38 Experts Reveal Best Keyword Research Tools For SEO In 2024 (Top 10 Leaderboard Included)

Prior to the Jumpshot debacle there was always a need to cross reference keyword estimations from multiple sources. We know that no single keyword research tool has 100% accuracy, so it never made any sense to take the data from one source and take it as rote. That said, we need the best data we can get, so the Jumpshot shutdown is a huge hit for the SEO community as a whole. It also makes it patently clear that referencing multiple sources of keyword data is now more important than ever.

For me, I’ll be relying more on Semrush, which seems to have come out of the debacle with what appears to be the most reliable source of keyword metrics. However, I’ll continue to cross reference it with actuals for my own domains in Google Analytics and the keyword data I import into it from Google Search Console, which shows search impression volumes and average positions in the SERPs. I’ll have to run a lot more tests on content now.

Finally, as an off the wall keyword tool, there’s Pinterest. Yes, it’s a different type of search engine. Yes, search intent is different too. However, cross-referencing with Semrush, GA and GSC can provide insight to help build an overall keyword picture, albeit in a much more labor intensive way.

– Paul Franklin, Freelance Online Marketer, SideGains

With the shutdown of Jumpshot after being taken over by Avast, we need to ensure our keyword and SEO strategies are still effective. With this in mind, finding the right tools to use now should be critical. 

Semrush will continue to remain my primary go-to tool for SEO research. It is also the best competitor research option, but it does cost money. The keyword tool by WordStream is another excellent option, along with the full Ahrefs suite. 

When I need to do a quick search on keywords from different sources, including Google Play and Amazon, I generally turn to KeywordTool.io – its quick and easy, and the free plan gives me enough data to work with. 

Bottom Line: Semrush, Ahrefs, WordStream, and KeywordTool.io are my top choices for SEO and keyword research. 

– Joe Flanagan, Lead App Developer, GetSongbpm 

Google Keyword Planner: We are search engine marketers, and we spend the majority of our time operating out of Google Ads. What is better keyword research tool than using the planner provided by Google themselves? 

Google Toolbar: I always go to google search and see what keywords Google will automatically generate when I search for my product or services. This is a great way not only to find hidden gem keywords, but also to collect negative keywords. Finding these words early on in a campaigns life in order to not waste ad spend. Additionally, I will add my product or service and go through the alphabet to find more and more keywords related to my product or service. 

AnswerThePublic: What are people actually searching into Google? Search is becoming more and more advanced. Longer search terms, people using voice to search. Answer The Public gives amazing insights on how people are REALLY searching. 

Keywords Everywhere: This is a chrome plugin that shows search volume, CPC & competition, and related keywords. Every time I do a search into Google, it will show on the right hand bar keywords trends, related keywords and alternative searches. Giving me constant new keyword ideas to experiment with. 

– Josh Pierce, Paid Search Executive, Blaze Media 

KWFinder: This is my go-to keyword research tool for doing quick keyword research. I like it because I can see all the data I need at a glance, including the SERP results for the keyword.

Semrush: The Keyword Magic tool is the most powerful keyword research tool I’ve seen. I also find that Semrush does competitor analysis better than any other tool – I particularly like the ‘competitive positioning map’.

Ahrefs: This is is my preferred tool for broken link building. It’s much easier to use than Semrush.

SurferSEO: Not really a keyword research tool, but very good for On-Page optimization. I like it because it shows me the key ranking factors that correlate with top-ranking pages in the search results for any given keyword.

– Rob Powell, SEO Writer, Rob Powell Biz Blog

To start, I need to find keyword gaps. These are areas where my competitors in my niche are weak. Ahrefs gives me this information. I go to the Ahrefs Site Explorer. I put in my URL. I then enter the URL of up to 3 of my competitors.  It shows me the keywords they rank for but I don’t rank for. I get content ideas this way. Alexa.com also shows you content gaps.

