Keyword research is at the center of SEO.
It lets you find out:
- what your customers are interested in,
- what you are ranking for,
- what you could be ranking for, and
- how to expand your existing content.
And keyword research is best done using tools that do most of the job for you.
Keyword research tools are a goldmine of information for SEOs, website owners, and content creators.
Knowing how important it is and how useful it can be, you want to be using the best tool available.
When researching this topic, all I could find were lists upon lists of different tools that didn’t really break anything down to help me choose the best keyword research tool.
That’s why I made sure this product showdown does more than present you with the 5 best keyword research tools on the market. You will be able to see exactly what is different between them.
You will know what you get from expensive options and what you are compromising when buying a subscription for a cheaper tool or using a free competitor.
The criteria I explored include the ease of use, the number, and quality of options and functionalities, as well as the price. Here we go.
Semrush
There’s barely a product showdown on the topic that doesn’t list Semrush in the top 3 positions. And for a good reason.
Semrush started as a keyword research tool. Now, it’s a complete SEO tool suite.
Why is it our #1?
Semrush comes with a ton of high-quality keyword data.
It can inform you about the keyword volume, density (which may be important due to the properties of the TF*IDF algorithm), difficulty (and their recently updated keyword difficulty formula is very accurate – read their blog post to find out why), Ad CPC, and more.
While there is a learning curve to using this tool, I think the User Interface is more intuitive than with other tools.
The search bar is a great example. You don’t have to find any specific tabs to perform a search. Type whatever you want, and Semrush will figure out what kind of data you are looking for, whether it be keyword analysis or a domain overview.
Top features
Keyword Overview: a quick snapshot of the most important metrics of a keyword.
Keyword Magic Tool: find both short- and long-tail keywords. The tool gives you comprehensive lists of relevant keywords related to your seed.
Phrase Match Report: type a subject you are interested in, and Semrush will provide variations of a keyword that are easier to rank for.
Keyword Analyzer: groups your targeted keywords into clusters to make planning out future posts and campaigns a breeze.
Trend Analysis: lets you know what the given keyword’s ranking was like over the last 12 months. This is very helpful when analyzing rankings over time and the impact of Google algorithm updates. Few other tools show this information.
Keyword Gap Analysis: instantly compares up to 5 domains to show which of your competitors’ keywords your site is not ranking for.
Semrush is praised for its competitor analysis. You can track specific URLs or even entire domains to see what queries and keywords they are ranking for.
The tool will even suggest who your competitors are. And this is not always that obvious.
Pay-per-click data is within easy reach as other keyword analytics. You don’t have to perform separate searches.
The tool can even inform you about yearly keyword trends, another great feature for planning future posts. More expensive packages let you track rankings from as early as 2012.
Monthly search volume lets you know how many searches are performed on a given query per month. The trend column informs you about whether a query is becoming more or less popular.
Tip: You don’t want to go for a dying keyword, but on the other hand, one that is growing will be harder and harder to rank for.
And lastly, any analysis you perform can be downloaded as a report in CSV and XLS formats. You don’t have to play around with excel at all: a huge time-saver.
Semrush is the most comprehensive keyword and SEO tool out there. What comes with that is, unfortunately, the highest price. But, when you want the best of the best, you do have to pay for it.
Pricing options
There is a 7-day free trial that includes all the features. When it comes to plans, there are three types of subscriptions ranging from about $100/month up to roughly $450/month. You can up your plan anytime from the moment you sign up.
| What you pay | What you get |
| Pro: $99.95/month billed annually or $119.95/month billed monthly |
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| Guru: $229.95/month billed annually or $191.62/month billed monthly |
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| Business: $449.95/month billed annually or $374.95/month billed monthly |
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Biggest selling point
Semrush has a convenient plugin that works with WordPress and Google docs. The SEO Writing Assistant analyzes your chosen target keyword and gives you real-time feedback. Some of the features it checks include:
- SEO-friendliness,
- Readability,
- Originality,
- Strong and weak points of text,
- Tone.
And it’s actually free! All you have to do is create a Semrush account and you get one template to work with. If you need more, you will have to invest in a membership.
Pros and cons
| Pros | Cons |
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Ahrefs Keyword Explorer
Ahrefs is the other mogul in the SEO toolkit world. While it isn’t quite as praised as Semrush, the features it offers are many and of comparable accuracy. Ahrefs has its own database from which it pulls information. The tool is best known for its accurate and in-depth backlink analysis.
