Best Free Keyword Research Tool For Bloggers.

In this post, you will learn what keyword research is, how to do it, why it is important, how to research for your SEO strategy, and how to choose the right keywords for your website.
Keywords are the foundation of SEO. If no user is searching for what you are writing, then you will not get any traffic from Google, no matter how hard you try.
That is why mastering keyword research is very important for success in SEO.
Want to know Off-page SEO for beginners: A complete guide
What is Keyword Research?
Keyword research is the SEO process of finding out what words users type in search engines to look for information or products.
By knowing the exact search terms, you can provide them with relevant content that satisfies their intent.
Keyword research is important for SEO because:
- If you don’t know what search phrases people use in Google, you risk optimizing your website for the wrong keyword.
- Without analyzing the strength of a keyword, you can’t know if it’s the keyword you want to rank for.
- Keyword research will help you understand and identify your real competitors.
- Keyword research also helps you find out the size of your potential audience, which is a useful metric in setting marketing goals and creating growth plans.
Why is Keyword Research important?
Keyword Research is very important because only through Keyword Research can you know how many people search on Google about the topic you are going to write a post (article) about.
Keyword Research is important because a good keyword ranks your blog/website and brings traffic to the blog/website. If there is more traffic, your earnings will also be higher.
Only through this can you rank on Google because Google’s main focus is to give the user the best answer to their query (Keyword or term question) so that the user is satisfied.
Only through Keyword Research will you know whether people are searching for the keyword on which you are writing the post on the Internet or not, how much is the competition on that keyword?
And will it be right for you to write a blog post on that keyword or not? Will your blog be able to rank on that keyword or not?
It is very important to have all this information before writing a post on any topic, and you will know all this (Search Volume, Keyword Difficulty, CPC) through keyword research. That is why keyword research is very important for blogging.
How to do Keyword Research for SEO?
To do keyword research, you can follow a 3-step process:
- Step 1: Find keywords – This includes tools and techniques to find keyword ideas.
- Step 2: Analyze keywords – Use various metrics to choose the best keywords for your campaigns.
- Step 3: Target keywords – Ways to use your chosen keywords in your campaigns.
Step 1: Find keywords:
The first step is to find potential keywords for your campaigns. You can use several techniques like manual methods and keyword research tools.
1. Know your niche:
It is very important to know who you have to compete with, as that will help you create a realistic keyword list and SEO strategy that can get you good results.
Go to Google and start typing search terms related to your field. Visit all the websites that appear on the first page of Google and note the following:
- Know their posting frequency
- Know the type of content they publish (text, video).
- Look at their website structure (their homepage, menu, single page).
- Find out the domain authority of their website.
The main idea behind this exercise is to identify your main competitors and get new ideas about topics/keywords that you can target.
Before doing keyword research for SEO purposes it is important to understand that there is a huge difference between the keywords for which you want to get high rankings and the keywords for which you can get high rankings on Google.
If your website is new, some keywords may be impossible to target, so it’s good to know from the beginning which keywords are more likely to reach the first page of Google in order to adjust your keyword strategy.
2. Create Topic Buckets:
Once you’ve done the above, it’s time to get more specific by writing down topic ideas. Brainstorm and write about whatever comes to mind related to your niche, industry, and products.
Put yourself in the shoes of a Google searcher and try to think of what search terms they might type into Google.
If necessary, revisit the searched websites and examine their page titles closely. This may give you more ideas about topics related to your topic that you may not have considered.
Group your ideas into topic buckets. Each topic bucket should contain topic-related ideas.
Let’s understand how this works with an example.
Suppose you are in the digital marketing field and looking for keywords for your digital marketing agency that can get you clients.
If your target is only small businesses and startups looking for digital marketing-related services, then your topic buckets can include the following topics:
- General Information Bucket – This bucket contains questions related to digital marketing.
- Small Business Bucket – This bucket contains search terms that a small business owner can use to find digital marketing agencies in Google.