For keyword research, I use both Ahrefs Keyword Tool and KWFinder. I use Ahrefs Rank Tracker daily to discover where my posts are in the Search Engine Results Pages. Finally, I use the MozBar, a free tool, to tell me the Domain Authority Ranking of my site and other bloggers’ sites

– Janice Wald, Blogger, Speaker, Author, Coach, Mostly Blogging

Generally, I start my keyword research in Semrush. Overall, I have found this to be the best tool for finding keywords, at least in the niches that I work in.

I’ll typically use this in one of three ways:

1. Exploring topics I’m interested in writing, to find sub-topics with search demand.

2. Looking at competitors’ sites with similar backlink profiles to my own, and looking at what keywords they’re ranking for. Then, crafting better articles.

3. Looking at what keywords my sites are ranking for, but aren’t fully relevant to the article they’re linking to. Then, I’ll publish an article that better matches the search intent of that keyword, usually leading to a higher ranking than I had for it originally.

Occasionally, I’ll also use AnswerThePublic for additional keyword ideas.

I usually plan out my articles in batches, so once I have all the main keywords I try to target, I validate these with Ahrefs. Although I prefer Semrush for keywords, Ahrefs seems to be more accurate in terms of backlink tracking and measuring the true difficulty for a site to rank. Ideally, I’m looking to make sure that the top spots for those keywords have few or no backlinks pointing to those pages, unless the topic is valuable enough to spend time building my own links to it.

By following this strategy, I drastically increase the likelihood of ranking for the articles I spend time and money publishing. It’s also a very useful strategy for getting new websites off of the ground.

– James McAllister, James McAllister Online

I keep keyword research super simple so 4 is literally everything I have in my current “everyday use” arsenal; Semrush, Ahrefs, AnswerThePublic, and KeywordsEverywhere.

I love Semrush! If I could only have one tool it would probably be this one. The depth of data available in Semrush is simple gold. The only caveat would be having to dig deeper to figure out the true keyword difficulty. 

Which is where Ahrefs comes in. Ease. It’s easier to find what you need with fewer clicks so if you are pressed for time and want to immediately know which keyword to target for your site’s authority level, Ahrefs is the way to go.

As for AnswerThePublic, when I first found it, I couldn’t believe it was mostly free! If Semrush and Ahrefs give you the best topics to target at first glance, Answerthepublic is the secret super power to write the best damn post on that topic! (completeness).

Finally, Keywordseverywhere is like the secret bff that turns the data available on Google, Search console, Analytics… from boring to cool. I can’t tell how many times I found a high-volume low-competition keyword to target while doing a random search, just because I have Keywordseverywhere. And for next to nothing too! I choose Keywordseverywhere for cost and accessibility.

– Lily Ugbaja, DollarCreed

My 4 tools are Ahrefs, Semrush, KWFinder and Keywords Everywhere. 

Ahrefs – because I can mine my competitor’s keywords, and especially their money terms. Here’s how it works. So, I run Ahrefs’ Organic Keywords analysis on a site weaker in authority than mine. Then I extract their money terms where they rank on the first page, and then I target those phrases. Because if they can rank with a lower authority site, so can I.

Semrush – because of their awesome Keyword Magic tool. Wonderful for extracting questions people ask. Behind every keyword there’s a problem, and every problem can be formulated as a question. And Semrush makes finding those a walk in the park.

KWFinder – because of their excellent and accurate Keyword Difficulty (KD) metric. And also because the tool is superb at finding long-tail untapped keywords.

Keywords Everywhere: because it overlays the SERPS and Google Search Console with very useful data and makes keyword prioritization a breeze.

– Nikola Roza, CEO and owner, Nikola Roza – SEO for the Poor and Determined 

Being a founder of a company that helps businesses to grow, I use Ahrefs Keyword Explorer. There are hundreds of keyword research tools.

What you should look for, is a tool with a very big and up-to-date keyword database, which also contains search volume and competition data. Ahrefs Keyword Explorer is quite a good tool because it not only displays original data from Google but also displays the search volume in exact numbers along with the keyword difficulty.

You can also export the Keywords into an Excel file and download it on your computer for your convenience. 

