Search engine optimization (SEO) is an important part of the digital marketing mix. It is one of the most reliable ways to increase your brand’s organic visibility online. This has the added benefit of multiplying the impact of other channels. When your business is easy to find, your marketing efforts are more effective. From on-page optimizations to SEO article writing, a good strategy can give your brand a valuable boost.

Keywords are at the heart of all SEO optimization. These words and phrases are how you can target certain search terms that your audience may enter into Google or another search engine. Finding the best keywords to suit your strategy and budget takes time, effort and research. Whether you hire a full-service consultant, buy keyword articles or do it all yourself, understanding keywords and how to find them can help you better guide your brand’s marketing.

Fortunately, you can find many SEO keyword research tools to help you choose the best keywords to include in your content writing, meta tags and more. Of course, picking through all the SEO research tools out there to find the right one for your needs can be difficult. That’s why we’re here to help.

The Top 10 SEO Keyword Research Tools (According to Us)

The following 10 SEO article writing tools are among the best available for keyword research. There is no option that is the right choice for everyone in all circumstances. Nonetheless, if you use any of the following, you will be setting your SEO keyword research off on the right foot.

1. SEMrush

SEMrush is a comprehensive suite of SEO article writing tools for researching keywords and analyzing competitors. It is one of the most popular SEO research tools on the market because of the in-depth data it delivers.

If you want to learn which keywords you are currently ranking for, you can search your URL in SEMrush’s organic research tab. On this page, you can see the traffic you are earning and an estimated value of that traffic. Additionally, you can click to view your positions for different keywords. This will let you know how effective your SEO article writing and other activities are. You may also discover new keywords that you are ranking for without targeting.

The same works for examining competitor’s websites. This is a great way to find some keywords that you wouldn’t have otherwise considered.

You can also get a keyword gap report. This shows you keywords that many of your competitors are ranking for but that you aren’t currently targeting.

Pros: SEMrush has a lot of features, including some very in-depth insight such as keyword difficulty. It is also easy to get started with simple reports, such as the keyword gaps.

Cons: SEMrush’s SEO research tools don’t come free. The Pro plan is the most budget-friendly and starts at $83 per month if billed annually.

Verdict: This should be a top consideration for anyone who isn’t sweating every penny of the SEO budget. It offers a lot and can be the linchpin of a mature and effective SEO strategy. For 20% off of annual plans, you can sign up for SEMRush here.

2. Google Keyword Planner

Google Keyword Planner is almost the total opposite of SEMrush. It is very simple, with only limited features. However, it is available completely for free provided that you have an AdWords account.

This SEO keyword research tool benefits significantly from being produced by Google. It is one of the most accurate sources of information about keywords and SEO on the market. Even the most expensive paid tools struggle to offer the same level of precise information.

Using the keyword research tool, you can get suggested keywords based on ones you may already be using. You can also research keywords to see insights such as keyword search volume. If you intend to also use your SEO keywords for a paid ad campaign, you can get an estimate of the necessary bid to get your ad seen.

Pros: Google Keyword Planner is highly accurate with the few features it offers. It is also available for free for anyone with an AdWords account (which is also free to create).

Cons: This tool is relatively bare bones. Nearly all research tools can offer the same features and more.

Verdict: For anything beyond the most basic SEO strategy, you will likely need something more feature-rich than Google Keyword Planner. Nonetheless, it is so accurate that you could use this SEO article writing tool in conjunction with others to help plan your SEO keywords.

3. Serpstat

If you want more than just keyword research, Serpstat should be on your radar. It is a full SEO suite that combines keyword research, website analytics, SERP analysis, rank tracking and more.

Compared to similar SEO research tools, Serpstat is more oriented to individual page analysis. You can define missing keywords on a page-by-page basis or for an entire URL. It has tools for analyzing competitors as well as seeing how your pages are ranking. The unique “tree view” helps you find the search terms for which have nearly reached the top 10 search engine results page. This can help you refocus your article writing.

One of the best features in Serpstat is its filter. You can set parameters to drill down your research and find exactly what you are looking for. SEO keyword research can often involve a lot of data, so having this effective filtering functionality is very helpful.