- Services bucket – This bucket contains search terms for specific services like SEO and social media marketing.
- Social Media bucket – This bucket contains search terms for ads and campaigns.
If you are doing keyword research for your website for the first time, then you may have multiple topic buckets, that is fine.
Remember that this is an ongoing process and it is not necessary to complete it 100% in the first go, write down your basic ideas and move on to the next step.
3. Find Seed Keywords:
Now that you have a list of ideas to group into topic buckets, the next step is to find your seed keywords.
Seed keywords are broad keywords that are related to your main topic and can be used as the starting point of your keyword research.
For example, in the ‘General Information Bucket’ your seed keyword can be ‘digital marketing’ and in the ‘Small Business Bucket’ it can be ‘small business digital marketing’.
To do this, you will need a keyword research tool, I manage with SEMrush and Google keyword planner.
You can get keyword ideas from Google Keyword Planner but for seed keywords or group keywords, you can use the SEMrush tool. This is a paid tool, but you can use the trial version.
4. Find long tail keywords:
As you work on your seed keyword list, you will realize that most of them are highly competitive.
So when you search for this keyword on Google, you will see hundreds of websites competing to get into the top 10.
If you have an established website, this is not a big issue, but if you want to start now, then this is a big problem.
What to do next? Adjust your keyword research strategy and start looking for keywords with less competition, aka long-tail keywords.
Long-tail keywords make up 70% of all searches, and this is beneficial for keywords in Google, with targeted traffic giving them a good chance to rank.
You may think that the problem with long-tail keywords is that they have low search volume, but the truth is that less is better than nothing.
Once you have achieved higher rankings for several long-tail keywords, you also increase the chances of ranking for your seed keywords.
How to find long-tail keywords?
There are many ways to find long-tail keywords. You can manually search on Google and look for the “People also ask” or “Related searches” section.
You can also go to Wikipedia, Bing, Yahoo, and Amazon and see what people are searching for.
Another way to find long tail keywords is to use the ‘Keyword magic tool’ in the SEMrush tool. Select the keyword magic tool in the menu, type your keyword, and click on search.
When the keyword details appear, there will be an All and Questions button on the left, click on questions. Now the keywords that are visible are long-tail keywords.
5. Find your competitors’ keywords:
While doing keyword research, you have to make a list of those websites which are your competitors.
You have to see their website and analyze their content, now try to know which keywords are ranking and how much traffic is being received from Google searches.
To analyze the competitors’ keywords, you will need a paid tool. Because you will not get such facilities in free tools, here I will talk about SEMrush.
Go to SEMrush, select ORGANIC RESEARCH from DOMAIN ANALYTICS, and type the competitor URL.
The keywords you see here are those for which your competitors are ranking. Click on View all organic keywords to go to the full list and filter the keywords related to your topic.
The purpose of this exercise is to find keyword ideas that you may not have thought of before and use them to enrich your keyword list.
You can also follow the above process to determine which keywords your competitor’s pages are ranking for.
In other words, instead of using the domain in the search box, type the URL of a specific page.
This will give you information on which keywords the page is ranking for and how much traffic it is generating.
6. Find Trending Keywords:
Apart from the above steps, you also need to monitor your surface for new trending keywords.
It is a fact that 30% of the queries entered monthly in Google are new and are keywords that Google has never seen before.
This means that keyword tools will not show the volume of these new keywords or will not show it at all.
This means that these are keywords that your competitors are unaware of, so it gives you a competitive advantage as you can rank faster.
I use this method a lot, and it works great for almost all niches.
Google Trends is the tool used for this exercise. Go to Google Trends and enter your seed keywords.
Filter the results by area, categories, and Google search channels. Check the RELATED QUERIES section and dig deeper to get more details for a specific query.
If you are a beginner or want to write in your local language then you can make good use of this tool for keyword research.
