8 Top Keyword Research Tools
(Free & Paid)

Looking to skyrocket your website’s traffic and dominate SEO in 2025?

You’re in the right place.

In this guide, I’m sharing the 8 best keyword research tools that are absolute game-changers.

These tools have helped my organic traffic grow to 772,000 monthly sessions:

Now, I’m revealing them to you.

But here’s the deal: not all keyword research tools are created equal.

Some are all-in-one platforms that tackle technical SEO, uncover backlink opportunities, help with content optimization.

Others focus on niche areas—like finding underserved, easy-to-rank keywords or conducting in-depth topic cluster research.

So, how do you pick the right one? That’s what this guide is all about.

We’ve updated it to reflect the latest SEO trends and opportunities this year. Whether you’re after free tools, paid options, or something in between, I’ve got you covered.

Let’s jump in.

1. Semrush

Semrush works a little differently than the other tools I will show you.

Instead of entering a seed keyword and getting a long list of keyword ideas, Semrush shows you keywords that your competition already ranks for.

(These are usually outside-the-box keywords that would be impossible to find using any other tool.)

Here’s how it works:

First, enter a competitor’s domain name in the field at the top of the page.

If you’re doing SEO in a country outside of the US (for example, in Google.co.uk), you can choose to see information about that specific market. Just choose that country from this menu:

Next, take a look at the “Organic Research” section:

Here’s what the different terms in that section mean:

• Keywords are the estimated number of monthly organic visitors that come from Google.
• Traffic is the estimated number of monthly visitors.
• Traffic Cost indicates how valuable this traffic is (based on Google Ads CPC).

So if you see a domain with a lot of Organic Search Traffic but a low Traffic Cost, you know that they’re ranking for keywords that don’t convert into buyers.

But the real value of Semrush comes from the “Organic Keywords” data:

This box will show you 5 of the top keywords that your competitors are ranking for. To see more, click on “View all [number] keywords”.

And you’ll get a list of all of the keywords that the site or URL ranks for:

This page alone will usually give you a handful of solid keywords for digital marketing.

But if you want more ideas, go back to the “Organic Research” overview and check out the “Competitors” in the menu bar.

And you’ll see that site’s first-page competition:

When you click on one of THOSE results, you can see the exact search queries they’re ranking for.

There will be some overlap from what you just saw, but you’ll also (usually) dig up some real gems.

You can also start your Semrush search with a keyword instead of a competitor’s site:

Semrush will show you a “Broad match report”, which is a list of long-tail keywords that include variations of the keyword you entered:

This is really helpful for finding long-tail variations of Head and Body Keywords.

For example, if you wanted to rank for the keyword “keto diet”, you’ll quickly find that it’s simply too competitive.

But Semrush will show you long-tail variations, like the “keto diet meal plan”, that is easier to rank for:

My Favorite Feature: Keyword Magic Tool

This tool pulls keyword suggestions from Semrush’s massive database of over 25 billion terms.

But that’s not all.

The tool leverages AI to show you how difficult it will be for your domain to rank for a chosen keyword. It calculates Personal Keyword Difficulty (PKD%) and Topical Authority metrics for each keyword and estimates your domain’s competitive power.

2. Google Search Console

Find hundreds of “Opportunity Keywords”.

The Google Search Console isn’t a traditional keyword research tool.

But it does have a feature that makes finding awesome keywords a CINCH.

The feature?

The Performance Report.

This report lists out the pages on your site that get the most clicks from Google.

(And the exact keywords that brought them there.)

So: how can you use this feature for keyword research?

It’s easy: use it to find “Opportunity Keywords”.

Opportunity Keywords are where you rank between #8-#20 in Google for a specific keyword.

And with little extra on-page SEO, you can find yourself with a nice rankings boost.

For example, my average rankings for the keyword “SEO tools” is 11.0.

That keyword is an Opportunity Keyword. And if I optimize my page around “SEO tools”, my rankings for that term should go up.

