Writing a quality blog post or article is a lot of work. You need to source and optimize all images and graphics, decide on headings and other HTML elements, and then write the actual text. But it all starts with keyword research.
I spent days researching free keyword tools. The list is segmented between SEO keyword generator tools and keyword research tools. I focus on my top 5 which I use all the time but I also included 6 additional keyword tools that are worth mentioning but fall short IMO.
Best Free Keyword Generator Tools
Use the following free tools to get keyword phrases for your main SEO keyword and supporting keywords:
#1 Keyword Sheeter
Do you need SEO keywords – a lot of keywords? Then this is your tool. Keyword Sheeter uses Google Suggest/Autocomplete to generate a huge list of keywords.
FYI, I used the phrase “Free SEO Keywords” for each keyword tool on this page.
How Keyword Sheeter Works
Perhaps you know this trick:
- You type your keyword phrase into the Google search box
- Then you hit the spacebar and type “a”
- That will show your phrase and then suggestions with the next word starting with the letter “a”
- Then you have to manually write down those phrases
- Then repeat for letter “b”… then letter “c”, etc.
That’s a lot of work. This tool saves you a lot of time by programmatically doing that for you and returning long-tail keywords. The downside is that long-tail keywords tend to be low-volume but they are easier to rank for.
You do not get any extra fields like monthly search volume, Cost-Per-Click (CPC), or Keyword Difficulty/Competition (KD). Free things don’t have the bells and whistles of paid tools.
You can stop the generator tool at any time and copy the keywords into a document. This is a great way to come up with future blog posts or shorter social media posts.
Overview of the free SEO keyword tool Keyword Sheeter
- It finds long tail keywords by simulating an Autocomplete search on Google.
- Start with your keyword then it goes through each letter of the alphabet.
- Click the “Start sheeting” button.
- Click “Stop” when the results start getting too broad or into unrelated keywords.
- Copy/paste the results for content ideas.
Options
- Search type: Classic (standard Google search), YouTube, Products, News, Images, Books.
- Country selector: Choose a US state and city.
- Language selector.
- Positive filter: Any word you add here includes that word in the keyword phrase limiting your results. I added “tool” which greatly reduced the overall count. I suggest starting with a 2 or 3-word phrase and then adding 1 or 2 words in the positive filter field.
- Negative filter: Add words you don’t want. It’s best to look at your first set of results and look for keywords that you never want in your output.
Once you find your top keyword phrases, use one of the free keyword research tools below to pick the best SEO keyword for your posts.
#2 Infinite Suggest
Infinite Suggest also uses Google Suggest to return long-tail keywords but the keyword list count is much lower. I would hope they somehow filter to return the “best” keywords, but I would have to research every keyword on a short list to determine if that is true or not.
The tool has options for the language and Google for various countries such as google.co.uk for the United Kingdom. There is an Export button (named infinite-suggest-export.csv) and you can choose to “Save” or “Hide” any keyword before exporting. If you do not click Save or Hide, then all the keywords are exported.
The only valuable column is the keyword column. There are no other important values like search volume or keyword difficulty.
NOTE: The “More Data Column” has a link labeled “View Keyword ->”. It opens the RankTank page but RankTank is NOT free.
#3 Google Keyword Planner
Open up Keyword Planner and click the “Discover new keywords” button/card.
Enter your keyword in the field under “Start with keywords” then click “Get results”.
Here is a screenshot of the results but the UI is horrible. My search yielded 800+ records which I exported as a .csv file and opened in LibreOffice Calc. The search volume numbers seem bogus so this tool is only good for generating keywords.
This keyword tool is free but you would think Google would provide something more useful. Look for my article on using the Google Search Console API to get better data from Search Console.
Best Free Keyword Research Tools
The following two resources are the best free keyword tools for researching the keywords found with the tools listed above:
#4 Moz Keyword Explorer
Enter your keyword phrases, select your language then click the “Analyze” button.
The important stats are Monthly Volume and Difficulty. If you are just starting out then “Minimum Domain Authority” does not matter. You will never rank unless you get in the game. If you have a good idea for an article then just right the article. In time your website domain will increase.
The following screenshot shows your keyword along with related keywords. So there are more keywords you can use plus you can see the monthly search volume and difficulty for each keyword. Choose wisely!
You can export the results as a .csv file but it appears you only get 10 searches per month: “10 of 10 queries available until 05/31”.
If you have to use a different device or even the computer of a friend or family member. Keep in mind, that if you are doing this by yourself, it is hard to write more than 1 blog post per week. Shorter social media posts are a different story.
#5 Wordtracker Search Tool
Enter your keyword into the text field and choose your “Territory” then click the “Search” button. Here are my results:
This keyword tool shows 100 keywords with volume, competition, and another field labeled KEI (Keyword Effectiveness Index). Hover over the circle “i” for more information on that field.
The problem with this tool is that you can not export the results so look for your optimum keyword then start writing your post!
Alternate Free Keyword Research Tools
I spent many days researching free SEO keyword tools and literally tried dozens of them. The 5 listed above are the only ones I use now, but here are 6 more you should look into:
#6 KWFinder
- Only 1 search per day, only 15 results.
- Includes search volume, CPC, and KD.
#7 HOTH Keyword Planner
- It’s pretty good but you need to do 2 reCaptcha image tests.
- The results include search volume, CPC, competition, and KD.
- You can export the results as a .csv file but you only get 50 records.
#8 Ubersuggest
- You can export the results as a .csv file but only 20 or so records are exported.
- The results include search volume, CPC, and Search Difficulty (SD).
#9 SearchVolume by SEO.ai
- You have to supply a list of keywords and all you get is monthly search volume, and you have to solve 2 reCaptcha image tests.
- You can choose 1 of 10 countries as the source.
Alternate Free Keyword Generator Tools
Here are 2 more sources to get a list of keywords:
#10 Keyword Tool
- Enter your keyword and language but this tool only shows keywords, everything else is blurred out.
#11 ChatGPT
I use ChatGPT as a starting point for various prompts but I do not 100% trust what I get back from the AI tool. I used the following prompt:
Give me a list of keywords for the phrase “free SEO keyword tools”
Here are the keywords it gave me:
- Free SEO tools
- Keyword research tools
- SEO keyword research
- SEO tools for free
- Best free SEO tools
- Free keyword planner
- Free keyword tool
- Keyword suggestion tool
- SEO keyword generator
- Keyword research software
As you can see, that only resulted in 10 keywords, so I asked for 30 more keywords. The total list looked “okay” but 25 of the initial 30 phrases all started with “Free”. That’s why AI tools should be used as a resource and not as the primary tool.
Final Thoughts
I’m sure there are other free keyword tools but I wonder if they are better than the ones in this list. Feel free to contact me if you find a great tool and I will add it to this page.