November 21st, 2019 | Updated on April 13th, 2021
Keyword research can be both easy and mind boggling at the same time. Some people find it quite easier to understand and engage in it as a fun activity. But when it comes to beginners who are just beginning to understand the keyword research it can get tough.
You must have played through Google keyword planner and tinkered with autocomplete as well. keyword research can be quite difficult when you have just started out. But thanks to the free tools available today, keyword research can be quite easier.
There are a number of free tools like RankBrain, AI, digital assistants which might help you but in the beginning they definitely might sound confusing.
Kindly note that keyword research will never happen overnight. It is very important to understand how people search and what do they search even before you start mapping your keywords.
And with more than 6 billion day searches worldwide, the field is quite vast. You need to know the right and hot stuff here.
That’s where this article comes in which will help you to come across some of the free tools which will help you to identify keywords.
Some questions to be answered –
- What people search for?
- Where do they look for news article or trending topics?
- When should I write the article?
- Will the article perform well?
- How do I find these answers?
Below given are 15 of the most popular free tools which will help you with the correct keyword placement.
1. Buzzsumo
BuzzSumo is a research and monitoring tool. The functionality is broken down as follows: Find content that is most shared on social media channels – you can enter your own domain or another domain, and see what has been shared socially. Find influencers related to particular topics.
Review: FinancesOnline
BuzzSumo is one of the top social media analytics tools. It comes with a very powerful social media search engine that helps you find and analyze the best performing content related to a specific niche.
The search engine is responsible to sweep the web for the required content and listing the content sources based on their success rate (number of likes and shares.)
With the best content available to you in a matter of seconds, you get a lot of time to analyze the content for the reasons it’s performing well in the social media.
As you get insight into the factors that make the content successful, it gets relatively easier for you to plan and create effective and promising content for your target market.
2. SEMrush
SEMrush is recognized as the best SEO suite according to US Search Awards 2018, MENA Search Awards 2018 and SEMY Awards 2018. It is also the best digital tool according to Interactive Marketing Awards 2018.
SEMrush not only helps you perform day-to-day tasks, but also provides in-depth analysis that is very clear, can be easily incorporated into your digital marketing strategy and can significantly improve your performance.
Review: SEJ
To help you find what people are searching for around a particular topic, just type in your keyword or phrase and watch the magic happen. SEMrush will pull phrase match keywords, related keywords, and organic search results.
Paid users have more features and the pro version starts at $99 per month. But, you can still use the tool for free when searching for ideas.
3. Answer The Public
The auto suggest results provided by Google & Bing are a goldmine of insight for today’s marketeers.
As you type you are presented with an aggregated view of the questions & therefore a hint of the motivations & emotions of the people behind each search query.
It’s perhaps one of the best but most underutilised sources of research for content ideas. This is search insight that could and should be used by any marketing team. Creative, PR, Content, SEO.
Review: Lifewire
What We Like:
Seobility delivers high-quality information for free. Small websites can gain a wealth of information just using Seobility’s basic tools.
What We Don’t Like:
For large websites such as online stores, you’ll need a pro account to unlock the information you need.
4. Google Trends
With Google Trends, you can quickly view top stories or charts. And, you can search and compare specific keywords in three quick steps:
- Type in your keyword in the search box at the top.
- Click compare, then type in your second keyword.
- Adjust the dates if needed.
Review: TrustRadius
We use Google Trends to analyze keywords and popular search terms. It helps us target the keywords we want to use for our blog posts and social media posts.
Pros And Cons
- Gives insight into what keywords are popular.
- Gives suggested topics/ keywords.
- Some reports are not available for certain keywords due to insufficient data.
5. Facebook
Facebook makes it easy to show your work to the world. Publish thought-provoking video, get people commenting on it in News Feed and track user engagement on your Page with Page Insights.
Review: SEJ
Facebook is one of the easiest free tools for discovered relevant topics. Plus, a lot of people get their news from Facebook. The team at Facebook created Trending topics to provide a list of what is popular on Facebook right now.
If you’re on your laptop, Trending is located on the top right side of your News Feed. If you’re on your phone, just tap the search bar to see a drop-down list of trends.
Just pick a topic and watch the trending news stories roll on.
6. Twitter
Twitter is an American online microblogging and social networking service on which users post and interact with messages known as “tweets”. Tweets were originally restricted to 140 characters,
Review: common sense media
Social-networking site that brings up issues of safety, privacy, and a lasting digital footprint. The service allows users to post 140-character messages and follow their friends’ activities.
Updates appear immediately, and, though you can delete tweets, if other users have reposted them with a comment of their own, those tweets will remain.
Teen users would benefit from keeping their tweets private and individually approving followers.
7. YouTube
Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.
You can also check out YouTube Trends blog. It takes a look at trends happening on YouTube and what’s going on in the world around us like tracking the solar eclipse.
After you identify what’s trending on YouTube, you can compare the topics to your YouTube analytics. If you can tie the trending videos to your niche, it creates an opportunity for you to add a video with a strong potential to rank in YouTube.
Review: PCMag
While some video streaming services primarily feature on-demand or original content, others can completely replace your cable subscription.
YouTube TV takes the latter approach, offering over 70 channels of news, sports, and entertainment in a highly usable interface. It also integrates excellent DVR features.
Longtime users may be fuming at the service’s latest price hike, but it’s still only in the middle of the pack cost-wise, as far as cable-replacement services go.
