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Despite the rumors about the death of the keywords, keyword research is still the basis of all search engine marketing efforts, both organic and paid. From planning the website’s architecture to URL names and content optimization, if you won’t conduct a proper keyword research and optimize the website’s content to the relevant search terms, you will lose traffic, leads and probably money.

There are many tools that can be used for keyword research for SEO, here we will present some of them.

Best Tools for Keyword Research

1. Google Autocomplete and Google Suggestions

Google autocomplete and the search engine suggestions for similar keywords (at the bottom of the results’ page and now also below a clicked search result) are good places to start searching for keywords.

Although these tools do not provide full data about the search volume and the level of competition, they give a general idea on the most common search terms, especially long-tail keywords. After gathering the initial list of keywords, you can enter them to Google Keyword Planner and find out about their search volume and level of competition.

2. Google Keyword Planner

Google Keyword Planner is probably the most well-known keyword research tool. Although it is a quite essential tool for keyword research, it is not an ideal source for original keyword ideas. First of all, the tool is no longer free for all and you have to own an active Google Adwords account to get accurate data about the keywords’ search volume. Also, since the new interface was launched the number of keywords you can enter was limited to three.

Another drawback is the lack of keyword suggestions in some keywords, the synonymousness of other keyword suggestions and the irrelevancy of others. But, if you dig enough you can discover some interesting findings.

3. SEMrush

SEMrush is a paid tool that used mainly for competitors research, but it can also be used to get keyword ideas and learn about the keywords that send traffic to your competitors.

To get keyword ideas, simply enter one keyword at the search bar and receive details about phrase match keywords, related keywords, and details about each keywords search volume, CPC and list of real-time search results.

4. Wikipedia

After checking the competitors’ website you might as well take a look at Wikipedia for more keyword ideas as well as content ideas. The free online encyclopedia covers almost every topic, usually broadly, and in most cases trustfully.

How to choose the best keywords for your SEO campaign?

Search Volume: the average searches of the exact match keyword. Using this data we can estimate the expected traffic from a certain search query. The search volume is an important matrix; after all, you don’t want to base your SEO strategy on search terms with zero searchers. However, note that the search volume is relative, can be seasonal and in some niches zero searches can indicate a lot of potential.

Competition: usually you’ll find correlation between the search volume and the level of competition, but there are many keywords with high search volume and low to medium competition, and those are the keywords you should target.

Relevancy: obviously, you should choose keywords that describe the product, service or information the site offers. Avoid choosing keywords that don’t have (and won’t have) relevant content.

Search Results: it’s always worth checking the current search results of the selected keywords. It helps to assess the level of competition and the required resources to rank on these keywords.

Note that keyword research is a dynamic process, and you can always tweak the initial list of keywords based on the rankings, traffic data and trends.