Why is it our #2?
Among other numerous features, Ahrefs can do all the basics like generate reports on keyword difficulty, suggested keywords, traffic, and more.
Like SEMrush, Ahrefs makes use of Clickstream data to determine the relationship between keyword volume and the number of clicks you can actually expect from ranking for it. This is incredibly useful; many keywords have huge traffic volume but don’t generate any clicks because of featured snippets and rich results.
The tool also allows you to track the featured snippets you have and suggests which you can possibly steal from competitors.
You can even search a particular domain to see how your competitor is targeting link-building and PPC.
You can also perform site audits to your own website to make sure no on-page issues are hurting your performance. The overview of your site will also let you know:
- how many keywords you are ranking for (and what they are),
- how many keywords you are tracking, and
- your positions for those keywords.
In direct comparison with Semrush, Ahrefs is missing keyword data like the volume trend and number of results on SERPs. They both give the user search volume, CPC, and competition analysis. Ahrefs may arguably win the last point thanks to their in-depth backlink tracking.
A case study from 2020 shows that it provides more referring domains than Semrush. What’s more, for 2% of all the ones included in the study, Ahrefs was the only one to recognize the backlinks.
When further looking into these two top tools, many SEOs also mention the differences in data updates. Ahrefs does this regularly, so if you plan accordingly, you won’t end up with a fresh post or campaign plan that turns about to be out of date the next day.
Let’s have a look at some of these notable Ahrefs features:
Rank Tracking: you can track keywords you are interested in with updates on their traffic by location and device. What’s more, Ahrefs can let you know what your progress against the competition is like for those particular keywords.
Content gap: search which keywords your competitors are ranking for that you are not (there’s even a checkbox to look up only top 10 Google SERPs)
Organic keywords report: among other things, it lets you know which keywords you are already ranking for, but haven’t yet reached the top 3 positions. This is very helpful when you are trying to optimize an existing page. Those are the keywords you should be prioritizing.
Tip: especially if you are performing keyword research outside of the US, look up which tool has the largest database for your target location before purchasing a membership.
Pricing options
There are four pricing plans and a 7-day free trial. The latter consists of all the Lite and Standard features for $7. If you choose to pay on an annual basis, you get 2 months free.
| What you pay | What you get |
| Lite: $99 |
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| Standard: $179 |
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| Advanced: $399 |
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| Agency: $999 |
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Biggest selling point
Ahrefs’ backlink analysis is second to none. It provides data as accurate as how many backlinks you need to rank on the first page of Google’s SERPs for a given query.
Pros and cons
| Pros | Cons |
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KWFinder
KWFinder is dedicated to keyword research only. It has limited functionalities when it comes to in-depth competition analysis, gathering backlink data, and the like.
Why is it our #3?
Many SEOs find KWFinder results reasonably accurate. It is a simple tool that helps you find specific keywords and lets you know about their difficulty.
There is practically no learning curve. While there are not a lot of functionalities, those it does have are easy to find and intuitive to use.
There are filters for you to use to make the whole process more convenient and you can export lists to plan posts.
KWFinder also keeps track of your searches and you can look through the last 20 or so. You can separate those into query types such as questions. It’s good quality for the price you pay.
What’s more, other than Semrush, no other tool provides data on the keyword trend.
Pricing options
There is a 10-day free trial that includes all features and a 48-hour money-back guarantee. There are three plans to choose from.
| What you pay | What you get |
| Basic: $29.99 |
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| Premium: $39.99 |
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| Agency: $79.99 |
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Biggest selling point
The user interface is very intuitive and easy to navigate. If you are a beginner or work on a small scale, this tool is perfect for you.
Pros and cons
| Pros | Cons |
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Google Keyword Planner
Google Keyword Planner is a so-called “big picture” tool. It wasn’t designed for keyword research and organic ranking. The goal was to make it easier for advertisers to target Adwords. Nonetheless, it can be a helpful tool for other things, especially that it is free.
Why is it our #4?
First of all, Google Keyword Planner is free. You do have to sign up for a Google Ads account, but there is no fee. You will have to provide some basic information about your business, and then you will be able to perform searches by keyword or domain.
This tool is integrated with Google Ads directly. This may mean abundant and fairly accurate data, but it is not a helpful tool if you are trying to rank on Bing or Yahoo.
The biggest advantages include the ease of finding long-tail keywords that are moderately easy to rank for.