Step 2: Analyze Keywords:
After finding keywords, the next step is to analyze them to choose the keywords that are best for your topic.
1. Check Search Intent:
Search intent is just the type of information that users search and see at that time. For some keywords the search intent is clear but for some information, it needs more investigation.
For example, while doing keyword research for ‘SEO packages for small businesses’ their intent is clear, But when searching for ‘SEO’ their intent is unclear.
The best way to determine the search intent of a keyword is to type the keyword into Google and check the 1st page SERPs.
Google is always doing a pretty good job of understanding user intent, so what they show on the first page of SERPs is pretty close to what users want.
2. Keyword Difficulty:
Keyword difficulty (KD) estimates how difficult it will be for a keyword to rank well in Google organic search.
KD is given as a percentage, the higher the percentage, the more difficult it will be to rank high for a specific keyword.
Each tool has its own way of calculating keyword difficulty, but in general, the lower the value, the better.
In all SEMrush reports, you can see the keyword difficulty of any keyword. While analyzing your keywords, you should look for keywords with low keyword difficulty but decent monthly search volume.
3. Domain Authority:
When you search for a keyword on Google and see that big and famous websites are in the first 10 positions, it is very difficult for a small website or blog to reach there.
For example, while searching for ‘Digital Marketing’, you will see Moz, HubSpot, Wikipedia, Neilpatel, Backlinko, and other giant websites.
This means that “Digital Marketing” is a term you want to rank for, but Google tells you that it is difficult because a website with high domain authority is ranking on it.
So remove this keyword from the list and instead find variations i.e. long-tail keywords related to it which are possible to target.
Step 3: Target Keywords:
When you reach this point, you should already have a list of keywords (both seed and long-tail keywords) that you want to rank for.
When you have a final list of keywords, you should use them in your campaigns. For this, you should read blogs of SEO writing guides. The most important of these are:
- Use your focus keyword in the page title.
- Use your focus keyword in the page URL.
- Use your focus keyword in the page title tag and H1 tag.
- Use long-tail keywords in your H2 and H3 headings.
- Use related keywords in image ALT text.
- Use related keywords and synonyms in your post.
Keyword Research Tools:
Keyword research requires the help of tools. There is a lot of data to analyze, but it is impossible to do it manually.
Here are some tools that I use and recommend to you.
1. Google Keyword Planner:
Google Keyword Planner is a reliable tool directly from Google it provides search volume, competition data, and ad insights.
It is a free tool that allows you to do keyword research for PPC (Google Ads) purposes, but you can also use it to do keyword research for SEO.
This tool is free, but you must have a Google Ads account to use it. Go to Google Ads and register for a free account, select tools in the interface, and then click keyword planner.
2. SEMrush Tool:
It offers keyword tracking, competitor analysis, and SEO metrics. Its free version is limited but sufficient for beginners.
This is the best tool for keyword research, and I use it for SEO blogs. It is not free, it comes with a monthly subscription but its price is too high for beginners.
For keyword research, you can use SEMrush to do topic research and find seed keywords, long-tail keywords, and topic-related keywords.
You can use the trial version of SEMrush with one email account, then re-register with another email account and take advantage of the trial version again.
3. Ubersuggest:
It is user-friendly tool with keyword ideas, volume, and SEO difficulty and freje tier suitable for basic Hindi keyword research. Best suited for generating content ideas in Hindi.
Ubersuggest is also available in free and paid versions. In this tool, you can do keyword research and topic research with limited options in the free version.
However, the only disadvantage of the free version is that it does not allow you to create an account to save your keywords or reports, which simply means that every time you want to do keyword research, you have to start from the beginning.
This is not the case with SEMrush, here all the lists and data are saved in your account which you can access anytime.
4. Google Search Console:
The primary function of Google search console is to optimize your website for technical SEO, here you can optimize the errors in the pages after publishing them.
