The 17 Best Keyword Research Tools for SEO and SEM

Revised May 28, 2020
Revised July 8, 2019
Revised February 20, 2017

Despite some misleading chatter to the contrary, SEO is not dead, and keywords still matter. What is true is that search engines have improved their semantic capabilities, meaning they look for the meaning in each block of text rather than just specific phrases. That is, search engine algorithms understand that words like “car,” “motor vehicle” and “automobile” are synonyms. And of course, keyword stuffing, as an SEO tactic, is long dead.

But keywords (more precisely, keyword phrases) still matter in the sense they reveal searcher intent. A query like “best time of year to plant a maple tree” is informational, while “best place to buy a maple tree” is transactional. A nursery that understands the importance of content marketing and SEO may very well want to optimize content on its site for both types of queries—but they will be different pieces of content.

And those may not actually even be the best phrases for the nursery to target; there may be just slightly different phrases that are better, in terms of their combination of high search volume and low organic and/or paid search competition. That’s where keyword research comes in.

So once you or your team have developed topic ideas, planned content, and researched those subjects,  it’s time to use keyword research tools to find the best phrases to match up searcher intent with your approach to each topic. Here are 17 of the best keyword research tools according to expert reviewers.

1) Wordtracker
Google Review Count: 401

Provides up to 2,000 related suggestions for any keyword phrase, plus competitive data to help narrow results.

Sample review: “Wordtracker is a helpful keyword research tool that allows you to locate the top-performing keywords in minutes.” — Express Writers

Pricing: $27 to $99 per month

Showcase reviews: Express Writers

2) KeywordTool.io
Google Review Count: 395

A free tool that provides suggestions for related keyword phrases in a wide range of languages, across Google, Bing, YouTube, Amazon, and the app store.

Sample review: “This is a great solution to use alongside Google Keyword Planner to get better, more precise results.” — StoreYa Blog

Pricing: free; pro version available at $48 to $88 per month

Showcase reviews: Robbie Richards, StoreYa Blog

3) SEMrush
Google Review Count: 231

A powerful keyword tool that will display for any website (so you can track your own sites as well as competitors’) the top ranking keywords in both organic and paid search,  along with organic rank, rank changes, and keyword volume trends. SEMrush can also help you evaluate and pursue different types of backlinks, audit your website, and perform many other SEO tasks.

Sample review: “If your competitor is ranking for particular search terms you may be able to write content and start ranking for this content instead of them…Very handy!!” — RazorSocial (World)

Pricing: $70 to $550 per month

Showcase reviews: Kissmetrics, RazorSocial (World), MarketingLand, StoreYa Blog, Express Writers, Robbie Richards

4) HitTail
Google Review Count: 197

Unlike most keyword tools, which rely on seed keywords, HitTail operates continuously in the background generating keyword suggestions by analyzing your existing website traffic. It provides specific long tail keywords relevant to your audience.

Pricing: $10 to $80 per month

Showcase reviews: RazorSocial (Technology)

5) Ubersuggest
Google Review Count: 193

Enter any keyword phrase and get dozens of suggestions for related search terms. You can also specify your language and type of search (web, images, YouTube, shopping, or news).

Sample review: “Use Ubersuggest to help with your keyword research.  Great also for helping come up with blog post titles.” — RazorSocial (Technology)

Pricing: free

Showcase reviews: RazorSocial (Technology), BuzzBlogger, Perception System

6) SpyFu
Google Review Count: 186

Search for any domain and see every place they’ve shown up on Google: every keyword bought on Adwords, every organic rank, and every ad variation in the last 9 years. Also find contact information for domains, successful AdWords ad texts, and negative keywords.

Sample review: “This is an easy-to-use tool that lets you know which keywords your competitors are targeting, both in organic search and in AdWords. You simply type in your competitor and you can download an entire list of these keywords.” — Kissmetrics

Pricing: $49 to $299 per month

Showcase reviews: Kissmetrics, MarketingLand, Lilach Bullock, StoreYa Blog

7) KWFinder
Google Review Count: 162

Find keyword ideas along with search volume and SEO difficulty on a 1-100 scale and color-coded. Drill down by geography find local keywords and associated rank competition level.

Pricing: free to $25 per month

Showcase reviews: Robbie Richards

8) Soovle
Google Review Count: 154

Type in any keyword or phrase and see the top related search terms on Google, Wikipedia, Answers.com, YouTube, Bing, Yahoo!, and Amazon.com.

Pricing: free

Showcase reviews: Perception System

9) Google Keyword Planner
Google Review Count: 140

Enter a URL or small list of keywords and get hundreds of suggestions for related search phrases, along with the monthly search volume and level of paid search competition for each term.