– Rorie Devine, CEO, and Founder, GRO.TEAM

Working as the Managing Director at my company, I would recommend Semrush. This tool is not just a typical keyword research tool; it offers much more than just researching keywords.

They make it easier for you to find short-tail and long-tail keyword that you can target by just adding your URL or your competitors URL and it will show you all the keyword that are ranking for that site. You can get in-depth details on search engine report Adsense CPC etc..

– Anthony Mixides, Managing Director, The London Vape Co.

If I could only use 1 keyword research tool, I’d use Neil Patel’s Ubersuggest. Ubersuggest is very easy and straightforward to use. It is easy to explain to customers and very easy to download spreadsheets of the keywords researched.

The navigation allows for not only keyword research  but related keyword research. I’ve found the data to be on-point and I’ve been able to rank a page in the top 3 using the keywords I pulled from Ubersuggest. 

– Jessica Rhoades, Owner and Designer, Create IT Web Designs

I’m going to name just one, as no doubt most other replies will mention the same ole suspects! 

Keyword shitter is an underused and under appreciated SEO tool for keywords (obvs). It comes out with a lot of random sh*t- hence the name – but if you sift through that it will come out with some real gems that the more traditional keyword research tools wouldn’t find. 

Having keywords that nobody else is aware of gives you a massive head start on the competition, because they will discover them at some point but they’ll be playing catch up. 

Using this alongside your more typical keyword tools will allow you to discover and then utilize a very wide range of keywords, reducing the chances of you missing any useful ones. 

– Brett Downes, Founder | SEO, Link Building Geek, Haro Helpers

We have recently started using Semrush because our client has it. I would choose this as my first choice because, after the initial learning curve, I realized Semrush has the best keyword researching and content creation tools. It’s been the most accurate keyword research tool we have used thus far. 

Ahrefs is my second choice because this is what we have used in the past. I am familiar with the dashboard but we are considering in canceling our account since the inaccuracy is getting out of control and the only task we use it, for now, is managing backlink profiles for our clients.

Google Trends, to be honest, the only reason I use it is that it is free and it uses Google’s data.

Google Adwords: Keyword planner, I use this tool because it is also free and the main benefit is it is easy to use. Also, the Keyword planner tool uses Google’s data and 90% of the world uses Google as their primary search engine.

– Caleb Riutta, CEO, Dusk Digital

The 4 tools I would recommend for keyword research in a professional context are the following: 

Google Search Console: We use this tool first during the SEO audit for our customers. This tool shows which how many google users have already seen or clicked on the clients website after the search for various keywords. This shows us through which keywords google users are reaching our clients website the most. 

KWFinder by Mangools: In the next step of our SEO audits we research the most promising keywords found through the Google Search Console with  KWFinder. This tool is free to use in the basic version and shows us the potential competition and search volume of the keywords. It shows us how hard or easy it will be to improve the rankings of our clients website for specific keywords and how often these keywords are searched for. 

Ahrefs Keywords Explorer: A paid, more extensive and well known alternative to KWFinder. Usually the basic version of the KWFinder tool is enough to research the volume and difficulty of specific keywords. If we still need more information about the keywords Ahrefs is one of the best tools available. The most important feature for us is the analysis of competition for a specific keyword. 

Google Trends: A mostly overlooked tool in the context of keyword research but still very helpful. It shows how the volume for certain keywords has evolved over time, allowing extrapolation of the data to anticipate if the search volume for a keyword will rise or fall in the future. One can also analyse how the volume for a keyword changes during different scenarios like a pandemic or a recession and how the search volume changes based on the physical location of the google user. 

– Yannick Steinkamp, Co-founder / CEO, DevQom Digital

I would use these 4 tools, and they are actually more than enough for everything.

Semrush: Excellent for analyzing the keywords your competitors rank for. You can use it to find keywords your competitors are using and you haven’t used them yet.

KeywordTool.io: The best thing about this tool is that you can find keywords for youtube and other platforms and that is what I use it for.