Keyword research is an ongoing process, and the best tool to use to find the actual keywords ranking your pages is Google Search Console.
In this tool, you will get to know which keywords your content is ranking on. There will be many keywords in it which will not be in your content.
This happens because Google does not rank a page on your targeted keywords but on different keywords.
For this, you have to go to the report of that page and see which are those keywords on which the chance of getting ranked increases.
Here are the steps you need to follow:
- Create an account and verify your website.
- Access the ‘Search Performance Report’.
- Look at the ‘Search terms’ and ‘positions’ columns.
- Find important points not included in your summary.
- Edit your content to include those keywords naturally.
- Re-submit your page to Google.
5. Google Trends:
As mentioned above, Google Trends is a tool you can use to find out about new, trending and seasonal keywords.
Go to Google Trends and do multiple searches using different filters to find out what is trending related to your topic.
It is essential for creating Hindi blogs aligned with current interests.
6. Keyword Tool.IO:
Hindi bloggers should do keyword research with the help of UberSuggest and Keywordtool.io. Because this is the best keyword tool for Hindi bloggers. With their help, you can easily do keyword research in Hindi.
Just type any keyword in the search box and enter it and you will see many keyword suggestions related to it. Which you can use in your article. For the first time, you will see the report of the search volume of that keyword in 2-3 searches and how much it is trending. But after this, you will have to buy this tool. By doing keyword research for free, you can only know the keyword.
7. Wordstream Keyword Tool:
It generates keyword suggestions based on a primary term and is perfect for identifying profitable Hindi keywords.
Wordstream Free Keyword Tool is a great keyword research tool. With this, you can easily do a completely free keyword search. With this you can do 30 keyword searches for free, after this you will have to buy it. If you want, you can do unlimited keyword research by buying it.
`8. AnswerThePublic:`
AnswerThePublic visualizes commonly asked questions and queries around a keyword, including those in Hindi. It’s a great tool for generating blog topics and FAQs. It’s important features are:
- Displays keyword data in a question format.
- Unveils “who,” “what,” “why,” and “how” queries.
- Supports Hindi and other languages.
9. Keyword Surfer:
It is a free Chrome extension that displays search volumes directly in Google.
Great for quick Hindi keyword research while browsing.
10. Rank Tracker (Free Version):
It tracks keyword rankings and suggests keywords.
It includes local SEO features, helpful for targeting Hindi-speaking regions.
11. Moz Keyword Explorer:
It provides keyword suggestions, difficulty scores, and SERP analysis.
Free version is available with limited searches.
12. Ahrefs Keyword Generator:
The ahrefs keyword research tool is one of the most popular tools for digital marketers, bloggers, and SEO professionals. It provides valuable insights into keywords, helping you optimize your content to rank higher in search engine results. Key features of Ahrefs are:
- Estimates how hard it would be to rank for a specific keyword.
- Gives a numerical value (usually on a scale of 0-100).
- Displays the monthly search volume for a keyword globally or by country.
- Generates related keyword ideas based on your target keyword.
- Includes long-tail and question-based keyword options.
- Estimate how much traffic you could get if you rank for a particular keyword.
- Analyze the top-ranking pages for a keyword.
- Provides data on backlinks, traffic, and domain authority.
- Filter results by country, language, search intent (informational, transactional, etc.), and more.
- Identify key areas where your competitors rank but you don’t.
13. Serpstat (Free Plan):
It provides tools for keyword research, rank tracking, backlink analysis, site auditing, and competitor research, making it a popular choice for growing websites and content marketing strategies. It’s key features are:
- Comprehensive tool for keyword suggestions, volume, and competitor analysis.
- Limited free usage but packed with features.
Serpstat vs. Other SEO Tools:
Feature | Serpstat | Ahrefs | SEMrush |
Pricing | Affordable | Higher-priced | Medium-to-high priced |
Keyword Research | Comprehensive | Excellent | Excellent |
Backlink Analysis | Good | Industry-leading | Good |
User Interface | Beginner-friendly | Advanced | Beginner-friendly |
Competitor Research | Strong | Very Strong | Very Strong |
14. Bing Keyword Research Tool:
- The Bing Keyword Research Tool is available within Microsoft Advertising for free.
