10 Best Free and Paid Keyword Research Tools for SEO

One of the primary components of a successful SEO strategy is keyword research. By identifying and using the right keywords, you can attract a targeted audience to your blog or website.

I have compiled a list of 11 best Keyword Research Tools for you to overcome this difficulty. These SEO tool will help you to outrank your competitors and rank high in Google Search Results Pages (SERPs).

Some of these tools are free while some are paid. Some paid tools also have free trial so that you can see for yourself whether the research tools are working as described.

If you are satisfied with the tool then you can always upgrade to the premium version. Let's see which are the best keyword research tool that can help you grow your blog bigger.

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What are the Best Keyword Research Tools?

So, here are our best picks for 2025.

1. Semrush

Semrush is one of the best keyword research tool for bloggers. If you know which blog are your competitors and what are the keywords for which they are ranking then you don't have to look beyond this tool.

Just enter your competitors URL and instantly see all the keywords for which they are ranking. If you want to learn more, check out my Semrush review where I have explained all its features in detail.

You can also join the free trial by Semrush if you want to try the platform to see if it is the right SEO tool for your online business.

Main features of Semrush are:

• See competitors’ best keywords. Find short-tail and long-tail keywords to beat your competition
• Keyword difficulty analysis
• Conduct a deep link analysis and check backlinks' types
• Reveal any company’s website traffic and online performance
• Search engine reports
• Worldwide CPC distribution statistics (including Adsense CPC)
• 10000 results per report, 3000 reports per day and track 500 keywords plus 5 campaigns
• See all features here.

Plans & Pricing

1. Pro plan: This plan is for freelancers, startups and in-house marketers with limited budget. It starts with $139.95 per month if billed monthly. It also has annual plan which starts at $117.33 per month giving you a good 17% discount.
2. Guru plan: This plan is for Small and Medium Business (SMB) and and growing marketing agencies. This plan starts at $208.33 per month if billed annually (17% discount). Monthly subscription will cost you $249.95 per month.
3. Business plan: This plan is for bigger agencies and E-commerce projects and businesses. Monthly plan will cost you $499.95 every month and if you subscribe for the annual plan it will cost you $416.66 per month.

2. KWFinder

For a new blog long tail keyword performs better because you will find less competition here. While doing keyword research as a new blogger always look for long tail keyword with some decent volume and low competition.

KWFinder is a long tail keyword research tool. This tool is completely dedicated for keyword research, especially long tail keyword.

After finding long tail keyword in your niche you can easily get highly targeted traffic. 

Main features of KWFinder are:

• Keywords look up, keyword suggestion
• Competitor Keyword
• SERP lookups
• Track keywords and backlinks

Plans & Pricing

1. Mangools Basic: This plan starts at $49 per month but if you buy an annual plan it will cost you only $29.90 per month (40% saving). Basic plan is sufficient for any newbie bloggers as it has almost all the features of other advanced plan as mentioned below. Basic plan will allow you to perform 100 keywords lookup, 200 keywords suggestion, 25 competitor keywords among others.
2. Mangools Premium: This plan will cost $39.90 per month if you buy an annual plan. In this plan you can perform 500 keyword lookups, 700 keyword suggestion, unlimited competitor keyword research among others.
3. Mangools Agency:  This is the most advanced plan which will cost $79.90 per month. This plan is especially for SEO companies & agencies and bigger websites. This plans provides 1200 keyword lookups, 700 keyword suggestion, unlimited competitor keyword research, 15000 backlink rows among others.

3. Ahrefs Keywords Explorer

Ahrefs keyword explorer allows users to generate tons of keyword ideas, analyze their ranking difficulty and calculate their traffic potential.

It uses Clickstream data to refine its search volumes on regular basis.

One of its key feature is that it also shows the estimated number of clicks for your keywords. Thus, it is one of the best keyword research tools you can use.

Main features of Ahrefs Keyword Explorer are:

• Thousands of Keyword Suggestions and Keywords Lists
• Accurate Search Volumes
• Keyword Difficulty Score
• “Clicks” Metric and Advanced SEO Metrics
• SERP Overview & Positions History

Plans & Pricing

1. Lite: It's monthly billing plan starts at $99 per month but if you go for annual plan you will be charged $82 per month. So, basically, in annual plan you will be only charged for 10 months instead of 12. You can track 5 websites under this plan.
2. Other plans are Standard, Advanced and Agency costing $149, $332 and $832 respectively in their annual plan.

4. Serpstat

Serpstat is another great keyword tool for researching keywords for your blogs. It also provides SERP analysis, backlink analysis and also has a rank tracker.

Main features of Serpstat are:

• Collect keywords for SEO and PPC campaigns
• Determine the value of keywords
• Find keyword variations and search suggestions
• Get long-tail keywords
• Analyze keyword trends

Plans & Pricing

1. Lite: Lite plan cost $69 per month. You can track 15000 keywords in a month, track unlimited domains. You can perform backlink analysis and site audit also.
2. It's other plan includes Standard, Advanced and Enterprise which cost $149, $299 and $499 respectively. Check all the plans details here.