My Favorite Feature: Google Analytics + Google Search Console

Did you know that you can combine your Google Search Console and Google Analytics accounts?

Well, you can.

And it’s VERY helpful.

When you do, you’ll get more in-depth keyword data than you would with either tool by itself.

3. Ahrefs Keywords Explorer

Make smarter keyword decisions.

Some time ago, Ahrefs rolled out a new and improved “Keywords Explorer”.

And what I like most about Keywords Explorer is this:

It gives you SUPER in-depth information on each keyword.

Sure, you get the data you’d expect (like search volume). But you also get a breakdown of the first page competition… and how many searchers actually click on a result.

My Favorite Feature: Keyword Difficulty

Most keyword research tools give you vague difficulty info (like “easy” or “difficult”). Or a score (like “89/100”).

But Ahrefs tells you EXACTLY how many backlinks you’ll need to rank on the first page of Google.

Awesome.

4. Keywords Everywhere

Get search volume (and more) wherever you go.

Keywords Everywhere is a paid keyword research tool that displays keyword data on top of 10 websites… including Ebay, Amazon and Answer The Public.

That way, you don’t need to copy and paste keywords into the Google Keyword Planner. The data shows up in your Chrome browser. Very cool.

My Favorite Feature: “Related Keywords” and “People Also Search For”

Get a list of keywords related to your search term… in the Google search results.

What’s cool about this feature is that you can find keywords that your target customer searches for when they’re not searching for what you sell.

5. Soovle

Scrape suggested keywords from multiple sources.

Soovle gives you suggested keyword ideas from Google, YouTube, Bing, Yahoo, Amazon and more.

(All in one place.)

That way, you can find untapped keywords that your competition doesn’t know about.

My Favorite Feature: Saved Suggestions

Easily save your favorite keyword ideas with Soovle’s “drag & drop” saved suggestions feature.

Then, download your favorite keywords to a CSV file.

6. Exploding Topics

Discover trending and soon-to-be popular keywords before they take off.

Want to get ahead of the curve? Exploding Topics helps you uncover topics (and keywords) that are just starting to trend.

Here’s how it works:

Open the Exploding Topics platform, and you’ll see a dashboard of trending topics across various categories:

You can filter the topics by timeframe and category. This makes it super easy to find relevant trends for your niche.

Click on any topic to see more details, such as:

• Brief explanation of the trend
• The growth rate over time
• Related topics

To use these trends for keyword research, explore related topics and consider how they might fit into your content strategy. You can also use the trend names as seed keywords in other tools.

My Favorite Feature: Meta Trends

The Pro version of Exploding Topics has many cool features, but the one that stands out is the ability to identify larger meta trends that group related topics together.

This feature can help you spot border shifts in your industry and help you adjust your strategy appropriately.

7. KWFinder

A powerful tool for keywords that’s also easy to use.

KWFinder is quickly becoming one of my go-to keyword research tools.

Why?

Because it has lots of the features that other tools have. But unlike most other tools, KWFinder is VERY intuitive.

My Favorite Feature: Keyword Difficulty

As you might expect, this tells you how hard it will be to rank for that keyword.

But unlike most other tools, KWFinder automatically shows a Keyword Difficulty score next to every keyword.

(So there’s no need to click on every single one to see its difficulty score… which gets old fast.)

8. AlsoAsked

AlsoAsked a fantastic tool for topic cluster research.

Seasoned SEOs understand that the best way to rank for head keywords is to create topic clusters — multiple pages that talk about the topic in-depth.

AlsoAsked helps you map out these clusters and visualize how people ask questions on the topic.

For example, let’s say you wanted to rank for ‘home security cameras’ – a head keyword that has a 100,000 monthly search volume.

Plugging this keyword into AlsoAsked gives us four distinct cluster topics, divided into specific questions around each cluster.

Answering these questions in your content is an excellent method of building authoritative topic clusters — and driving tons of SEO traffic.