Keyword research is one of the most important digital marketing tasks. Furthermore, it lies at the foundation of any business strategy or campaign you are planning.
Keyword research provides useful insight into organic ranking opportunities, persona building, competitive research, product development — you name it!
Another reason why I love keyword research is that it’s a highly creative process. There is never such a thing as “enough tools” when it comes to keyword research. Each data source and the way the data is presented brings something new to the table. Sometimes when I feel stuck, all I need is to play with a new keyword intelligence tool.
With that in mind, I decided to create a roundup of free (and freemium) keyword research tools, i.e. those tools you can run right now, without the need to pay first.
Some of those tools are freemium (meaning you can pay for the upgrade) but all of them are quite usable for free (which is what I recommend doing first before deciding if you need to upgrade). Finally, I am not going to include obvious tools like Google Ads Keyword Planner[1] and Google Search Console[2] as I am sure SEW readers are well aware of.
New tools inspire new tactics which is what I hope you’ll end up with.
1. Rank Tracker: Aggregated keyword suggestions from multiple sources
(Freemium)
Rank Tracker free version gives you access to its keyword research feature that uses around 20 different keyword research sources, including Google Ads Keyword Planner, Google Suggest,Wordtracker, SEMRush and more.
Rank Tracker is a downloadable tool and you do have to provide your name and email to start downloading. Other than