If you are a webmaster or a blog writer, you might already have a vague idea about SEO, but for your business to flourish successfully, you must understand it fully. Here are the best keyword research tools for SEO and PPC!

What is SEO and How Does It Work?

We know the popular a site is, the more it is successful. The SEO (Search engine optimization) helps in making your site popular.

Think of it as a set of rules which are to be obeyed by everyone in the cyber world, so they can make their business stand out. These rules help owners by improving their search engine rankings and hence, expanding their website. The purpose of the rules are to show search engines that your site belongs at the top of the list. The rules themselves are a collection of techniques used to improve your sites present position.

How Do Search Engines Determine Relevance and Popularity?

Search engines don’t just flash a list of stuff that it might think is what we are looking for. Present day search engines are much smarter, they bring out the most popular and active sites. They believe those sites contain some valuable information and in most cases, they are right.

The popular the page, the more valuable the information.

The popularity of a page is not manually decided but is rather decided through the magic of maths!  Algorithm is what brings out the most relevant sites and then chooses the best ones, on the basis of popularity. These are the sites that come out on top and also hold the position, everyone else is competing for.

What are Keywords Research Tools?

These are the tools that help you know your audience.

In order to gain popularity in any field, you must know your subjects; you must know where their head is at. Keyword research tools help you do just that. It shows you what people are typing into their google search engines and how you can use that knowledge to your advantage.

For instance, if you are a content writer and know what people are interested in these days, you can easily attract them by writing about that topic.

Keyword research tools work.

We all know it starts with a few words and a search box.

The right keywords can help you a thousandfold, so if you are serious about SEO you should definitely invest in a keyword research tool. The alternative is to work manually and sort out words one by one but this is much less reliable and will only slow you down.

5 Best Keyword Research Tools

Since I already mentioned, keyword research tools are the best sidekick to SEO. It is time to dust off the real question, which search tool to use? Apparently, there are many to choose from.  I however, narrowed it down to the best five ones.

1. Google Keyword Planner

google-keyword-planner

This is one of the most famous keyword research tool out there. Its popularity is basically because of its connection with Google AdWords. (Google AdWords itself also works for promoting businesses, by making advertisements). Originally Google Keyword Planner was created for Google AdWords but with time that changed.

Research Keywords

Your target keywords are the ones that everyone is typing into their search engines. You already know by now, that adding those keywords to your website and campaigns will help you attract more followers. This is the main goal.

How to Get Started?

1) First you have to log in to ‘Google Keyword planner’ with your Google account.

2) After joining, an interface would open which would allow you to enter your main keyword and also to customize the resultant keywords.

Pros

  • Keyword planner also allows its users to know what kind of words were popular in the past and which are trending, By estimating an accurate forecast you can get ahead of others, in arranging your bids and business proposition in the general public’s favor but still profitable to you.
  • The new face of keyword planner allows you to track down popularity of content by location. They manage to do so by using their knowledge of individual zip codes. This is why keyword planner is extremely recommended for local and service based businesses.
  • A lot of Google’s own apps are switching to paying mode. Majority of all keyword search engines require some kind of payment. In a world like that, keyword planner remains to be free of charge.

Cons

  • It shows no knowledge about trends. This restricts you from being able to tell which trends are going up and which are not. Keyword planner goes ahead and gives an average of the last twelve months. (You can obtain the information, if you look into it and screen shot the last twelve months and analyze them).
  • Another con is that you cannot tell which device your target audience is using anymore. This information was helpful in optimizing content for commonly used devices in the past, but recently it has been removed.

Keyword planner helps you get great bids and profitable budget deals to benefit your campaign.

2. Long Tail Pro

long tail seo

If you are looking for an alternative to Google Keyword Planner than Long Tail Pro is just what you are looking for. Unlike Google Keyword Planner, Long Tail Pro is paid software and is a lot more reliable Since Google keyword planner introduces the same keywords, everyone is already using. Long Tail Pro also helps discover words that would go unnoticed by Google keyword planner.

How to get started?

  1. Download a copy of long Tail Pro from the internet.
  2. Allow it to access your Google AdWords account.
  3. Now you can start your research project by generating a new keyword with any name.
  4. Finally, you will be asked to enter your seed keywords.

(You can also customize your search options by including research punctuality and geographical position to target).

