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Free keyword research tools are money savers.

And the good news is, I have an army of them to use and even share with you.

Keywords research is the most common seo term you may have heard in your blogging journey.(Just mentioned it too. Winks)

I bet you are tired of SEO experts chanting ‘do keywords research for SEO’ when you don’t know where to start. Annoying right?

It is quite the easiest seo strategy you may want to start with when it comes to optimizing your blog site and post for SEO and the first thing to tackle in SEO

See, most newbie bloggers just start writing without finding out if people will search for the topic they are writing about….(Guilty of this when I started blogging)

And you know what?

It’s completely fine because you are new anyway and you have no idea what SEO or even what keywords are…..For now.

But honestly it doesn’t have to be like that.

What to Expect…

In this blog post, I will explain what keywords are and how to search for keywords for your blog post……as best as I can.

Plus an ultimate list of the best free keywords research tools you can start doing your research with.

RELATED POST: SEO TIPS THAT WORKED FOR ME

Click on any link in the table of contents to read what you want to read

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What are Keywords in SEO?

Keywords are basically the search term people use to search for information that you may have in your blog post.

For instance, if you are searching for ‘keto recipes’, you will probably enter the phrase ‘keto recipes’ on Google or any other search engine to get keto recipes you want to try out.

Here, ‘Keto recipes’ is a keyword or a search term.

Short phrases like these in SEO language are known as head-terms or short-tail keywords.

Also, if you are writing a blog post on ‘cheap and easy to make recipes for broke college students’, your main focus keyword can be ‘cheap and easy to make recipes’.

In this case, your post will be all about cheap and easy to make recipes that broke college students can make.

This type of keyword is long and specific thus in SEO language it is known as the long tail keyword.

I hope I am making sense here?

Okay then let’s move on to the next topic.

Let’s talk about keywords research

What is keywords research?

Keywords research is the process for looking for the best words and phrases that a user may use to search for content on search engines

It is the key to finding topics and phrases that you can easily rank for on Search engines.

There are different types of keywords you can research and use in your blog posts or website.

The most known types of keywords are Long-tail keywords and short-tail keywords. (I know I have mentioned it already)

There is a third one that is not popular but I talk about in this blog post on the 3 different types of keywords.

How do you research keywords and rank on Google?

This has a simple answer for it and here is how you go about it.

# 1 Brainstorm topics that are related to your blog topic

Think of it like this. When you want to write about a topic, there is specific information you want to give out with your blog post.

Is that not it? Right!

The idea behind the information you want to give out is the main keyword for your blog post idea.

For instance, for this particular blog post, I got the idea to write something on keywords in SEO.

I knew it will be based on keyword research and keyword tools, so I wrote them down.

The two keywords I wrote down are known as the short-tail keywords because well, they are short.

Pro Tip: If you want to come up with keywords fast, like me, grab a pen and paper and jot down simple keywords that your post will be about.

Then after brainstorming the keywords for my post, I started brainstorming for longtail questions and words that people may search for in relation to the keywords that I have listed. Like these:

What are Keywords in SEO

How to do keywords research

What are the best Free keyword tools

What are the best keyword research tools

How to find keywords

These keywords are known as Long-Tail keywords because they are more than 4 words and specific.

You can use SEO Scout to come up with long tail keywords. It’s so worth it.

Just type in a phrase and you will get loads of search terms that are related to your keyword.

2. Search for the intent behind the keyword term on Google

Search intent is the type of information search engines show when you search using a keyword term.

Google monitors users when they search for something on their system.

This is basically done to find what people are looking for when they type in a keyword.

For instance, it monitors those who search for keto recipes and which types of results they click on.

If the majority of keto recipes searchers click on sites that provide a list of keto recipes they can make, then Google will start showing results for keto recipes that have lists of dozen recipes.

For more explanation on search intent, I will be using this blog post as an example.

Here is what I did to understand the search intent behind the search term ‘keywords research’.

I searched for keywords research to understand what people normally look for when they search using that search term.

From my search, people who search for the term ‘keywords research’ are looking for 3 things. That is;

Free Keyword research tools A guide for doing keywords research Understanding what keywords research is all about.

This information helped me to craft my post according to the search intent.

Read more on search intent by clicking on the link.

3. Check questions in the people also ask box in Google

Another goldmine for digging up keywords is the people also ask in Google SERPS.

I use this to search for questions that people ask in relation to the ‘keywords research’ to see if I can include in my blog post.

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4. Run the keywords you have written in keyword research tools

All the seo keyword research metrics is found in keyword research tools.

These tools are completely heaven-sent especially, the free ones.

So this is what I did.

After writing down my question and phrase for long tail and short tail keywords, I used free keyword research tools to see if it’s worth chasing after the keywords…or it’s completely useless.

The free keywords research tools I use are SEO Reviews Tools, Ubersuggest and Cocolyze.

Honestly I loved Ubersuggest the most. But it’s now paid and has limited free searches. Such a bummer.

I’ve found SEO Review tools and Cocolyze to do the job to some extent although I still make use of my daily free limited searches on Ubersuggest. (Winks)

Here is a post on how to use Ubersuggest Keywords research tool to search for keywords.

Although the competition is high for these keywords, these tools are also able to bring out other keywords in the same niche that are less competitive.

5. Select Keywords with low difficulty

Now for the purpose of easy ranking, you may want to choose keywords that have low difficulty.

