5 Best Keyword Research Tools in 2024 – Free and Paid

If you don’t know your audience’s interests and information needs, you might waste time and effort creating content that doesn’t get any traffic. Fortunately, this problem can be resolved by using keyword research techniques for search engine optimization (SEO).

Top 5 Keyword Research Tools

Here, we have compiled the best keyword research tools for search engine optimization in 2024. The following choices are based on the understanding they provide:

Search volume
Keyword difficulty
Keyword monthly value
Relevant questions

The table that follows gives a summary of the best options for keyword research software, including their cost and key characteristics:

1. Keyword Tool

Cost: Freemium (Starts at $69/month)

Key Feature: You may use negative keywords as a useful feature to filter out terms that aren’t relevant to your business’s needs.

Among the best free tools for keyword research, Keyword Tool is exceptional. It produces a broad range of keywords, including terms that come before and after your original query, so offering a variety of possibilities.

This SEO keyword research tool provides a long list of keywords in its free version, ranging from simple to complex. Its power rests in its ability to produce keyword phrases that you may not have thought of because it includes words that come before and after the main keyword, expanding the list of possible topics.

Choosing the Pro version gives you access to an even greater selection of keywords and more detailed information about each keyword, such as search volume and competition levels. The Pro version is priced between $69 and $199 per month, depending on your plan of choice.

2. Moz Keyword Explorer

Cost: Freemium (Starting at $70/month for Moz’s suite of tools)

Key Feature: The most notable aspect of this tool is how well it exports data to a CSV file. Furthermore, users have the option to download the Moz bar, which is a browser extension that shows the shares, spam score, and authority of the page and domain currently being viewed.

While many of Moz’s tools need a subscription, registering for a free account allows you to use their Keyword Explorer for three free searches per day. Users who perform a keyword search on MOZ get information on search volume, difficulty, opportunity, and potential in addition to a list of suggested keywords. Users’ research endeavors are greatly aided by the availability of search engine results page (SERP) analysis reports for every keyword.

In addition, the tool offers information on the domain authority, page authority, Facebook shares, and links to the page and domain of each of the top organic results for the specified keyword. Additionally, this keyword planner tool provides information on how easy or difficult it is to rank for any given keyword.

3. Semrush Keyword Magic Tool

Cost: Freemium (Starting at $108.33/month for Semrush’s suite of tools)

Key Feature: The most notable aspect of the Semrush Keyword Magic Tool is its broad keyword filtering options, which include related terms, questions, exact match, phrase match, broad match, and more. Furthermore, users can export all generated lists and filter phrases according to the exact words they contain.

Semrush is a notable premium keyword research tool that is worth investing in for advertising purposes due to its features. Users get real-time updates on volume, keyword difficulty, cost-per-click, and other relevant metrics after typing a keyword into the keyword overview field.

Users can also access lists of related keywords, questions, and keyword variations along with volume, cost-per-click (CPC), and other relevant information. Semrush also offers a thorough SERP analysis to support the keyword research procedure.

4. Google Trends

Cost: Free

Key Feature: The tool shows the percentage increase in keyword volume over a given period of time.

An excellent resource for examining the popularity of keywords in Google searches is Google Trends. It gives information on associated terms that your audience might find interesting in addition to insights into related topics and search queries.

One of its standout features is the ability to calculate a keyword phrase’s popularity by showing its percentage growth from a prior period. If a term is marked as “Breakout,” it means that compared to the prior period, it has grown by more than 5000%.

5. Keywords Everywhere

Cost: Starts at $1.25/month

Key Feature: The tool provides search volume and CPC statistics in addition to a list of relevant long-tail keywords.

One notable browser extension is Keywords Everywhere, which displays a page’s ranking keywords along with important information like:

Estimated traffic
SERP position
Search volume

When the extension opens during a Google search, it displays a list of associated keywords in the search engine results pages along with the search volume and cost per click for each. It also provides a list of long-tail keywords and other frequently used search terms by users.

Which SEO keyword research tools are right for you?

The process of choosing the best keyword research tool for your SEO efforts may seem overwhelming as you look at the variety of options available. I would strongly advise trying them all out!

When it comes to choosing the right tools for your needs, there is no absolute right or wrong decision. The best strategy for you may not be the same as the best strategy for someone else. If you are new to the field and hesitant to make a financial investment, there are a lot of free options that can be great places to start. Trying them out is the only way to find out for sure!