Pros: Serpstat has a great user interface and a lot of functionality. The pricing starts at $55 per month when billed annually. This is relatively affordable among paid SEO research tools.

Cons: The site audit functionality does not offer many unique insights. It also does not have any tools for social media data.

Verdict: Overall, Serpstat offers a lot for a good price. Its keyword analysis is particularly good.

4. Majestic

Majestic is another full-suite SEO tool. It helps you track your site’s search engine health over time.

It includes keyword functionality in the most basic plan. The more advanced options have special features for bulk research and API integration.

You can research competitors on individual keywords. It also highlights keywords and phrases that you could easily target. Many users appreciate the backlink history tools (Pro and API), custom reports and the keyword checker.

This is an excellent choice if you want to do more than just keyword research. It can help you with everything from planning your content writing to optimizing your backlinks.

Pros: Majestic has a lot to offer, including a particularly strong onsite analysis report. It also provides very easy-to-use keyword research tools.

Cons: Some users have reported missing data on some SEO reports. Additionally, anyone wanting to use the API may struggle with its reliability.

Verdict: Starting at under $42 per month, Majestic has a lot to offer at a reasonable price. However, it is more difficult to get started with than some other tools. Some prior expertise may be required.

5. Keyword Tool

For delving into keywords, this is one of the best keyword research tool options available. The very aptly named Keyword Tool can offer in-depth insights into keywords. Unlike with many of the other tools on this list, you can easily view reports for Google, YouTube, Amazon, Bing, social media and more.

In a sense, Keyword Tool is like an upgraded version of Google Keyword Planner. It does not have a full set of SEO research tools. However, it focuses almost exclusively on keyword research and does that very well.

The user experience is very simple. Additionally, you can get up to 750 keywords for free. The pro version offers even more results and more in-depth data. Using the Google Autocomplete API, Keyword Tool will suggest dozens or hundreds of long-tail keywords for a given topic. It also uses Google Suggest to find other relevant keywords.

Pros: This is one of the most user-friendly SEO article writing tools on the list. It is also very focused on keyword research. If you need keywords to fuel your SEO article writing, this may be the tool for you.

Cons: It is weak on competitor analysis, and the Pro Basic plan does not include cost-per-click data. Additionally, it is relatively expensive for the number of features.

Verdict: Starting at $69 per month, Keyword Tool is surprisingly expensive for its feature set. However, it has some of the best data within its limited scope.

6. Long Tail Pro

Increasingly, long-tail keywords are becoming the darling of the SEO world. They tend to be less competitive and are more likely to convert than shorter keywords. Long Tail Pro focuses on this trend. It is a great way to find high-value keywords to incorporate into your content writing.

Long Tail Pro offers valuable SEO research tools for niche keywords based on seed keywords. The metrics provided are detailed and useful. The program also offers smart recommendations to help you find high-end organic traffic sources. Long Tail Pro can perform over 2,500 SERP look-ups per day.

The user interface is well-designed and easy to understand. Overall, this tool provides a great user experience for both advanced and novice users.

Pros: You can get keyword suggestions in bulk with useful scoring. The data is very accurate and easy to use.

Cons: There are limits to the amount of research you can do. The pricing is based around this and starts at $207.90 per year.

Verdict: This is a valuable SEO research tool if you want to delve into long-tail keywords. Few tools are as user-friendly and as effective for this subset of SEO.

7. SpyFu

As the name suggests, SpyFu is focused on analyzing competitors and their SEO strategies. It is widely considered to be one of the best keyword research tools for this purpose. If you are working in a saturated niche, SpyFu will help you uncover valuable and relatively untapped keywords to target.

SpyFu is accessible enough for average users to jump in. However, it also has sufficient data and detail for advanced SEOs to use. Additionally, it offers ongoing site monitoring.

This article writing tool isn’t limited to SEO. It also has some valuable insights for PPC ads and variations on campaigns. Let your competitors optimize your campaigns for you by analyzing their work and finding gaps that you can exploit. It is like letting other businesses do your search engine marketing testing for you.

