Keyword research is an extremely important part of any SEO campaign – but knowing what tools are the best for finding keywords that can bring results quickly is
Our goal is to help you decide which keyword research tool is the right one for you based on your budget, stage of business and competitive needs. A lot of the use of these tools also lies in the look and feel of a tool – some tools I find much more aesthetically pleasing than others – so you may find your preferences for layout and look may be different.
I do NOT recommend you make any purchase right away – but if one on this list appeals to you – take it for a trial run before committing to make sure you feel it will be a good fit.
Our Keyword Research Tool Analysis Process
We want to be clear, this test is about finding the most affordable tool for your budget that delivers the biggest opportunity to find long tail keywords to help you rank faster!
Here is what we did with each tool to come up with the data below..
- We entered the keyword exact as shown in each tool
- US is the location used for all of the keyword searches
- We did not filter or change any of the results returned and the numbers provided are exactly what was shown in the tool tested
- All tests were done on Thursday May 7th, 2020
- Below keyword 1 we will show our thoughts on each tool and provide a screenshot of the keyword results area so you can see how it looks
- Below additional keyword tests we will just show the results provided
Keyword Research Tool Test 1
Keyword 1:
Dog Training
Keyword Results Returned
Ahrefs: 148,597
KeySearch: 700
KWFinder: 625
SEMRush: 175,696
SERPStat: 224,200
Ahrefs Keyword Research Results
Ahrefs returned 148,597 keywords results for the term and at first glance does a great job of giving us some really unique alternatives and long tail queries that we can work on.
Some of the things we like about their tool includes:
- It clearly defines misspelled words with a little yellow warning triangle letting you know better alternatives are available.
- It allows you to sort the columns in a variety of ways and you can customize the column layout as well.
- Filtering options are the best we have seen to help you really refine your search to find great keyword opportunities.
- Easy to see if the keyword has special ranking opportunities like video, FAQ or snippets.
Ahrefs pricing starts at $99 per month
You get 2 months free if you pay for a year in advance.
Below is the Ahrefs interface showing all the keyword ideas for our keyword.
KeySearch Results
KeySearch returned 700 results which I thought was odd since I knew that there was a lot more than 700. I could not find anything about limits, but that is all it gave me.
Some of the things we like about their tool includes:
- The search trends graph is awesome and makes it clear if the word is on an up or down trend in search volume
- There is filtering capabilities to help you find keywords by a variety of metrics
- At the click of a button you can see the difficulty of a keyword
- Easy to see if the keyword has special ranking opportunities like video, FAQ or snippets.
Serpstat pricing starts at $17 per month
Rates decrease if you pay 12 months in advance.
Below is a screenshot of the keyword research dashboard.
SEMRush Keyword Research Results
SEMRush returned 175,696 results for the term and at first glance does a great job of giving us some really unique alternatives and long tail queries that we can work on.
Some of the things we like about their tool includes:
- The trends graph which is a great way to gauge whether a keyword is on an uptrend or downtrend.
- Easy to find questions and related terms.
- Advanced filtering for more in depth search
- Additional filters on the left can be used to create silos/topic clusters
SEMRush pricing starts at $99.95 per month
You can save 16% if you sign up for an annual subscription.
In the screenshot below you can see that we filtered the main keyword “dog training” to look for those terms with a keyword difficulty of less than 30 and we were still left with 1,400 terms.
SerpStat Keyword Research Results
Serpstat returned 224,200 results for the term and at first glance does a great job of giving us some really unique alternatives and long tail queries that we can work on.
Some of the things we like about their tool includes:
- It clearly defines misspelled words with a little yellow warning triangle letting you know better alternatives are available.
- It allows you to sort the columns in a variety of ways and you can customize the column layout as well.
- Filtering options are the best we have seen to help you really refine your search to find great keyword opportunities.
- Easy to see if the keyword has special ranking opportunities like video, FAQ or snippets.
Serpstat pricing starts at $69 per month
Rates decrease if you pay for 3, 6 or 12 months in advance.
In the screenshot below you can see that we filtered the main keyword “dog training” to look for those terms with a keyword difficulty of less than 30 and we were still left with 1,400 terms.
Other Keyword Tool Options
Below are are additional items we did not test because we did not feel they were good enough to warrant a full review. (We could not afford to test everyone of the any way!). But we wanted to mention them because they are still an option and if you do not like any of the above – we wanted to give you a few more.
SpyFu
I used SpyFu many years ago when I was working more with PPC ads an needed to do some competitor research to see what Adwords were working for them. But they have come a long way since then and do have a Keyword Research tool in their platform now.
I did take a test drive which shows you a very limited list – but you can see below it returned 126,171 results when I put in “dog training” for my keyword.
Their pricing starts at $39 per month. You can save money by getting an annual plan.
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