- It helps find keywords for SEO and PPC campaigns specific to Bing’s search engine.
- Provides data like search volume, trends, and keyword suggestions.
- Allows filtering by location, language, and device for precise targeting.
- Ideal for reaching Bing’s unique audience and diversifying search strategies.
- Supports Hindi and other languages.
15. Soovle:
- Aggregates keyword suggestions from multiple platforms (Google, Bing, YouTube, Amazon, Yahoo, Wikipedia, etc.).
- Provides real-time autocomplete results for trending searches.
- Allows customization of search engines to focus on relevant platforms.
- Simple, drag-and-drop interface for ease of use.
- Offers an export option to save keyword suggestions for future analysis.
- Useful for finding unique Hindi keywords.
New bloggers (beginners) must pay attention to some things while doing keyword research:
- Choose long tail keywords.
- Target monthly search volume less than 200.
- Competition difficulty should be less than 20.
- Work on new fresh words (keywords).
- Understand the search intent of users.
User Intent (User Intent or Keyword Intent):
User Intent means what kind of result they want to see when they are searching for the answer to a question – their search intent. Are they searching for an answer to a question or want to buy something or are they searching for a company or brand?
You must have heard a lot about user intent in keyword research because it is one of the most important factors in the keyword research process.
The important thing in user intent is to provide you with the information that the user wants to know.
It makes no sense to create a page about what you care about – what your user wants (what he is looking for) only cares about their problems and needs.
If someone (user) is searching for an SEMrush login, then the user intent is to use the SEMrush tool, not to read a blog. If you write a post on this, they will not click on your link.
User Intent means understanding the purpose behind the user’s question.
Best Paid Keyword Research Tools:
- Ahrefs
- SEMrush
- UberSuggest
- Moz Pro
- Screaming Frog SEO Spider
- Mangools KWFinder
- Majestic
- Searchmetrics
- cognitiveSEO
What are the benefits of Keyword Research?
- It is important for bringing traffic to the blog/website and getting a good ranking in the search engine.
- It helps in increasing the ranking and traffic of your blog/website.
- Keyword research helps your blog gain popularity quickly.
- This lets you know the competition and search volume of the keyword.
- If you write articles after doing keyword research, then you can connect with the target visitors.
- If your posts rank in the search engine, then your domain authority and the number of backlinks to your site will also increase.
- Keyword research helps you do competitive analysis in a better way.
Frequently Asked Questions:
How do I find keyword intent?
The best tool to find keyword intent is Google itself or you can use keyword research tools. It is written next to the keyword what type of keyword it is. Or you can search the keyword on which you want to write a post in the Google search box and see what type of results are coming in the top 10. Is it a video or images a brand name or an option to buy a product?
What are the 4 types of search intent?
1. Informational
2. Navigational
3. Commercial
4. Transactional
What is a keyword and how do we do keyword research?
Keywords are words or phrases that we and you (users) type in search engines like Google, Bing. The question, word, or phrase that we type in the search engine and find is the keyword.
You can do keyword research by reading this entire blog.
Conclusion:
In this post, you must have come to know how to do keyword research and what keyword research is. Here you must have also got to know how to find keywords and how to find ideas.
This post must have also taught you how to select variations of keywords and how to increase the chance of ranking by adding them to the content.
I hope that here you have known niche, topic research, seed keywords, and optimization. Along with this, you must have also recognized keyword research tools which are very helpful in finding keywords.
Stay connected to our website for such informational posts and grow your blogging career by learning a lot.
I hope this blog post provided you with the insights you were looking for. If you found it helpful, please share it with your friends and community so that they too can benefit from this information.
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