Pros: SpyFu offers a deep feature set, valuable reports and good support. It also starts at a reasonable price ($33 per month billed annually).

Cons: It is less optimized for independent keyword research. If you aren’t looking at competitors, this tool may fall a little short.

Verdict: This is an excellent choice with a lot of value for its price. It is especially well-suited for businesses in competitive spaces.

8. Ahrefs

Ahrefs is generally viewed as one of the top SEO research tools for professional search engine optimizers. Given that the name is a reference to HTML code, it is probably no surprise that this tool is a little more technical than some of the others on this list. Nonetheless, once you have the hang of it, Ahrefs has a lot to offer.

The data reported by Ahrefs is very accurate, and the scoring provides valuable insight. Additionally, there are helpful metrics for improving click-through rates. You’ll also find in-depth SERP analysis to help you locate keywords that are easy to improve.

Like many other suites on this list, Ahrefs does not offer its keyword explorer separately. Instead, you will get access to the entire set of Ahrefs tools. These include site audits, site explorer, rank tracker and more. There is even a content explorer to help you optimize your content writing.

Pros: Ahrefs has among the best feature sets in the business. There is an immense amount of data to mine and analyze.

Cons: The keyword tools are limited in the lowest tier plan. Additionally, Ahrefs does not hold users’ hands. This requires some time to learn.

Verdict: If you buy articles from an experienced SEO team, there is a reasonable chance they are using this tool. It is the go-to for a good reason. However, it is not the best option for beginners. Pricing starts at $82 per month billed annually.

9. KWFinder

KWFinder is all about finding keywords. (What a surprise!) It has fewer features than some of the other SEO research tools on this list. Instead, the developers chose to focus almost exclusively on keyword discovery. For this job, it is a very good tool.

As you start your SEO article writing, KWFinder can help you to discover useful keywords with detailed suggestions and ad hoc searches. It also provides SERP-specific tools that will empower you to discover how to improve your rankings.

This is a good tool for competitor keyword analysis. It includes filtering that will eliminate keyword results that aren’t going to be profitable for you.

Pros: The keyword tools are very strong and provide plenty of actionable and useful information. You can explore keyword variants, long tails and domain keywords.

Cons: If you ever want to expand beyond keywords, this is not the right tool for you. It has limited features for anything beyond keyword-specific queries.

Verdict: For planning the keywords in your content writing strategy, this can be a great choice. With pricing starting at under $30 per month, it is affordable. Just don’t expect a full suite of features.

10. Moz Keyword Explorer

Moz has firmly established itself as a go-to resource for learning about SEO. Many people use their guides to help start their first SEO article writing efforts. So, it is probably no surprise that the Moz Keyword Explorer delivers some excellent functionality.

This SEO article writing tool offers two unique data points that set it apart from some others on this list. The first is the organic CTR score. This is a relative scoring of the number of clicks you can expect to receive. The second is the priority score. By combining and analyzing factors such as CTR, volume and difficulty, Moz provides scoring to help you find the best terms for your needs.

Users can get started with Moz Keyword Explorer for free with 10 queries per month. Upgrading to Moz Pro, starting at $99 per month, will provide significantly more queries (up to 30,000 for the top plan).

Pros: Moz Keyword Explorer provides some very helpful metrics that aren’t available elsewhere. Additionally, the Moz Pro plan comes with many other features.

Cons: Moz is relatively expensive compared to others on this list. It is also not quite as intuitive as a few competitors.

Verdict: You won’t go wrong with Moz if you have the budget for the pro version. This is a great SEO research tool backed by some of the top experts in the field. It can help fuel your SEO article writing strategy.

Implement Your Content Strategy With SEO Article Writing Tools

Once you have done the research to plan out your content writing strategy, you are ready to start putting it into place. Use these SEO research tools to help you find, create and monitor the keyword phrases you want to target in your campaigns. Consistently creating high-quality blogs, articles and other SEO optimized content can help you realize the full potential of your keyword research. In many cases, it is a good idea to buy articles from expert writers to get the best possible results.

BKA Content provides SEO article writing services that will help you create and execute an effective strategy. Contact us today to learn more about our services and how we can help your brand thrive online.