Cover Image Credits by jcomp

Keyword research is absolutely the most crucial step to improve SEO, and there is no doubt about it. As keyword research is highly time-consuming and overwhelming, many tools have already been provided on the internet, especially for this particular purpose. ( Did you check my previous post about Ubersuggest? )

Although these tools make the process much faster and easier, many are not free to use, which is problematic for people who don’t have enough budget for paid tools.

However, this shouldn’t disappoint you because fortunately, there are still lots of free tools with the same functionality, which could be really helpful for you. in this article, we will discover eight best free keyword research tools that are remarkably superior to others.

1. Google Trends

Google Trends has always been popular as it’s both free and accurate. Note that Google Trends is not about realizing the exact search volume of a specific keyword.

It’s mainly used to compare multiple keywords and review the search volume comparison at different times. For example, if you search the word “costumes” in the input, you will see the popularity of the keyword rises in October of every year.

2. Keyword Generator

Keyword Generator shows you up to 150 query ideas for any keyword. For instance, if you type “bitcoin,” it’ll show you 100 keyword ideas, including the word “keyword.” Unlike Google Trends, it also shows the monthly search volume of any keywords ideas it recommends.

But remember that these numbers are not exact, but some estimates. Moreover, Keyword Generator suggests you many question-type queries. Another helpful feature is that it indicates the keyword difficulty as “KD” for the top ten keywords. Note that the results are based on the US by default, and you are free to choose from any of the 170 available countries in the list.

3. Keyword Sheeter

Keyword Sheeter is super fast and gives massive results. It gives you about 1000 results in a minute, which exporting them is free. Despite this positive feature, it has a downside too. The results you get from Keyword Sheeter are a bit basic and not as detailed as other similar tools.

It doesn’t provide information about trends data or search volume, which is a significant negative point. Keyword Sheeter has another helpful feature, though. It contains two textboxes that let you add some words after defining your keyword: the negative filter and the positive filter. Let me explain them.

The positive filter enables you to add one or more words to necessarily include them in the keyword ideas, and the negative filter allows you to eliminate particular words from them. For example, this feature is useful when you want to see queries starting with “how” and “apple” in the technology area so that you don’t want to see suggestions including apple as fruit.

4. Answer the Public

This is again another great tool that provides your desired keyword phrases based on your filters. The filters variation is perfect. It’ll show your keyword ideas in different groups. For example, for questions, keywords starting with “are”, “can”, “how”, … are separated.

Then you can search based on prepositions like “for,” “to,” and “with.” As an example, if you type “protein powder,” a possible suggestion could be “protein powder without carbs” or “protein powder for weight gain.” After that, the comparison prepositions like “vs.” or “and” are what this tool includes in the queries if you have a comparison purpose.

5. Keyword Surfer

Some tools appear as free extensions, and Keyword Surfer is one of them. Although paid tools tend to be more accurate, Keyword Surfer is popular even for many SEO specialists.

Keyword Surfer estimates the volume of each query and is limited to 19 countries, including the US, UK, Canada, Germany, and France. It also shows the estimated volume of each google autocomplete result in front of it.

6. Google Search Console

Google Search Console is a unique tool that helps you track your website performance through organic search. It generally gives detailed information on each keyword that has performed the best for your website. The average position and average CTR also appear in a separated column.

7. Questiondb

As it’s clear by the name, this tool gives you features to find various questions people ask about a particular keyword. The database is sourced from Reddit, a website that people ask and answer questions.

Questiondb includes 48 million questions, which is an incredible amount that is increasing over time. You can sort the suggested questions by either topic or popularity and export them to CSV, which is a valuable feature.

8. Bulk Keyword Generator

Bulk Keyword Generator is an excellent tool to enhance local SEO. The generated keywords are based on industry type. First, you should choose a business type. After that, it shows you many keywords relevant to your product or service.

For example, if you search plumper, some queries like “blocked toilet,” “pipe retailing,” and “poly water tanks” will be shown. Next, it associates your chosen service with locations; however, this is not very useful because most people would not append the place in their search query and type only the service they are looking for.

Now that you are familiar with these eight tools’ functionalities, you can choose any of them that best fits your condition. Generally, there is no best SEO tool, but based on each website’s niche and goals, the proper tool differs, and you may need to merge multiple tools’ information to get your optimal result.