Keyword research is the process of finding the terms that internet users choose when searching for a topic and the search volume of these terms in various search engines such as Google and Bing. It is an important part of the SEO process. Keyword research is the best way to find the most commonly used keywords and increase natural (organic) traffic.

Keyword research can be conducted using a variety of tools. The main purpose of this work is to find the most widely used keywords that match your business goals and produce content that fits them. Searching for the right keywords allows you to generate a list of commonly used keywords to improve your website’s ranking in search engines. To create this list, you need to investigate your audience’s interests via search engines. For example, you need to understand what terms people use when searching for the products, services, businesses, and organizations that relate to your business. You also need to know what kind of content they are trying to find by searching for these phrases.

This article will discuss the importance of keyword research for SEO and introduce 18 valuable keyword research tools to help you find the best keywords for your topics.

What is the Importance of Keyword Research?

Keywords are the building blocks of business growth and Internet presence. Businesses that are not easily found on the Internet are unlikely to be very successful. To choose keywords, you must first do some research to find the best ones for your business. This research is very important for keyword selection, as it clarifies the key phrases selected by users. Using different keywords to describe your products than your target audience does means that potential customers may have trouble finding your website.

To do this, you must be familiar with keyword research tools and processes. For example, if the search volume for a term is too small, your target audience will not be able to easily find your ads or content and visit your website. On the other hand, if the words you choose have too many searches, it is possible that your page will not appear at all on the search engine results page. You can make your marketing campaigns successful by balancing different types of keywords.

Why Do We Need to Research Keywords?

Keyword research is essential in the following three areas of digital marketing:

• In SEO
• When planning a content strategy
• In paid marketing campaigns

The Importance of Keyword Research in SEO

The foremost reason for keyword research is website search engine optimization, also known as SEO. SEO makes your pages rank better in search results after being crawled and indexed by search engine bots. One of the tactics search engines use to rank web pages is to look at keywords in the field and see how they relate to users’ searches and the content of your website.

As Google’s SEO algorithms are constantly evolving, keywords are likely to never lose their relevance.

The Importance of Keyword Research in Content Strategy

We know that SEO and content work together to promote a website and business. If your website does not have quality content, it will not have good SEO.

According to SEO experts, an effective content strategy begins with keyword research. Researching keywords will provide you with a wealth of information about customer requests and needs.

All content on your website, from a 300-word blog post to a 5,000-word guide, should be based on SEO principles. For this reason, content needs to focus on one keyword or phrase to attract web traffic and compete with other businesses.

The Importance of Keyword Research in Marketing Campaigns

Keyword research is not just important for SEO and content production. Other marketing campaigns such as paid ads, display ads, remarketing and social media marketing campaigns should also focus on keywords. For example, in paid advertising, you invest in specific keywords. These keywords will help you build your ad groups and campaigns. If the keywords used in these ads have a low search volume, your campaigns will not be effective. Also, if your keywords do not match the searches of your target users, the wrong group of people may click on your ads and waste your budget. Let’s take a closer look at the best keyword research tools to help you boost your SEO.

Ahrefs

Ahrefs is an easy-to-use keyword research tool that can effectively improve your site ranking. In addition to displaying all kinds of SEO keywords, this tool also stands out for its usefulness in the field of backlinks. For this reason, this tool is more commonly referred to as a backlink analysis tool.

This tool specifies primary data such as keyword difficulty, keyword search volume and CPC. With the help of this tool, you can find the keywords that your competitors use that you do not. 

Google Keyword Planner

With billions of users worldwide, Google is the most widely use d search engine. So, what better keyword research tool to use than Google‘s? Thanks to the wealth of data available, Google’s free keyword research tool can help you take the first steps in research and analysis.

This tool is primarily designed to offer the right keywords to users of AdWords paid campaigns, but you can also use it to find organic keywords. The keyword planner shows the local and global monthly search volume of keywords and the amount of competition for them. In addition, you can use this tool to identify popular trends and get ideas for new keywords.

Depending on the competition and search volume, you can choose keywords with medium or low competition whose global or local monthly search volume (depending on your target audience) is higher.

Note that the figures you see here are not 100% accurate. Therefore, it is recommended that you use other tools in addition to this one to decide on the best keywords for your website content.

Ubersuggest

Ubersuggest is a keyword research tool created by SEO and digital marketing expert Neil Patel that can be very helpful in extracting search volume, suggesting keywords, ranking keywords and more. In this software, you can get vital information about the top 100 Google results, estimated number of hits, backlinks, domain rating and the total number of social subscriptions for a keyword.

AnswerThePublic

AnswerThePublic is another tool created by Neil Patel and it is a little different from the tools we’ve mentioned so far. This keyword research tool receives the keyword from the user, divides it into specific structures and displays the results in cluster diagrams.

This tool adds English query words (such as who, where, when, why) to the beginning of the keyword, lists people’s most common queries on Google and displays them in the form of an image. Of course, there are other possibilities. For example, in the following image the program has sorted and displayed the most common searches containing the word “chocolate” based on the letters of the English alphabet.

LongTailPro

LongTailPro is a keyword research tool that gives you an overview of the top keywords related to your site to help you find the best keywords in the competitive environment of Google.

