When you’re just starting out as a brand new blogger, SEO specialist, or basket weaver on Etsy, chances are you don’t have a lot of startup money to spend on the latest and greatest Keyword Research Tool. (Seriously! If you look up SEO Specialist, they require experience in SEMRush which the low end costs $100 per month as of right now! That’s insane!).
You are NOT going to rank in Google for super generic keywords. It’s just not going to happen. But with these tools and strategies, it can help give you an edge.
Please note I am not getting a commission for anything I’m writing about, these are tools that helped me a lot when I was just starting out as an SEO specialist.
Before we discuss what are the best FREE TOOLS to use, let’s think about the most important aspect of Keywords:
- What does your target audience want?
- What are some good topics to write about right now?
It’s not enough to plug in the magic keyword and Google will bring you search traffic on a silver platter, it does require a bit of thought, planning, and creativity, and these keyword tools will help you get on the right track!
Here are 7 great ways to keyword research for free in 2020 for beginners:
Moz Keyword Research Tools
Moz is currently the #1 authority on all things SEO. Here’s a good article they have on Keyword Research for beginners.
Thankfully, they have free tools for newbies like us. You’re allowed to make 10 searches per month, and it can help you get a head start. Their Keyword Explorer and Link Explorer tools help let you know if you’re on the right track with the keywords you’re thinking of using.
- You can search the domains of your competition and find what keywords they’re using
- You can see the volume and search difficulty of said keywords
Answer the Public
Answer the Public is my personal favorite place to start Keyword research. You can type in two keywords per day (the more generic, the better), and it will come up with dozens of ways that keyword is being searched!
Particularly in question format, which is how people almost always do their Google Searches, especially with voice activated search on the rise.
Answer the Public also puts these keywords in these nice visual web diagrams.
UbserSuggest
Ubersuggest is another great free Keyword Research Tool!
- Gives you Keyword ideas based on whatever keyword you’re searching
- Tells you the monthly volume
- Tells you the Paid volume (how much businesses Pay Google Ads for that Keyword)
SEMRush
At the time of updating this blog post, SEMRush competency is currently popping up on a lot of SEO job searches right now. One of the great things this tool does is it keeps a real time tab on how keyword searches are changing (more so in the paid version).
While the keyword research tool is very limited in the free version, there’s still enough there that you can work on getting SEMRush certified for free.
So, those are my three favorite Keyword research tools to get you started, but if you REALLY want to make your clients happy (and not to mention Google).
A little note is that you can use all the keyword tools you want, but your competition is already using these tools and has the budget for the paid versions. These next two strategies take a little more time and creativity, but will be worth it!
Google AutoSuggest
Specifically, on Guest mode.
Google Autosuggest along with Answer the Public is a great way to look up what people are currently searching right now.
Reddit is an amazing resource that gives you insight into what everyone is thinking right now in specific niches.
For example, say you’re looking at Askreddit or forums about baking, not only will you find basic keywords like “baking”, “how to bake”, etc, but you may find consistant keywords that seemingly having nothing to do with baking.
You might find multiple entries that say, “I’m confused about baking…” over and over.
And there you have it, your next blog post could say “Confused about baking…?”
Industry-Specific Forums
If you’re doing SEO for a travel agency, go on Tripadvisor. If you’re doing SEO for a food/cooking blog, go to AllRecipes “Ask the Community Page.”
If there are topics that keep coming up repeatedly in these forums and community pages, chances are, that’s your best bet for keywords (not to mention blog and content ideas in general).