When it comes to analyzing competition, it is not as reliable as Semrush or Ahrefs, despite data coming directly from Google. This is because in 2016, GKP began grouping keyword variants together, so you are not getting as much information (or, rather, it is not as detailed). All in all, Google does care which keywords you choose to use.
You can also perform separate searches depending on the device you are targeting (mobile vs. desktop). But there is a catch; you have to set up a paid campaign.
Many SEOs like to take advantage of Google Keyword Planner in combination with other tools.
Pricing options
Google Keyword Planner is free.
Biggest selling point
The most interesting feature is finding the top of the page bid range. It lets users know how much advertisers can make on a given keyword per click.
Pros and cons
| Pros | Cons |
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AnswerThePublic
AnswerThePublic is a great place to start if you are an SEO beginner. The free version is limited, but you don’t even need to create an account. All data you pull from it is given to you in a clear, visual format. There is no clicking around thousands of tabs.
Why is it our #5?
Keyword research results are based on auto-complete features from Google and Bing. You can click on any query, and it will conveniently pop up in a new tab. This quickly shows you what kind of content is ranking for the particular keyword.
This keyword research tool is best for long-tail and question-based searches. The data is presented in a visual format.
AnswerThePublic can also be a great fit if you want to build an FAQ section or target featured snippets.
You can sort the data in a variety of ways. The categories include:
- Questions
- Prepositions
- Comparisons
- Alphabetical
- Related
Pricing options
The free plan lets you search for 3 keywords per day. The Pro Plan gives you unlimited searches, and you can choose to be charged monthly or annually. There is also an Enterprise plan that gives you extended features.
| What you pay | What you get |
| $99 per month, charged monthly or $79 per month, charged annually |
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| $399 per month, charged annually |
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Biggest selling point
Search Listening Alerts which let you know what new questions are asked on your chosen topics. You get updates every week. This feature is only available once you purchase a plan.
Pros and cons
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Keyword research tools for a small budget
As mentioned above, Google Keyword Planner and AnswerThePublic are free resources that may be a good fit for some website owners or SEOs. If you do have an existing budget and need a bit more functionalities, KWFinder with a subscription under $30 may be a great answer.
Some other resources we can recommend if you don’t want to break your wallet include:
- Soovle,
- Google Search Console, and
- SECockpit.
Soovle is one of the better free research tools that lets you optimize for Google, YouTube, Bing, Yahoo, and Amazon. A fun feature includes a “save suggestions” function. You simply drag and drop whatever you want to expand on in the future and you can conveniently download all of those in CSV format.
Google Search Console is also free and a great help when you want to optimize an existing page. The data comes directly from Google, so you can be sure it’s accurate, especially if that’s the search engine you want to optimize for.
It mainly serves other purposes, but the Performance Report is pretty handy in giving you “opportunity keywords”. It lets you know which of your pages are bringing in most traffic from Google and the exact queries that made this happen.
“Opportunity Keywords” are those that make your pages rank between the 8th and 10th position on Google. That means putting in a little effort gives you the possibility of getting those coveted top 3 positions in Google SERPs.
And finally, SECockpit has a subscription plan for $25 a month (at the time of writing this article). It works a lot like Semrush and Ahrefs, but it’s a little more limited in what it can do. Nonetheless, it can be overwhelming if you are just starting out.
Quality of data
Why is data different across different keyword research tools? Well, they all use different methodologies. Not all are clear on what their sources are.
- Any Google tools are obviously getting precise data from, well, Google. So you can rely on Google Keyword Planner and the Search Console to provide facts. Whether they give you all the facts is a different question.
- Ahrefs have their own database. They have proprietary crawlers who collect the data daily. Their backlink index is updated every 15-30 minutes.
- Semrush also use their own machine-learning algorithms to gather information, but they also quote “trusted data providers” as their source.
- AnswerThePublic use auto-complete features from search engines and give the information to their users in a convenient format.
- And finally, KWFinder have published a blog entry on where they get their data from, but… Well, it’s not exactly clear. In their own words, they use “multiple data providers alongside [their] own know-how and processing”.
Final thoughts
Should you invest in keyword research tools? Well, there are ways you can get around that. But it requires a lot more work and the data you find is likely going to be less accurate.
If you are just starting out, play around with free trials. See what you’re comfortable with. Before purchasing, make sure you are going to use all the tools you will be paying for. Don’t overpay for larger plans if you aren’t going to take full advantage of them.
And, remember, there is a learning curve to most tools.