Keyword Everywhere: Keywords everywhere is a useful chrome extension that gives you related keyword ideas for whatever you search.

Google Keyword Planner: Google keyword planner is the most reliable tool because the data comes directly from Google. Secondly, it also displays a bidding cost that indicates the commercial value of a keyword.

– Ronald Dsouza, Digital Marketing Manager, FJackets

Bing Keyword Planner Tool: I know it’s quite strange, the fact is that with keep in mind only Google, the majority of SEO marketers are forgetting or not any knowledge of getting traffic or get ranked in Bing search engine. Many people are not using it because the Bing algorithm is different, strategies are different but the buyer persona or intensions will remain the same for both the search engines. So, whatever efforts you are giving to get ranked in Google, in less than half efforts you will easily get ranked in Bing. 

Google Keyword Planner Tool: Almost 90% of SEO marketers are following Google search engine, it is mandatory for them to go with Google’s keyword planner tool. The reason is whatever process or strategy you are implementing to get rank is on Google. So, why you have to skip it and move towards any other tool? You have to stick with it. 

Ahrefs: Apart from the search engine specific keyword planner tool, I love this tool due to its wide range of data for all the important strategies of SEO like Guest blog submission, Skyscrapper, Resource Placement etc. In my opinion, it has almost any kind of data which you can use in your SEO strategies. Also, you can do keywords research from this tool but these are some of the great benefits of it. 

Semush: If you are a competitor’s analysis addicted, then this tool is for you. I mainly use this tool for the competitor’s data analysis of their backlinks. Also, you can do keywords research from it as well, mainly for long-phrase keywords or informative keywords. 

– Tarun Gurang, Sr. Digital Marketer, iFour Technolab Pvt. Ltd.

The top keyword research tools I would use are: Moz, Google Search Console and Google My Business Insights.

Moz provides detailed research data on your competitors and can also identify key areas to improve on your own website. It not only provides high-level keyword insights for a country, but there’s also a local feature for businesses who have a local presence. Moz can also make keyword suggestions based on your URL, other keywords you’re trying to rank for and your competitors websites. There’s a reason it’s so popular in the SEO/marketing industry! 

Google Search Console gives you a good overview of words you’re already starting to rank for but have room for improvement. It gives insights as to the position, click through rate, total impressions and total clicks of those keywords. 

Google My Business listings can drive traffic to your website or get customers to give you a call. It gives pretty detailed insights. Since Google My Business shows above the web search results on the page, many users will go directly to this area when searching for local businesses instead. 

– Alicia Ward, Marketing Manager, See Sight Tours  

Honestly, I only need one keyword research tool and that’s Ahrefs. Their features give me every component I need: keyword search volume, ranking difficulty, Google Ads click costs, related keywords, who ranks first, and more. It’s by far my number one tool.

Second, I’d use Semrush as it also has some nice features. Third, I’d use Google Keyword Planner. And fourth is Long Tail Pro. 

– Brian Robben, CEO, Robben Media

Ahrefs: This is my favorite tool for analyzing competitors and their keywords. You can pinpoint exactly which of their pages are ranking, and for which keywords. This tool gives you a good idea of how good you will need to be to rank. 

Spyfu: We use the free version of Spyfu for keyword research because it already offers so much. It provides recommended questions that users type in based on the keywords you are searching for. You can include these questions, or even answer them, in your content! Similar to Ahrefs, it will tell you how often that keyword is searched for monthly. I find Spyfu’s numbers to be more accurate for this. 

Google Keyword Planner: Keyword Planner has incredible statistics and graphs – which makes sense, since it is Google. We use this tool for getting a good overview of our website’s content and the direction that it’s heading. 

Google Search: This is not technically a tool, but can be used as one! We use the Google Search bar to type in our keyword phrases and see what other keyword phrases Google is recommending to users. We than build content around that. 

– Alex Capozzolo, Co-Founder, Brotherly Love Real Estate 

Semrush. They offer a great value in their price range with a full suite of tools. You can see keyword and competitor data for both SEO and Google Ads advertising. Most other tools only offer organic search insights.  Incidentally, among the popular keyword tools, Semrush was also the only major player that invested heavily in other sources of data about organic search and did not rely on Jumpshot. 

