access to such data, so stay tuned. Now, let’s see the comparison keyword, “Rank Math Tutorial.” It shows a search volume of 140.
That’s interesting, because other tools were giving around 20 or 30 earlier. Probably that is because Wordstream pulls its data directly from Google and Bing’s Keyword Research API, but is this free keyword tool the most accurate? We will see soon.
6. SEO.ai
Finding free-of-cost keyword research tools with no limits is just extremely hard to find. I wanted to discuss Semrush’s Keyword Magic tool; however, it only allows ten searches, hence it will not be discussed on this list.
After searching high and low, I found a free keyword search volume tool by SEO.ai. It is just a very simple tool that includes the average monthly search volume of the keyword that you are searching for.
The link is searchvolume.io. Just add your target keywords; for example, “best WooCommerce plugins.” You can separate keywords by new lines, choose a country, and hit submit. Then you will get the average monthly searches.
That’s it-no additional related keywords, no extra data, but it gets the job done. Now, let’s check “Rank Math Tutorial,” and here we go: an average monthly search volume of 30.
7. Google Keyword Planner
Google Keyword Planner is my favorite tool to perform keyword research. First of all, it’s the source-most keyword research tools out there use Google’s API for data. Second, it’s free without any usage restrictions. All you need is an active Google account.
Then, go to the link in the description or simply search for Google Keyword Planner to get to this page. If you do not have one, that means you are going to have to create a Google Ads account. Once you have created your account, then you can find the Keyword Planner under Tools within the Planning tab.
The good news is you don’t have to run ads or spend money to use this tool. However, the search volume they actually provide comes in a range. Click “Discover New Keywords,” for example; add “Best WooCommerce Plugins”; and if you remove selected locations, you’ll see data for worldwide.
You then hit “Get Results,” and what you get is average monthly searches in a range instead of an exact number. If you have a Google Ads account with an ad campaign running, though, it gets you more precise numbers.
If you want more accuracy, consider running a $1 campaign, but for this free version, we’ll stick to the range.
Google Keyword Planner provides you with tons of keyword ideas from your seed keyword, along with filters to refine results. For example, you can exclude keywords containing brand names, such as Elementor, and irrelevant terms like 2022 and 2021.
Another great feature is being able to identify the keywords that a given website is ranking for with no limit. Sometimes, instead of starting from keywords, you just want to begin with a website.
Just for example, put in rankmath.com, and you will see all the keywords the site, or a particular page, is ranking for. This is a powerful tool because it helps you see what keywords competitors rank for, allowing you to optimize your content.
For example, if you want to know what keywords a page is ranking for, just paste the URL into Keyword Planner, and you’ll get a ton of keyword ideas. Some may be relevant, some not, but you can filter and sort them by search volume or competition.
So now you can see why Google Keyword Planner is my go-to free keyword research tool. Anyway, let’s search for “Rank Math Tutorial,” and the result is between 100 to 1,000 searches per month.
Now, for the moment of truth, let’s see which free keyword research tool is the most accurate. Based on the 12-month figures from our Google Search Console, we got 124 average monthly searches.
So, it looks like WordStream and Google Keyword Planner are the two most accurate free keyword research tools, but considering all those additional features that Google Keyword Planner offers for free, it’s the clear winner.
Since you’re still here, let me share with you a few bonuses on how to find ideas and opportunities for keywords. I want to introduce you to a tool that comes close. It doesn’t offer volume but gives you a bunch of suggestions on what people are searching for, based on a seed keyword.
The tool is called Answer Socrates. Using this tool, you can find questions that actual people ask in Google to help you write a properly researched article. Their data sources include Google suggestions, questions asked by People Also Ask, and Google Trends.
Simply add your topic, country, and language, and search. You’ll get questions people ask, prepositions, comparisons, and keyword suggestions by alphabet, kind of like the Alphabetsoup method discussed above. This really is like AnswerThePublic but without any limitations. What do you think about this tool?
Another way to find opportunities for keywords is directly from your Google Search Console. In the Performance tab, scroll to Pages, click any page that you want to improve, then select Queries.
You’ll see every keyword that this page ranks for, along with the amount of clicks and impressions. Sort this data by impressions, and if you notice high impressions but low clicks for certain keywords, it is an opportunity to either optimize the page or write new content targeting that keyword.
If you already have an established website, your Google Search Console is a goldmine for finding keyword opportunities.
I hope this post has helped clarify your keyword research strategy. There are lots of free keyword research tools out there, but you don’t need to use them all.
Just check a keyword’s search volume in one of the accurate tools that I mentioned, then check its competition by performing a simple search. Keyword research doesn’t need to be overcomplicated.
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