I’m sure you’ve heard it many times, but it bears repeating: keyword research is vital to your online marketing strategy. It’s important for both organic and paid marketing plan.
Still don’t believe it?
Try putting up a video on YouTube without adding at least one hashtag, and you’ll know the true meaning of the word “desert.”
Learning SEO and figuring out how you do keyword research is a continual learning experience. Even when you learn the basics, you still need to invest in finding the best keyword research tools that are easy to understand, easy to use, and give you measurable results, especially when it comes to your landing pages.
Over the decades there have been plenty of software solutions that work one minute, and the next minute, you’re left wondering. With the prominence of machine learning, these tools have shown marked improvement with keen insight that can help you to hold your own against those nail-biting algorithm changes.
Of course, not all are free. While there are some fantastic free keyword tools out there, technology-of-the-day dictates that any keyword software be more intuitive and tuned in to users’ needs. We’re talking about providing suggestions, recommendations, and all sorts of features that make the experience more seamless. If you want any piece of this, it requires a bit of investment.
When you’re looking for a good, or in this case, BADASS keyword research tool, look for the features like the kind of analysis it offers or if there are any integrations with other common applications. Of course, reporting is paramount, because the whole point is for you to discern what works and what doesn’t, so you can reap the benefits of all sorts of insider advantages.
5 BADASS Keyword Research Tools
(in no particular order)
LongTail Pro
LongTail Pro aims to use that one keyword you designate as the root(or seed) of your search to generate at least 800 unique keywords you can use to market any site within 24 hours. Rank Value helps you to figure out which keywords are the most profitable, and you can even analyze competitors by taking a look at their pages and dissecting their strategy.
This software helps you to streamline the analysis process that used to take long spreadsheets and throws in the ability to filter based on criteria that are relevant to your purposes. Users can enter up to 200 keywords manually, shortlisting them to see how profitable they are. Competitiveness ratings are color coded so that you can quickly understand what’s going on.
| Cost | Free Version/Trial | Key Features |
| Starter: $37/month Pro: $67/month Agency: $147/month | 7-day free trial (credit card needed) | >Rank Value rating >Competitor analysis >Rank tracking >Visit LongTail Pro |
Pros & Cons of LongTail Pro Keyword Research Tool
Pros:
- Generates keywords fast
- Easy to use
Cons:
- Details can be overwhelming
- Price may be a bit high
Mangools SEO
Mangools is an all-in-one keyword research solution with a few SEO tools:
- KWFinder uses competitor analysis to help you find what keywords for which your site can rank. Users can cull through historical data to find topics, trends, and terms that can help their organic traffic and their local SEO efforts.
- SERPChecker uses more than 45 SEO metrics to improve site ranks. This includes local SERPs (search engine results pages) that can be broken down by countries, cities, and even DMAs (designated marketing areas). It also estimates your site’s chances of calculating the chances of achieving featured snippets, answer boxes, and other organic results that can boost CTR.
- SERPWatcher assesses a site’s organic traffic potential by using its own Performance Index tool. It also provides daily ranking information and agencies can share interactive reports with teams and other stakeholders.
- LinkMiner evaluates your competitor’s site’s backlink strengths and helps you to see the referring websites without opening a bunch of browser tabs. If you are doing prospect research, the ability to save links you want to get back to is a handy tool.
- SiteProfiler helps you to figure out which links are healthy, and which you need to get rid of in an effort to save your SEO. You can spot useful opportunities and find new blogging ideas.
Users can get private API access so that they can do custom data exports, and it does have Moz & Majestic integrations available.
| Cost | Free Version/Trial | Key Features |
| Starter: $49/month Pro: $69/month Agency: $129/month | 10-day free trial (no credit card required) | >Historical data research for better content >Highlights healthy and spammy backlinks >Organic traffic opportunities and potential >Visit Mangools |
Pros & Cons of Mangools SEO Keyword Research Tool
Pros:
- Intuitive UI
- API access granted privately
- Free browser extension
Cons:
- Few tutorials on API integrations
RiteTag
When it comes to social media, hashtags are life. RiteTag gives users the ability to find the right hashtags that will improve engagement through its suite of products that includes:
- RiteTag is the core product that provides hashtag suggestions for texts and images, which makes it good for Instagram and Pinterest. You can even group those hashtags for easy addition to posts
- With Rite.ly, you can customize product or service CTA headers with your own logo and brand information. On top of that, you can even embed tracking tools for ad remarketing
- RiteBoost has an auto-hashtag and auto-emoji insertions feature that helps to boost post engagement. It can even automatically attach images from your metadata, create text-based images, and even append author Twitter handle to mentions
- RiteForge is for repeat-scheduling evergreen posts on social media sites weeks or months in advance. You can even create animated GIFs with the built-in RiteForge Composer
What if you want to use all of those features? There’s a RiteKit Package option.