Google Keyword Planner: Although their keyword search volumes are estimates and not always accurate, I use them as a second set of eyes for search volume. If the numbers from Semrush and GKP are somewhat close, I can feel more confident in their accuracy. 

I use Ahrefs to get a more complete picture of the link profiles of top organic search competitors. This is important for judging the level of competition. No other tool out there does a better job of collecting backlink data. 

Local PPC Adwords & Keyword List Creator at 5minutesite.com. If you have a list of keywords for a local business and want to add all the local towns within a certain radius of a zip code, this tool will do it in seconds. Just copy your list of keywords in, enter a zip code, choose a radius (up to 100 miles), choose a few options, hit submit. The tool then pops out each keyword with every local town in that radius added on the end. This tool is a huge timesaver. 

– Mike Friedman, Owner, Clicked Marketing

My bread and butter tool for keyword research is Ahrefs. It runs on massive amounts of mined data. This makes them much more effective at finding low-competition keywords.

Other tools I use are Google Keyword Planner, Answer the Public and Google Search Console. Google Search Console helps to track your performance in organic search and shows a lot of data about the keywords that you already rank for.

– Jamie Irwin, Digital Marketing & SEO Expert, STRAIGHT UP SEARCH

Ahrefs: Of all the keyword research tools, Ahrefs seems to have the most accurate gauge of keyword difficulty for organic search specifically. It’s not perfect, but it’s about as good as it gets at this point in time. 

Keywords Everywhere: With the keywords everywhere extension installed in Google Chrome, every time I use Google, I am inundated with keyword research data. As a result, I’ve become more search centric as a person, and more knowledgeable as an SEO professional. It’s also great for finding unique angles on familiar topics. 

Google Autocomplete: This is by far the most underutilized keyword research tool. If an autocomplete suggestion pops up when you are using Google, there is almost always more searches for that term than most premium keyword research tools would suggest. This allows you to find keyword goldmines that less experienced SEOs are completely blind to. 

Semrush: More than anything, I love the way Semrush visualizes the landscape of domains that you are competing with. The Semrush graphs make it very clear which domains are outranking you, and what keywords they are ranking for. I wish they could import this feature into Ahrefs. 

– Richard Stevens, SEO Specialist, New Silver Lending, LLC 

Ahrefs: What sets Ahrefs apart from other keyword research tools? Unlike other tools which will give you a difficulty ranking out of 100, Ahrefs tells you exactly how many backlinks you need to rank on the first page of Google. 

Mangools: The Mangools tool appeals to both experienced users and those new to the keyword game. It has a very user-friendly interface, with basic tools as well as advanced options. 

Semrush: This one ranks high on most keyword research tool lists. It ticks all the major boxes, and although it’s a paid service, it’s also fairly fool-proof and does what it says on the tin. 

Google Trends: I’ve listed this as a go-to for those just venturing into the keyword research game. It’s free, so no strings attached, and is a great way to get to grips with how the system works in general! 

– Deepak Shukla, Founder/CEO, Pearl Lemon Group 

If I had to choose only four keyword research tools to utilize, they would be Semrush, Ahrefs, AnswerThePublic, and the Keywords Everywhere Chrome extension. 

With Semrush, you get that classic keyword research ability that provides monthly search volumes. I also love how their content marketing toolkit provides semantic words that one should include in their articles. 

Next is Ahrefs. Ahrefs I’d choose for backlink information and competitor keywords. This tool provides opportunities for big wins. 

I use AnswerThePublic to find keywords in the form of a question. This tool helps me come up with H3 and H4 subheads and is great for targeting Google featured snippet opportunities. 

Lastly, there’s the Keywords Everywhere Chrome extension which helps me quickly find related keywords based on a search engine query. I use related keywords as secondary keywords in articles. These tools have done well for us at InspireFirst.com.  