So far we have discussed about paid keyword research tool. Now let's focus on some free keyword research tool.

5. Google Keyword Planner

Google's Keyword Planner is a favorite of many new bloggers even seasoned one.

Everyone wants to rank high in Google search engine so targeting Google's own product, keyword planner came as a boon for keyword research as all the keyword ideas came directly from Google itself.

The steps for finding keyword ideas are fairly simple-

Login to Google Ads by going to https://ads.google.com and then go to Tools & Settings and select Keyword Planner.

Under Keyword Planner, select Discover new keywords as shown in the image given below.

On selecting GET RESULTS, you will be presented with some keyword ideas related to the keyword entered by you earlier along with average monthly searches and competition (see the image given below).

As a new blogger you can go for keywords with decent volume per month and low competition.

If you go with high or medium competition keywords it would be very difficult to rank on first page of Google search result.

So, as a rule always go for low competition keyword if you have just started a blog and want some type of initial traffic.

Once your blog grows big and has some authority in its niche then you can go for medium or high competition keywords.

6. Ubersuggest

Ubersuggest is a premium tool but it is still much cheaper than its alternatives like Ahrefs or Semrush or KWFinder.

Next on the list is Ubersuggest by Neil Patel. According to him, Ubersuggest provides you with keywords that are not available through the Google Keyword Planner.

And he advised that you always run a Ubersuggest search, after checking your keywords through the Google Keyword Planner.

So, basically you can use Ubersuggest in combination with Google Keyword Planner for optimum result.

Just type in your keyword in this tool and it will come up with large number of keyword ideas.

In addition to a web search, you can also search Images, Shopping, YouTube and News.

7. Wordstream

Wordstream Keyword Tool is another great free tool for keyword research.

This tool makes it fast and easy to find the keywords your blog needs to drive traffic through organic and paid search.

Enter a keyword and you will get hundreds of relevant keyword ideas.

The keyword ideas this tool generates, gives a competition score and an estimated CPC.

You can even download the keyword list in a CSV format that's ready to upload directly into Google Ads, which you can use on your ads campaigns.

Thus, you can use this tool if you want to drive traffic to your blog either through organic search or paid search advertisements.

8. Google Search Console

Most new bloggers think that Google Search Console (GSE) is only for verifying and adding your website for faster indexing and submitting sitemap.

What they don't know that it can also be used to drive additional traffic to your existing blog post.

Let's see how we can achieve this. GSE shows a lot of data about the keywords that your blog already rank for.

Head over to Performance tab in GSE, here you can see all the keywords which are driving traffic to your blog. Here along with keywords you can also see number of click, impressions, CTR and position.

Now you will have to make a list of keywords where you are getting high volumes of impression but low CTR as your position is too far.

Once you make the list you may want to focus on ranking higher for that keyword instead of targeting new keywords.

Pro Tip:

Type a keyword from the list you made above in Google search engine. You will see list of all the websites which are ranking on the first page.

Analyze each website for their titles, meta descriptions, their post, etc.

Now redraft your post content, title, meta description, add some images or infographics and even a video if possible to make the post better than your competitors.

After doing this, your post will definitely move up in ranking.

Though GSE doesn't help in finding new keyword ideas but as explained above it can be a very handy tool to boost your traffic by revisiting and modifying your existing blog content.

9. Soovle

Soovle gives you suggested keyword ideas from Google, Wikipedia, YouTube, Answers.com, Bing, Amazon and Yahoo.

Thus, with this tool you can find untapped keywords that your competitor website doesn’t know about.

Search your favorite keyword in this tool, save it and download it in CSV file.

10. Moz

Moz Keyword Explorer is designed to help users discover and prioritize the best keywords for their SEO strategies. It provides various metrics, including search volume, difficulty score, and organic click-through rates.

It offers intuitive insights that help prioritize keywords based on their potential impact. The tool’s focus on user-friendly metrics makes it suitable for SEO professionals of all experience levels.

Moz’s tool aids in simplifying the keyword research process, allowing users to focus on actionable insights that lead to improved search rankings. The tool boasts a database of over 500 million keywords, making it a valuable resource for any content creator.

Explore this keyword research tool here - Moz Explorer.

Now we have came at the end of this article. Hope you have got some idea about what are the best keyword tools available, both paid and free, for your keyword research.

Why Use Keyword Research Tools?

Keyword research tools are essential for understanding the phrases people use when searching online.

These tools provide data on search volume, competition, trends, and even content suggestions. With this information, you can craft content that answers user queries and stays ahead of your competitors.

Here’s why keyword research tools are critical for your SEO efforts:

In this article, we discussed and learn about the 11 best free and paid keyword research tool for SEO that will help you in finding quality keywords for driving consistent traffic to your blog.

Free keyword research tools are great but they are limited in features in comparison to paid ones. I would recommend you to go for paid tools to get premium features like competitor analysis, backlink analysis, rank tracker, and more.

So if you want to track your competitors keywords and its backlinks I suggest you to invest in popular tools like Semrush. Blogging can be a rewarding career but only when it is done right with the best tools to guide you. 

Also Read: Best deals on Blogging Tools.