| Cost | Free Version/Trial | Key Features |
| RiteTag: $49/year Rite.ly: $15/month RiteBoost: starting at $29/month RiteForge: starting at $12/month RiteKit Package: starting at $65/month | 7-day free trial | >Hashtag suggestions from image and text >Custom CTA banner for tracking >Automatically attach hashtags, images and emojis >Visit RiteTag |
Pros & Cons of RiteTag Keyword Research Tool
Pros:
- White-label customization available
- Auto-schedule evergreen posts
- Content attribution features
- Hashtags can be saved and reused
Cons:
- Support is via contact form only
- Hashtag Reports not available for RiteTag
SECockpit
Founded in 2010, SECockpit from SwissMadeMarketing helps businesses find the keywords from Amazon, YouTube, or Google search platforms. What makes this one different is that you’re not searching a prebuilt database; you’re working the actual sea of keywords from different sources. You’ll get daily rank reports about where you are in the SERPs, as compared to your competitors, and you don’t have to import/export long keyword spreadsheets, because you’ll have all your keyword data in one place.
| Cost | Free Version/Trial | Key Features |
| Personal: $39/month Pro: $59/month Agency: $99/month | 7-day free trial | >Research done with actual stream of data >Daily ranking reports >All data in one place >Visit SECockpit |
Pros & Cons of SECockpit Keyword Research Tool
Pros:
- One data source of truth for full analysis
- Built-in traffic and conversion calculator
Cons:
- Free RankTracker only available with Pro or Agency
Serpstat
Serpstat is a full-feature keyword research platform that provides businesses with profitable terms that their competitors may be using to get to the top positions. With the right variations and suggestions, you can optimize your site’s content for success and your online marketing efforts. Additionally, you’ll also have access to international data from Google and Yandex and learn about which pages are relevant to which queries. With this kind of information, you can better plan your advertising campaigns and even tweak them to build your organic traffic. With an on-page audit, you can identify optimization errors and opportunities.
Serpstat does have a freemium plan available, which gives you access to a small sample of the data for your project.
| Cost | Free Version/Trial | Key Features |
| Lite: $69/month Standard: $149/month Advanced: $299/month Enterprise: $499/month | Free Version available | >Direct domain comparison tool >International data access >On-page audit >Visit Serpstat |
Pros & Cons of Serpstat Keyword Research Tool
Pros:
- 120-day backlink data reporting
- White label customization
- Custom API feeds
Cons:
- Yahoo! and Bing not included in international tracking
- Rank tracking only available from Standard and up
- Max of 3 scheduled reports
FAQS
How do I find related keywords?
Here’s one of the no-brainer ways to do keyword research: look at the “People also ask” section as well the related searches down at the bottom of the SERP. These are some of the quickest and most useful tools to start the journey of finding related keywords.
How do you do keyword research?
Here’s how it works: Once you have a list of your main keywords and you’ve properly categorized them according to customer intent, (i.e. why would they search using these specific terms), that’s when you’ll want to isolate related terms. Of course, you’re going to have to research each term manually, which is beyond time-consuming and frustrating.
This is why taking the time to find a good keyword research tool will not only save time but will multiply your efforts by letting you sift through hundreds or thousands of keywords at once. Your research should be about finding a varied list of short and long-tail keywords, as long-tail keywords are about narrowing in on a specific leg of the customer’s journey.
How do I find the best keywords?
Truth be told, this is a delicate process. It’s a combination of finding the right keywords, then using them in the right context on the right platform for as long as it takes to make your visitors feel as if you’re speaking their language.
Not only does it mean finding the right tool, but it also means working with foundational applications and Google Search Console or on-site analytics to optimize for organic search. This SEO implementation requires doing detailed keyword research and optimization continually.