Other features of this tool include keyword ranking, SEO troubleshooting, backlink analysis and SERP analysis. This tool is not free to use, so be sure to subscribe. The lowest subscription to this site is $37 per month.

Serpstat

Serpstat is similar to LongTailPro. It has the tools to find keywords, track keyword rankings, troubleshoot websites, analyze backlinks and check a competitors’ status. The paid version of this tool is much more comprehensive than the free features, with its subscription price starting from $67 per month.

Spyfu

Although Spyfu is a powerful keyword research tool, its free features are limited.

Its features include keyword rank monitoring, keyword research, providing data such as keyword search difficulty and volume, backlink building, competitor analysis and more.

Spyfu’s strength lies in the analysis of competitors’ keywords. This site also provides historical statistics of the domain we want to analyze, a feature that can be used to check the decline or progress of our site or our competitors as relates to specific keywords.

Small SEO Tools

The Small SEO Tools site offers several different tools for different tasks. The tools on this site can help you edit your text or images and even count the number of words in your content.

The keyword research tools of this site allow you to check keyword ranking, assess the difficulty of keywords and find related keywords.

SerpRobot

SerpRobot is a tool for monitoring keyword rankings in Google. With the free version of this tool, you can also check your keyword rankings (with a limit, of course). Buying a $5 dollar plan will allow you to check 300 keywords daily. It has no other special features and is generally a simple tool.

Rank Tracker

The next tool on the site is Rank Tracker, which has essential features such as ranking tracking, keyword research, SERP status analysis, backlink analysis and competitor analysis. This tool also troubleshoots your site. Almost all of its features are paid and subscriptions start at $18 a month.

Google Search Console

Google Search Console, which may be the best-known free keyword finding tool, is usually installed and used from the very beginning of any SEO strategy. The search console tool performs poorly when it comes to tracking keyword rankings, as it gives very few keyword ranking statistics and is therefore unreliable. It also performs poorly in terms of finding keywords because it does not show competitors’ keywords, and because we see most of the keywords we rank within this tool rather than new words or other words related to the user search.

The data that the search console provides for each keyword includes:

• The number of clicks
• The number of impressions
• The clickthrough rate (ctr)
• The keyword’s rank (on average)

Although installing Search Console and using it in SEO is necessary, in my opinion, to achieve the best results Google Search Console needs a good and accurate keyword research tool as a complement.

Google Trends

This free tool from Google helps us with SEO but is not geared toward finding new keywords. The primary function of Google Trends is to display keyword search statistics in different time periods and locations. With the help of this tool, you can compare your essential keywords to see which is searched the most.

Semrush

Semrush is a complete tool for SEO, content marketing and even social media marketing. Semrush’s SEO features include keyword research tools, word ranking, local SEO and competitor analysis.

Semrush’s keyword finding tool is one of the most powerful of its kind and includes six subcategories. You can also input your competitor’s domain name into the tool to extract the keywords they rank with.

Free use of this site is limited, and plans start at $119 per month. Though expensive, this is a very powerful tool.

Soolve

Soolve is a free, easy-to-use keyword research tool. Just enter the keyword or phrase in the search box and this tool will display the most searched variations in search engines such as Google, Bing, Yahoo, YouTube, Amazon and Wikipedia. For example, I entered the term “WordPress” and the result was as follows:

SECockpit

SECockpit is another paid keyword research tool. This site has the basic features of tools such as tracking word rank and finding new words. One of the best features of SECockpit is its ability to display the organic competition of words along with their estimated traffic. Free use of this tool is possible for 7 days, after which you have to spend $25 a month to get a basic plan.

Keyword Tool

Keyword Tool is a free keyword research tool based on Google’s autocomplete system. Working with this site is simple. Just enter the keyword and, as seen in the image below, the tool will show related words.

The free version has limitations and does not provide information such as search volume, CPC value and how competitive the keywords are. However, the free version can be used for keyword research. The cost of this tool starts from $89 per month.

KWFinder

KWFinder is a keyword selection tool that provides valuable detailed information about each keyword, including search trends, volume of monthly searches over the last 12 months, average cost of Google click-through ads, level of competition and the difficulty of the keyword. To get started, enter your desired target words in the appropriate box and select the target country and language for keyword research.

Moz

The last keyword research tool on the list is undoubtedly one of the best. Features of the powerful Moz tool include troubleshooting site SEO status, monitoring keyword rankings, analyzing backlinks, optimizing pages and researching keywords.

In the free version, there is a limit to the number of words that can be checked. Also, we cannot use all the tool’s features in this version. However, you can use Moz Pro for free for 30 days. After this period, we must pay at least $99 per month for a subscription to the tool.

Conclusion

Keyword research is undoubtedly one of the most important parts of a site’s SEO strategy, if not the most important. This step determines the path of each SEO project and the correct choice of keywords directly affects the success or failure of any project, which is why you should spend the necessary time and energy on it.

There is no doubt that keywords increase your website traffic. By choosing the right keywords for your website, you can get more search engine hits. Also, by choosing the right keyword, your target audience can find your website more easily, giving you the opportunity to convert potential customers. As a result, the ranking and traffic of your website will increase.

In the end, we hope that by using right keyword research tools you can turn your site into the top result on any search engine.