Furthermore, YouTube TV has also added Discovery channels to its content mix since our last review, making it a new top choice for streaming live TV.
8. Pinterest
Pinterest, Inc. is a social media web and mobile application company. It operates a software system designed to enable saving and discovery of information on the World Wide Web using images and, on a smaller scale, GIFs and videos.
Review: SEJ
Pinterest launched Explore as a feature for Pinners to find out what’s popular on Pinterest. It uses an algorithm to create personalized pins of that day based on search trends. You can also browse up to 30 different topics.
While Pinterest created this to offer advertisers more organic options, it’s a pretty excellent tool for brainstorming content ideas.
9. Digg
Digg is a news aggregator with a curated front page, aiming to select stories specifically for the Internet audience such as science, trending political issues, and viral Internet issues
Review: Sitejabber
It’s my main source of news. The UI means I can focus on interesting articles and nothing more. Regardless of whether they’re paid to feature articles, the content is still great.
10. Google Autocomplete
The Place Autocomplete service is a web service that returns place predictions in response to an HTTP request.
The service can be used to provide autocomplete functionality for text-based geographic searches, by returning places such as businesses, addresses and points of interest as a user types.
When you start a search on Google, you can quickly find info with search predictions. Search predictions are possible search terms related to what you’re looking for and what other people have already searched for.
Review: SEJ
Google Autocomplete is a great tool for finding the best variations of your main keyword phrase. Just type in the Google search box, and related terms will display in a drop-down list.
You can then manually select the long-tail keyword phrase you want to use or pick a combination of phrases.
11. Google News
Google News is a news aggregator and app developed by Google. It presents a continuous, customizable flow of articles organized from thousands of publishers and magazines.
Google News is available on Android, iOS, and the web. A beta version was launched in September 2002, and released officially in January 2006.
Review: PlayStore
Incredibly biased feed. Leftwinged beyond a doubt. It keeps crashing as well whenever I’m halfway into an article, when it crashes it resets and sometimes that removes the article from the feed completely, or just pulls the feed back to the top.
Very frustrating! Most importantly, focusing on one side of politics makes Google News basically a propaganda channel for the Dems in the US and globalists and left wing governments elsewhere. Shame on you!
12. Google Alerts + IFTTT
Over 630 apps work with IFTTT including Twitter, Telegram, Google Drive, Twitch, Weather Underground, Dropbox, Slack, and devices like Google Home, Amazon Alexa, iRobot, LIFX, Philips Hue, and your iPhone. The IFTTT app also integrates with the Health app, so you can easily track and maintain your habits.
Turn On Connections And:
- Control everything around you with your voice and Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant
- Stay informed about what’s happening from publications like The New York Times and ProPublica
- Always stay prepared for the weather with custom daily forecast notifications
- Message roommates when you’re near the local grocery
- Stay safe with automated and intelligent home monitoring alerts
- Streamline your social media
Review: iTunes
IFTTT is a very user-friendly app that is the key to unlocking the proverbial door to Home Automation market. It’s a “wizzywig”, What you see is what you get! It connects the plethora of Service(s), i.e., Alexa, Cortana, Google Assistant, etc. & those speaker devices.
I’m using an iPhone a smartphone instead of those little speaker devices spread around your home that, BTW, are required if, gasp, you don’t have a smartphone.
The really cool cornerstone feature is the ability to create “recipes” by linking different services to your IFTTT profile & building your personal widgets.
I have had Logitech’s Harmony Home Hub that controls all devices that have an IR Remote Control.
I recently purchased 2 WEMO Smart Plugs and a WEMO BRIDGE which allows any WEMO DEVICE to be recognized by Apple’s HOME app via the Apple TV 4th Gen. acting as the main controller.
I can tell Siri a trigger phrase, Good Night, and the living room lights turn off. I can tell any of the popular, aforementioned, AI Asst., to turn off the TV, etc.
13. Google Search Console
Search Console tools and reports help you measure your site’s Search traffic and performance, fix issues, and make your site shine in Google Search results.
Review:
Google Seach Console is helping us monitor our Analytics in our sites to help us improve our search engine optimization where Analytics doesn’t.
Analytics is good for monitoring where people are clicking, where they are located in the world, their demographics, etc, but Google Search Console will help tell us why they are searching for us, what keywords they were using, etc.
Pros And Cons:
- Search engine optimization.
- Analyze data.
- Audience targeting.
- Implementation,
- User-friendliness,
- Ease-of-Use.
14. Google Keyword Planner
Keyword Planner is a free Google Ads tool for new or experienced advertisers that’s like a workshop for building new Search Network campaigns. You can use Keyword Planner to search for keywords and see how a list of keywords might perform.
Review: SEJ
Whenever you decide Google’s Keyword Planner is best for you it will help you clarify which keywords are attainable. You want to find that sweet spot of high search volume with low competition.
15. Rank Tracker by SEO Powersuite
If you think that a keyword rank checker tool providing unlimited data doesn’t exist, you’ve never tried Rank Tracker.
Track keywords with no limit, check positions in SERPs, see rankings for the exact location, and analyze the ranking performance of any keyword — all in one rank checker tool.
Review: SEJ
If you’re looking to see what keywords your competitors are ranking for, then Rank Tracker by SEO Powersuite is the place to go.
You simply add your website URL and plug in your competitor URL to see where the content gaps are your keywords. You can track up to 10 competitors.
Another cool feature with Rank Tracker is that it allows you to see if you have multiple pages ranking for the same keyword term.