– Chris Craft, founder and Editor-in-chief of InspireFirst.com

 Ahrefs is by far my best tool because it offers the most value and utility. I like to use the Top Pages Report and Keyword Explorer. We can do a fully comprehensive site audit, etc. The keyword data you can get from this tool is exceptional because it will show how difficult a keyword is to rank for on a scale of 1-100. 

Semrush is another great tool and is best for their Traffic Value metric and their position tracking. I use this to go and choose my top 25 keywords per brand and monitor their fluctuation day over day, week over week, and month over month. This is fantastic to keep track of where we are for our most valuable keywords to the business. 

– Kevin Miller, Founder and CEO, The Word Counter 

Semrush is my go-to keyword research tool. Why? The Keyword Magic Tool makes sorting, exploring, and gathering data for long-tail question based queries simple. We’ve found that long-tail, question-based keywords are hidden gems, since competition levels are much lower. Semrush gives us ample data to explore these keywords. 

Ubersuggest: While it does nearly the same exact thing as Semrush, I find that comparing and analyzing data from numerous sources is extremely valuable. I find the free Chrome extension to be very valuable since the data lives within the SERP. 

Ahrefs: Why? It’s incredibly valuable when it comes to determining the actual difficulty of a keyword. The data it provides regarding backlinks is much more sophisticated than other tools I use. This informs our backlinking strategy after the content is published. 

Google Trends: A lot of the content we create for our clients involves trending topics. While the keyword research tools above may say that a keyword only has 10 people searching per month, Google Trends allows us to forecast the expected keyword volume. 

– Joey Randazzo, Founder & CEO, Portland SEO Growth by Becoming Media 

There are several SEO tools that you can use to do this research, and our preferred vendor is Ahrefs. Our team tends to invest more in content that has high competition and high traffic because we know we need to have more valuable and knowledgeable  content than our competitors.  

Our specific market is the firearm industry. We initially started by targeting all the keywords that are biggest competitors were not spending a lot of time on because they weren’t getting searches per month. But if you look at the analytics on Ahrefs, the keywords we are targeting are still getting thousands of searches a month which is a lot, but not as much as some of the other keywords that the big dogs can chase after. 

– Brady Kirkpatrick, Founder, Gun Made

One of my four keyword research tools would be Ahrefs. This is the tool that I use when starting keyword research, as it gives me very useful metrics such as average monthly search volume, keyword difficulty, and the potential traffic I could get. These metrics immediately show me whether targeting a keyword is both achievable and useful for my site, so it’s a great starting point. 

I would also choose AnswerThePublic as one of my four tools. This scrapes the autocomplete date from search engines, and is great for finding longtail keywords. I often use it to improve existing articles on my site, as well as new pieces. 

Google Trends is another I would select. I work in a few seasonal industries, which means people only search for certain keywords at certain times of the year. Google Trends is different than most other keyword research tools because it shows you when a keyword is popular over the course of a year rather than showing average monthly search volume. I can then use this data to properly target keywords at times when people are searching for them. 

Finally, for a few extra keywords, I would use Keyword Shitter. This automatically generates keywords related to your parent topic, and is another way to unearth longtail/less common keywords. 

– Adam Lumb, EN Site Manager, Cashcow Media

The first recommendation would be Moz’s Keyword Explorer. It neatly ties together keyword research metrics and makes complex analysis easy so we can spend less time in spreadsheets and more time generating qualified website traffic.

Google Search Console shows information about your site that only site owners should know and allows you to make changes that can affect how your site appears on Google.

Ahrefs Keywords Explorer runs on the world’s largest third-party database of search queries. It runs on a huge database of more than 7 billion keywords, updated with fresh data every month.  

Semrush is a quick tool that provides a snapshot of a particular keyword’s value. Through key metrics, such as volume, keyword difficulty, CPC, competition in paid search, top-ranking pages, ad copy, etc., you can evaluate the prospects of a keyword and how it affects your traffic. 

– Jennifer Willy, Editor, Etia.Com

Despite the fact I need to share 4 tools, I can name only 2, but these are the best keyword research tools.