Preferably, keywords that have a monthly search volume of 500 to 2000 with a keyword difficulty below 25.

Keywords that are easy to rank for normally have difficulty below 25 and that is what you will want to aim for.

How many keywords should you choose for a post?

Because I aim to write 1000+ words for each of my blog posts, I usually choose 10 to 15 keywords which I can use in my blog posts.

Each of the keywords I choose has a search volume of at least 500 and a low keyword difficulty less than 25.

That way, I can rank for different search terms that are related to my content.

Again, using different related keywords in your blog post, mostly prevents me from doing keyword stuffing which could land me into Google trouble.

Keyword stuffing is using the same keywords over and over again in a blog post.

So which keywords should you actually target?

I have a post purposely for that. Click to read the different types of keywords you should target in your blog post

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What next?

You start drafting your post; adding your keywords to sentences as naturally as possible.

If it does not fit don’t force it.

Search Engines are grammatically proficient so you wouldn’t want the bots to give you an F grade in English.

Now to the main question of the day.

How do I research keywords for free?

There are loads free keywords research tools which you can use to search for your keywords albeit not as comprehensive as you would with a paid tool.

But either way, these free keyword tools gets the job done for me.

As a cheapskate, I will give you a list of websites you can use for free to research keywords.

Some of these tools offer a 30 day trial.

Others too offer up to 3 or 10 free daily keywords research or per month (stingy but good). My most favorite ones offer it for free with no strings attached.

For some too, you need to sign up before you can get full access to it.

List of Keywords Research Tools

Use Ubersuggest to find all your keyword metrics in the easiest way. You have upto 3 keyword searches daily.

A comprehensive tool for SEO audits and keyword research. Get 10 monthly search for free if only you signup with them.

3. SEM Rush (limited free)

Just like MOZ, SEM Rush is a comprehensive SEO tool but has more robust crawlers for giving the nearest to accurate site information.

Looking for keywords for your ads on Google, Facebook, Bing etc? Then WordStream is your go to ads Keyword research tool for free.

From its name, you can guess what it does right? It sh!ts keywords out as you type.

Want to see if your keyword is trending or not? Google trends is the best tool to findo trending topics.

The best tool for keywords and its search metrics. I admit, it’s a little steep learning curve.

A keyword database for all the questions related to your keyword.

Free keywords suggestion tool but you will need to upgrade to view all the search metrics.

Suggests search terms related to your keyword from all search engines.

Ideal for searching for Semantic keywords. You will have to sign up before you can use it. 5 limited searches per day.

It’s free but…..you will need to install it on your PC.

Search console has a robust keyword suggestion tool which you can make use of.

It provides the keywords people are searching that makes them land on your post page organically.

From your Search console dashboard, click on the menu >performance. Scroll down to the bottom and you will see all the related keywords for your blog post.

A keyword tool for all search engines and e-commerce sites. It’s a Google,Bing,Amazon,Etsy etc keyword tool. Best for affiliate niches

Provides instant related keyword search terms whilst searching on search engines. Works for YouTube too.

If you promote your blog on Pinterest (which you should) then this tool will help you come up with keywords you can use in your description to optimize your pin image.

Like the free Keywords Everywhere tool, it provides keyword suggestions whilst you search on Google but this time with a twist.

It comes with the search metrics all for free.

Signup for free to enjoy all the benefits offered by SEO Review Tools. It has a rank checker tool, Backlink analysis tool, keyword suggestion etc.

I love this keywords suggestion tool. It’s an instant and live keyword suggestion tool.

For instance, type the letter A in the search bar and all searches related to A words will be provided instantly.

It’s so cool.

Signup and start using Cocolyze to start searching for keywords for free.

Jaaxy will provide all the keywords and it’s metrics to you for free….But you have upto 30 keywords searches and oh you have to signup first before you get to use it.

Type a keyword in the search bar and voila! all questions that are asked in relation to your keyword magically appears.

If you use reddit as a source of blog post inspiration, then Keyworddit should be your jam.

Just enter a subreddit name in the search bar and hit ‘get keywords’.

Questions people mostly ask in that subreddit will be shown to you.

Chances are a lot of people maybe also asking these same questions on Google.

Provides important keyword metrics. But honestly, it’s kind of glitchy.

It provides keyword suggestions and metrics which you will need to determine if the keyword is worth writing on. It gives only 4 keyword metrics

This keyword tool provides all the long tail search terms people ask on search engines that are related to your head term.

Free keywords suggestion tool to find the best keywords that are related to your post.

Free for the first five searches and blog audit. You can do very detailed seo audits with this tool, as well as have keyword suggestions to improve your blog contents.

It generates specific Semantic words for your keyword.

LAST WORDS…….

Don’t cry. I’m not dying yet. Lol

On a more serious note, keywords research is the fundamental of SEO.

Without it, organic search traffic will be hard in this modern search engine era.

It is tedious. I know even for me. But, at a point in time I will like to share my success story.

A success story without struggles is not worth a New York Best Selling Author badge….(my aim)

Make an effort to religiously do research for keywords before writing any blog post.

I’m not saying you will see results immediately, but the time for organic traffic will definitely reveal itself at the right time.

Don’t give up. Stay positive and you will definitely reap your hard work for your blog.

Your turn now. What other free keywords tool do you know of? I would love to know and use too.

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