Sample review: “For identifying new keywords for your organization, there’s no better place to start than Google’s Keyword Tool…you can identify monthly searches of various keywords, discover new variations of long-tail keywords and for your PPC efforts, estimated CPC costs to help determine your future campaign spend.” — Smart Bug Media

Pricing: free (but requires an active Google AdWords account)

Showcase reviews: Social Media Today, Perception System, Smart Bug Media, StoreYa Blog, Robbie Richards

10) Long Tail Platinum
Google Review Count: 129

Generate keyword ideas along with search volume, organic rank difficulty, current ranking sites, and paid competition. Filter and sort results to narrow target keyword lists.

Pricing: $37 per month or $600 per year

Showcase reviews: Robbie Richards

11) WordStream Keyword Tool
Google Review Count: 127

WordStream offers a set of free (as well as fee-based) tools to help find and group keywords, as well identify negative keywords for PPC advertising campaigns.

Sample review: “Make sure you take the time to optimise your curated content. Use tools like Wordstream to help you find relevant and trending keywords.” — Maximize Social Business

Pricing: free to $279 per month

Showcase reviews: Maximize Social Business

12) CanIRank
Google Review Count: 115

Per the website, CanIRank is “the only SEO software able to calculate a Keyword ROI Score to find the best balance between ranking difficulty and keyword value specifically for your website.” Provides keyword recommendations, search volume, SEO difficulty, and ad value, along with automated reporting.

Pricing: free to $299 per month

Showcase reviews: Robbie Richards

13) TermExplorer
Google Review Count: 110

Appears to be out of business. Perhaps being #13 on this list was unlucky.

Pricing: $34 to $499 per month

Showcase reviews: Robbie Richards

14) AuthorityMetrics
Google Review Count: 79

Find competitors’ keywords and keyword ideas along with search volume and keyword competition data.

Pricing: $33 to $199 per month

Showcase reviews: Express Writers

15) Live Keyword Analysis
Google Review Count: 65

An on-the-fly keyword analysis tool: enter up to three keyword phrases along with a block of text and instantly see the keyword density for each phrase.

Sample review: “The Live Keyword Analysis tool is designed so that you can refine a body of text to make it match a desired keyword density…make adjustments right in the text box to adjust the density of each word until you reach the right balance.” — SiteTuners

Pricing: free

Showcase reviews: SiteTuners

16) Google Keyword Suggest Tool
Google Review Count: 59

Enter a phrase and get back the most popular related search phrases beginning with that term from the Google, Amazon, YouTube, and Bing “Suggest” databases.

Pricing: free

Showcase reviews: Moz

17) SEO Book Keyword Research & Competitive Analysis Tools Gadget
Google Review Count: 40

This “gadget” enables you to use multiple free keyword analysis tools from one location, with additional links to paid keyword research tools and competitive analysis tools.

Sample review: “This is a really cool tool because you can place it right on your site and then get information about your competitors all in one place. In other words, it’s more of a “gadget” than a tool, meaning it’s a little button you can use to find information using another competitive analysis tool (which the installation will give you).” — Kissmetrics

Pricing: free

Showcase reviews: Kissmetrics

More Tools

TwinWord
Google Review Count: 133

Enter any keyword phrase and this tool will generate a huge list of related keywords, along with search volume, relevance to your original term, level of organic and paid competition, and a keyword score indicating the best phrases to optimize on. You can also see related popular topics, filter by user intent, and filter results by patterns (the most common patterns in the suggested keywords, such as how, when, best, or cheap).

Pricing: $12/$24/$59 per month

Northcutt Free SEO Tools
Google Review Count: 107

Northcutt offers seven free keyword tools for functions including checking keyword density, extracting keywords used on a competitor’s website, suggesting new keywords, and tracking rankings. They also offer a variety of other free SEO tools for backlink checking, domain authority, website spidering, rank checking, meta tags and on-page SEO, speed testing, and source code checking.

Pricing: free

Keyword Tool
Google Review Count: 14

This free keyword tool generates tens of thousands of keywords using suggest APIs from Google, YouTube, Bing, and other search engines. Along with the keywords, it also shows monthly search volume and the estimated cost per click. The tool generates long-tail keywords by sending a large number of variations of your seed keyword to the suggest APIs.

Pricing: free

Showcase Reviews

BuzzBlogger
Lilach Bullock
Express Writers
Kissmetrics
MarketingLand
Maximize Social Business
Moz
Perception System
RazorSocial (World)
RazorSocial (Technology)
Robbie Richards
SiteTuners
SmartBug Media
Social Media Today
StoreYa Blog

This was the 10th post in the Best Online Business Tools series.

#1: Best Online Business Tools Series Kicks Off Today

#2: The 12 Best Competitive Intelligence and Benchmarking Tools

#3: The Nine Best Facebook Marketing Tools

#4: The 14 Best Content Planning and Research Tools

#5: The 23 Best Content Ideation Tools

#6: The 24 Best Online Writing Tools and Apps

#7: The Six Best Google+ Marketing Tools

#8: The Four Best Online Education Tools For Business Pros

#9: The 14 Best Marketing Automation Tools

#10: The 17 Best Keyword Research Tools for SEO and SEM