Semrush: This tool has many functions. In my opinion, the most useful ones are search volume, keyword magic tool, and SERP results for the keywords having a search volume of more than 20. It comes extremely useful when analyzing competitors and tracking positions. 

Google Search Console: A tool that shares the keywords with the highest number of clicks and impressions as well as the history of a position for a particular keyword. 

– Julia Mankovskaya, Digital Marketing Manager, Daxx 

Google Search Console is a must – you should always try and build on keywords you already have visibility for, and the Queries tab in the Performance report will tell you. It’s often not what you’re thinking! And using Apollo Insights intelligent algorithms, we can overlay this information with other sources. 

Semrush Keyword Magic is perfect for finding new keywords for a theme. Just type in your main keyword, and you’ll get a ton of new long-tail suggestions based on it, complete with volumes. You can narrow it down by country, and it’s especially useful for filtering and finding question-based keywords.

Google Trends lets you know what’s popular right now and shows the seasonality of keywords – so for example, you might see keywords about gardening peaking around spring, and this will help you time your campaigns. You are bound to find keywords based on growing trends too – the next big thing that you should be aware of if you don’t want to get left behind in SERPs. Easy, free and fast – can’t argue with that! 

– Carl Wood, SEO Specialist, Vertical Leap 

Google Keyword Planner: This product is exclusively created for the search marketers to run ads on Google. This tool is effective for SEO and most importantly it’s absolutely free to use. In this tool, you can get all the relevant data on any keyword you wish. Additionally, you can get a lot more useful features required for keywords research in this tool. 

Keyword Tool: This tool is one of the best keyword research tools if you’re keen on keyword data mining. This tool provides vast analytics on different popular search engines. In addition to helping you to find most relevant keywords, it offers Instagram and Twitter keyword analysis too. This easy to use tool is free for the first 750 keywords. 

Moz Keyword Explorer: This is an outstanding keyword research tool for keyword recommendations. In addition to two unique data points, its SEO tool provides the most useful features for keyword research. For example, its organic CTR score forecasts the possible number of hits on any keyword. Moz comes free for 10 queries per month and with other paid plans.

Long Tail Pro: This tool suggests the most relevant long-tail keywords for your business. Its detailed and very useful keyword metrics help you to find all the long-tail keywords of highest potentials. This digital tool recommends the best long-tail keywords which can attract prospective organic viewers. It offers a 7-day free trial and its paid plans start from only $25 per month.

– Andrei Vasilescu, CEO and Digital Marketing Specialist, DontPayFull

Google Ads Keyword Planner: It is still the most dependable source of keyword data as the stats are coming from Google. Although some would argue that it is intended for marketers to help them with their paid Google Ad campaigns. You can still get plenty of keyword ideas. You can sort the keywords with “top of page bid”. You can target these keywords especially if you are looking for queries that have commercial intent. 

Ahrefs Keywords Explorer: Ahrefs is known for its link building tool but it has a good keyword research tool. Every keyword has plenty of helpful data which can help you decide on which keywords you would include in your campaigns. The only flaw I can think of is that it does not come up with new keyword ideas unlike Google Ads Keyword Planner. 

Semrush: If you want to know what keywords a website is already ranking for, just type it in Semrush and you can check their keywords. If you are looking to invest in a paid keyword tool for your next project, you may consider this tool. Although it is not cheap, keyword research is a must in any SEO campaign. 

Moz Keyword Explorer: If you are looking for fresh keyword ideas, it does a good job of suggesting new keyword ideas relevant & related to your seed keyword. One stat that stands out is Priority. It considers several factors like search volume, keyword difficulty & CTR, and gives a total score whether the  keyword is worth pursuing or not. 

– Patrick Garde, Co-Founder & Technical Director, ExaWeb

The four best keyword research tools are Google Analytics, Semrush, Google Trends, Ubersuggest. 

If we begin with Google Trends, it is undoubtedly the most reliable way to find keywords, and why I say that is because it’s a hub to find ideas.

