The 7 Best Keyword Research Tools for SEOs and Content Marketers in 2021!

Keyword research forms an essential part of the Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) process as well and plays a key role in Content Marketing as well. If you consider the SEO tactics from a few years ago, they were heavily dependent on keyword research and even comprised of adding keywords in the content multiple times.

Moving forward, as search engines, most importantly Google, tend to get smarter and better at understanding search queries and content, stuffing keywords in your content does not help in achieving your SEO goals.

Nevertheless, keyword research continues to form an essential part of SEO as well as Content Marketing today as well. For the process, many keyword research tools have emerged and helped us in finding keywords much better.

Would you like to see which of these tools are? We have compiled 7 of them for you!

1.     Keyword Surfer

Keyword Surfer is a Chrome extension that displays keyword statistics in the search bar by hijacking all of your Google searches. This tool provides the top 10 keywords that resemble your current search query and are displayed in the side panel on the search results page.

The tool is helpful for those who wish to perform keyword research while browsing on the web and provides an immersive experience. However, while it is handy as a background tool, it should not be your ONLY or PRIMARY keyword research tool

2.     Google Keyword Planner

Since Google Keyword Planner is Google’s own SEO tool, it is very much reliable and has one of the largest keyword databases that currently exist. In fact, check out any of the top keyword research tools and you will definitely find Google Keyword Planner in the list.

You will just have to enter a few seed keywords, which directly relate to your SEO strategy and Content strategy and you will get a full-fledged list of similar keywords, along with their monthly search volume, bid ranges, competition and other metrics.

With the sorting and filtering options, you can narrow keywords of your preference and exclude negative keywords as well. While the tool is great for beginners, it does not inspire many content ideas and can instead help in finding ideas for pillar content pages.

3.     QuestionDB

QuestionDB presents a keyword list based on a database spanning more than 48 million questions, which have been asked on Reddit. The question-oriented keyword finder is helpful in finding out the common queries and questions of the active social media audience, especially for those who wish to use Reddit and Quora in their content marketing campaigns.

Since most of the queries that go on Reddit are the ones that people have not searched on Google, the tool can prove useful in adding to a Reddit thread too if you have included it in your content marketing tactics.

4.     Rank Tracker

Rank Tracker is a collection of nine research methods, which can be divided into two broad categories, including, checking competitor’s tactics and experimenting with keyword semantics.

It locates the highest-ranking keywords for your competitor and helps you check out the keyword gaps existing on your site, thus proving to be a valuable SEO keyword tool. As far as sematic research is concerned, you can get a complete list of autocomplete suggestions, related searches and related queries by entering a keyword.

Moreover, you can integrate Rank Tracker with Google’s SEO tools too such as the Google Search Console, Google Analytics and Google Keyword Planner. This helps in seeing the metrics in detail such as organic search volume and keyword difficulty too.

One way that this tool proves useful for content marketers is by providing many suggestions that resemble article titles.

5.     Google Trends

As the name suggests, Google Trends proves helpful in understanding trends related to content ideas. You can check which keyword has fared in popularity, by what margin and in what geographic location. The line graph can display results for multiple keywords at a time, helping you to compare between them too.

The tool helps you in prioritizing your content ideas and in developing a content calendar. For example, you can write articles related to women empowerment in March since International Women’s Day falls on 8 March.

6.     Google Search Console

With Google Search Console, you can better leverage the keywords that you have already used on your website and check any opportunities related to them. It will show you the keywords your site already ranks for, which includes the SERP positions as well as the click-through-rates.

While it may not be the best keyword research tool, you can use it for observing the positions of all keywords you are using and how they have fared over time, whether positive or negative. If a particular page is ranking well, you can improve it to step ahead in the rankings and also to deduce the tactics that are helping that particular page in ranking well.

7.     Answer The Public

Answer The Public serves perfect as a keyword suggestion tool for starting your research for long-tail keywords. Long-tail keywords are growing popular since many searchers are making user of longer search queries. This is because Google and other search engines are getting smarter day by day to provide better results to their users.

All you have to do is enter a keyword and you will see before your eyes, a comprehensive infographic detailing the queries including comparisons, questions and prepositions. All of these queries are sorted according to their popularity.

While this is the only thing that this tool does, it provides accurate results that help you in understanding your audience’s preferences much better. You can benefit from this tool for deciding your content strategies, such as if you should go with a guide or an article for a topic.

Would You Like to Learn More About Keyword Research? Let me Help You!

Keyword Research, as mentioned, is important in both Content Marketing and in Search Engine Optimisation. Nowadays, most content writers are doing keyword research by themselves, instead of relying on a fellow SEO executive to help them out. Learning keyword research has become easier for them due to multiple resources available on the internet, such as an SEO course online.

Are you another writer, considering learning keyword research? Or are you a beginner level SEO executive wanting to understand keyword research in detail?

In either case, you can get free SEO consultancy from me and dive into the world of digital marketing much better. Get in touch with me right away and witness your digital strategies to transform into success overnight!