To ensure your digital marketing campaigns are as effective as possible, you should be doing keyword research regularly. We’ve compiled a list of 5 free keyword research tools so that you can jump right in and get started today.
Keyword research can be a fairly broad term when it comes to digital marketing. Keywords themselves are used in nearly every area of online marketing and play an important role in digital performance.
Keywords help you understand your audience and provide you with the means to align what you offer with what your audience desires.
A keyword itself is a specific term or phrase that users will look for online. By performing thorough keyword research, you can include keywords that will point users in the direction of relevant content on your website and display your paid ads directly to the people whom you want to sell your products and services to.
Why are keywords important?
If you run an online business, keywords play a much bigger role than you may realise.
- They’re vital for SEO and are used in meta tags and website content to help search engines understand the context of your page, and help the right people find it.
- They are used in paid search ads to target relevant ads to relevant users. Refining your keywords properly will make your paid ads budgets spend efficiently.
- Other online content, from blogs on your website to YouTube videos, use keywords to help algorithms understand user interests and promote related, relevant content.
Keyword research is important as what you offer may not be the same as what your ideal users will search for. For example, if you planned to sell a new product such as a heavy, durable jacket, designed for outdoor enthusiasts. What kind of keywords would be suitable?
From that basic description, we can determine a few keywords.
- Heavy jacket
- Durable jacket
- Outdoor jacket
These describe your product, but are very generic and don’t take your users’ interests into consideration. By doing a little keyword research we can find slightly better targeted keywords:
- Hillwalking Jacket
- Mountaineering Jacket
- Waterproof Jacket
Not only that, by performing keyword research, you can find other related keyword terms to include within your content based on what users may be asking. Are the jackets padded? Are they windproof? Do they have a fleece lining? By including additional relevant keywords your content is more likely to appear in front of the right people.
To find the right keywords for your online business, here are some free keyword research tools to get you started.
1: Google Search Console / Bing Webmaster Tools
If you don’t yet have Google Search Console or Bing Webmaster Tools set up on your website, you should! One function of these tools is showing you the search queries people use to reach your website organically.
If you have pages that generate leads better than others, find out what kind of keywords people are searching for to get there. These tools have a variety of filters available to narrow down your search to specific pages or phrases. So if you want to push a particular product or direct people to a specific page, check out which keywords your existing audience uses to get there.
2: Answer The Public
If you have ever wondered what questions people ask about your product or service, Answer The Public is a fantastic resource. By providing an initial keyword or keyword phrase, you’ll be presented with a collection of questions that people have been searching for online that is gathered from existing auto-complete data used by search engines.
While the visualisation is pretty, it can be a little hard to read, so be sure to switch to the data representation to make the results clearer. The free version of Answer The Public does have a strict daily limitation on searches, so choose your topic wisely!
3: Google Trends
We’ve talked about Google Trends and how it can be used for keyword research before, so be sure to check out our blog post for the finer details. It can be used to understand how keywords are affected by seasonality, help you find alternative phrasing to use for existing keywords and lets you compare similar terms side by side, to find out which keywords are more popular.
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4: Keyword Tool
If you search for a keyword tool online, Keyword Tool is likely one of the results that will appear. It’s a popular and frequently used keyword tool, and the free version of it is ideal for finding similar search terms for your keywords. The paid version includes additional features such as search volumes and costs, but for basic keyword research it provides adequate data.
Not only will you find keyword terms for you to test yourself, but you will also find keyword terms that you may wish to exclude from paid search ads to make your digital marketing more efficient. Keyword Tool includes the option to narrow your search to specific platforms, including:
- YouTube
- Bing
- Amazon
- eBay
- Google Play Store
Different platforms will have different audiences, so you may find results vary depending on what topic or keyword term you provide. Additionally, Keyword Tool includes an option to add a negative keyword to your search.
Adding terms you want to exclude during your keyword research can speed up the process greatly by helping you find just the keywords that are most relevant to you.
5: Soovle
If you ever wanted to see how different keywords can be across different platforms, then check out Soovle.
It might look a bit older and lack some features of a friendly user interface, but Soovle can quickly provide you with a wealth of keyword terms and data. It can display results from a variety of platforms similar to Keyword Tool, but also includes non-traditional locations, such as:
- Wikipedia – for informative searches about a keyword or topic.
- Answers – for questions that people are asking about the keyword or topic.
- Overstock – for product keywords searched for on an ecommerce website.
Granted, Soovle may look a little outdated in 2022, but still provides a wealth of up to date information on keywords, making it one of longer running free keyword research tools available online.
Do your keyword research regularly
It’s no secret that keyword research can be a bit of a slog, but it is recommended to do on a regular basis. If you’re interested in expanding your business into a new market, such as ecommerce, or launching a new service then keyword research is a great activity to help you understand your audience and potential customers.
Trends and terminology change as new products become available and change in popularity. Keeping on top of the most relevant keywords for your products and services will ensure your digital marketing performance is as best as it can be.