Pros

  • The module generates over 800 keywords for each seed word.
  • It also provides the keywords with their search volume, PPC and competitiveness.
  • You can search more than a single word at a time.
  • It automatically checks ranking on Google, Bing and Yahoo.
  • You can also check the viability of a niche.

Cons

  • It is not the fastest keyword research tool out there. SEMRush surpasses it in speed.
  • It is not helpful in finding your rivals main keywords.
  • It costs thirty seven dollars a month.

Long tail pro is a very powerful keyword research tool that also allows its user to look up competitiveness.

3. SEMrush

semrush

If you are in a hurry to boost your search traffic and take over and crush your competitors then SEMrush is waiting for you. This is a top level keyword search tool used by professionals. It has 26 different databases (in different parts of the world) which are updated regularly. The databases contain over a 100 million words and over 70 million websites.

Operating

SEMrush retrieves information from keyword searches through an algorithm called LiveUpdate. The 100 millions words from 26 different databases are selected and brought forth on the bases of search volume.

Google’s top twenty research pages are stored as screenshots. The purpose of this is to gather information for every keyword. This information is then interpreted by algorithms.

The obtained result is brought forward to its users.

Pros

  • It locates any websites traffic, accurately.
  • It can analyze the back links of any website.
  • It can also create a site audit.
  • It can help spy on 5 competitors at once (domain to domain comparison).
  • Provides Monthly search reports.
  • Helpful in Tracking of keywords.

Cons

  • It has only one downside which is that It costs 70$ a month.

You can get real in depth information by using SEMrush

4. Soovle

‘The search tool for search engines’.

It gathers information from 15 different search engines and provides us with the best keywords out there. You can customize your search by choosing which extra search engines you want involved (Amazon, Wikipedia, Ask, eBay, Yell, YouTube etc) apart from Google, Bing and Yahoo.

You are also able to change the outlook of your Soovle by adding logos.

Working

A search box, a Soovle link, a number of search engines and a few icons, that’s the interface. Simply type in your keyword and wait for the search engine to suggest words for that query. You can also switch amongst the research engines by pressing the right arrow on the little icons under the search box. It is simple to work with.

Pros

  • If you have no idea what you are specifically looking for then worry not Soovle’ s got your back
  • In keyword research, it is a great source of ideas (for gifts using Amazon and buy.com will help you a lot).
  • Soovle allows you to save your searches for later use.

Cons

  • In Soovle, Deleting saved searches is a headache. You mostly end up deleting them all.
  • If you type fast then Soovle may not keep up and may give bizarre and unrelated results.

5. Keyword Spy

keywordspy

The name says it all, it provides you with knowledge about what keywords and ads your competitors are using. You can use this knowledge to defend your campaigns position or to offend the opponents.

Keyword Spy is a web-based intelligence tool and just like any research tool it cannot promise 100% success but maneuvering and tactfully using it can play a major role in your victories ahead.

Pros

  • It’s everything you need to spread your business.
  • It is helpful in competitive targeting and going through keyword information in different niches. This can help you easily point out the key places to target.
  • It creates targeted campaigns.
  • It shows rank based on geographical location.

Cons

  • The tracking features do not benefit smaller businesses.
  • It costs 89.95$ a month for tracking and $139 for professional accounts (which include both).

Conclusion

SEO is extremely important for the success of any business.  Even if a beginner steps into the field he must be well aware of these things or else he’d be at a great disadvantage.

The above five keyword search engines are not the only ones out there. They however are the most popular and easy ones to work with According to me. I mentioned different types so that everyone can benefit from the article according to their need.

If you are looking for something cheap or even free then ‘Google Keyword Planner’ is your thing. It however, will not be unique since many users out there work with it already.

Long tail pro is amazing for finding long tail keywords. This is better than Google Keyword Planner in that it’s a little vaster and provides over 800 keywords.

‘SEMresh’ is my favorite, with its enormous database it is amongst the most professional search tools; it can help you boost your business in no time!

Then we have’ Soovle’, which is extremely infinite since it connects up to 15 search engines and then makes a search. However, this is a very bad choice for short tempered people because it is slow.

The last one ‘Spy words’ is great for keeping an eye on your competitors and using it to your advantage.

So from the above paragraph, you can easily understand that the different types of keyword research tools are designed for different types of people and for different kinds of businesses.

For instance, if you are running a small business you can easily work with long tail pro and if you are working with a huge organization you might need Spy words.