And Ubersuggest is the most detailed source to find engagement over similar ideas and what works best. Thus, we continue on to Google Analytics, which is the best way to keep an eye on the performance of own website.

Then last but not least, Semrush is a very helpful SEO tool that provides on-site SEO analysis with which one can easy set up good content on the website. If not others, these four tools comes in handy with very useful results. 

– Sarah Walters, Marketing Manager, The Whit Group. 

Prior to the shut down of Jumpshop my top 4 keyword tools were: Wordtracker, Ahrefs, Google Trends and AnswerThePublic 

Wordtracker and Ahrefs gave specific keyword click data and search volume. Google Trends and AnswerThePublic help create keyword lists to run through the keyword data tools. With the recent Google updates, quality content with the right keywords have become more important. We use this method for content and keyword ad buys.

We start with AnswerThePublic to find long tail keywords around topic ideas. Then we run the keywords through Google Trends to find associated keywords and related topics creating a long list of possible keywords. We then use Wordtracker and Ahrefs to pull volume, difficulty, and keyword cost. This helps us decide if the keyword is best to rank under a paid or organic strategy. 

However, with the recent news of Jumpshot closure, our team has started to look into the use of Semrush which will replace Ahrefs.

Tianna Mamalick, Digital Marketing Expert, Blue Meta

Google Keyword Planner. Best for getting useful keyword projections. This tool continues to improve. The recently added refine keywords feature, helps to focus-on or filter-out searches in different categories for brands, services, and products. It really helps cut through the noise and provide useful projections.

Semrush: Best for competitive intelligence and ad research. Semrush is like the best bar none when it comes to organic keyword analysis, competitive intelligence, historical position tracking, and ad research.

Keywords Everywhere: Best for on-the-fly search volume and related keywords. This tool has a strong common sense appeal to it – by simply showing the volume and cost of keywords that appear in your searches. The ease of installing and sharing data with others is valuable when trying to communicate high-level ideas about volume and cost quickly.

Google Trends: Best for emerging and cyclical search trends. Probably the most underrated tool when it comes to keyword research. Google Trends is great for getting a quick, hot take on emerging and cyclical search trends, specifically for seasonal trends changes, data-skewing spikes, and current trends to capitalize on.

– Ty Alyea, Director of Search Marketing Product, Service Direct

The first tool I would choose for keyword research in Mangools because it is an affordable way to do competitor and new keyphrase research.

The second tool I would use is Ubersuggest alongside Mangools to check the data and to make sure that they show similar results. Ubersuggest also has a free plan so it is great support.

I would also use Keywords Everywhere because it functions as you search something on Google even if you are not actively doing keyphrase research. It shows keyphrase suggestions inside of Google search to help you find new ideas when you don’t expect it.

The last one that I like is Frase, which helps you find the secondary key phrases that are relevant to what you are writing. You get more longtail keyphrase variations and those secondary key phrases that can increase your search rankings. 

– Dayana Mayfield, Copywriter and Publicity Coach, DayanaMayfield.com

The goal of keyword research is not only to find keywords that relate to my business and target audiences, but also to find ‘great’ keywords that will bring me a ton of search traffic without too much competition.

Here are my favorite tools:

AnswerThePublic: This has been my go-to keyword research tool for finding long-tail, low competition search phrases fast. AnswerThePublic pulls the questions people are asking, comparison phrases, and suggested autocomplete searches from Google. It’s super useful for generating topic ideas around a seed keyword.

Frase.io: This is a new keyword research and content analysis tool I started using of recent. Frase.io is so good at finding low competition keywords in the form of questions folks are asking in my industry. One cool feature I also like about Frase is the content improvement and optimization tool which suggests phrases and sub-topics to add into my content for better rankings.

KeywordsEverywhere: This is another research tool in form of a browser extension I use almost on a daily basis. It shows me search volume, CPC and competition for every keyword I search on Google. Plus, it also provides related keywords and people also ask for these phrases.

– Khris Steven, Owner and Content Marketer, KhrisDigital.com