15 SEO Experts Reveal Best Tools For Keyword Research in 2019
Let's have a look at the Best Tools for Keyword Research as recommended by the Experts!!
1) Jon Dykstra
Website/Blog: https://fatstacksblog.com/
Jon Dykstra- What could be more fun than earning a living spending a few hours each day publishing articles millions of people enjoy each month? Not much. Jon is the founder and owner of a digital media company that publishes a variety of web properties visited by millions of readers monthly. Fatstacks is where he shares a glimpse into his digital publishing business.
Jon's Best Keyword Research Tool:
Ahrefs is loaded with features for keyword research that I use almost daily. I particularly like the keyword difficulty measure it gives for every keyword. While one must take any "keyword difficulty" score with a grain of salt, it's an excellent starting point when choosing keywords.
Keywords Everywhere (Chrome Extension): Keywords Everywhere helps me stumble upon gems while surfing, researching, writing, Googling or doing anything online because it displays all kinds of keyword data on the screen. I pay attention to the offerings because more often than not I discover some great options purely by accident.
2) Mike Allton
Website/Blog: https://bloggingbrute.com
Mike Allton- Mike Allton is a Content Marketing Practitioner - a title he invented to represent his holistic approach to content marketing that leverages blogging, social media, email marketing and SEO to drive traffic, generates leads, and converts those leads into sales. He is an award-winning Blogger, Speaker, and Author, and Brand Evangelist at Agorapulse.
Mike's Best Keyword Research Tool:
When it comes to keyword research, the tool I turn to most often is SEMRush.
Not only am I able to plugin ideas for keywords and run reports on their potential value, but I can also save those keywords to a project and monitor my results over time!
And SEMRush will also recommend other keywords that might be of interest based on my initial ideas.
So I might want to create content around "blogging" and find that particular keyword is too saturated. But in the related keywords, I might find the phrase "how to start a blog" and believe that's a keyword I can compete on. Once I begin creating content around that phrase I can then track how my site performs against that keyword.
3) Jamie Turner
Jamie Turner: Jamie Turner is an internationally recognized speaker, author, and CEO who is a recipient of the Socialnomics "Top Keynote Speaker" award (along with Tony Robbins, Ariana Huffington, and Richard Branson). His client list includes The Coca-Cola Company, AT&T, Microsoft, Verizon, SAP, T-Mobile, and Holiday Inn.
You may have seen Jamie in the Wall Street Journal, Inc., Entrepreneur, Business Insider and Forbes. He's also a regular guest on CNN and HLN where he contributes segments on marketing, persuasion, and leadership. He is an adjunct professor at both Emory University and the University of Texas and has been profiled in the world's best-selling advertising textbook.
He is also the co-author of several essential business books including How to Make Money with Social Media; Go Mobile; and Digital Marketing Growth Hacks. He has a new YouTube series called IN:60 which is available on his YouTube channel. You can read Jamie's blog by visiting 60SecondMarketer.com. And if you'd like to find find out more about having him speak at your next event, click through to JamieTurner.Live.
Jamie's Best Keyword Research Tool:
Video is the next big thing in marketing. In fact, it's not actually the NEXT big thing as much as it's THE big thing. Right now. So I've spent some time analyzing which tools are best for keyword research as it pertains to video marketing.
Of course, Google has its own keyword research tool in the Google Ads platform, and that's always a good starting point. And there are a lot of other good keyword tools out there. But the one I've found particularly useful as it relates to video is TubeBuddy's keyword planner tool. Not only do they analyze the number of searches for any given keyword, but they also have a topic planner tool which enables you to see which topics would resonate with your audience.
In other words, instead of just having keywords that resonate, they take it up a not and provide you insights on which overall topics would be important to your audience. It's one of the many features about TubeBuddy that I really like. Bottom Line: Video is big. It's time for you to jump on board. And TubeBuddy can help ensure that the videos you create get the views they deserve.
4) Brian Wray
Brian Wray: The search engine optimization Brian do is based on empirical evidence. It's not about guessing what your website needs, it's about studying the various ranking factors at play and prescribing a solution that fits the bill. Brian does this at Loganix and WraySEO, from sunny San Diego.
Website/Blog: https://loganix.netBrian's Best Keyword Research Tool:
Ahrefs provides the cornerstone for our keyword research process. Their Content Gap feature shows us exactly what the competition is doing and how we can optimize our pages to compete and excel. We just have to list our top 3-4 competitors, then Ahrefs will spit out all the keywords that others are ranking for and we aren't.
From there we can determine where the holes are, whether we need to build out new pages or optimize existing pages with new keywords.
Once we decide which page to work on, we can add specific competitor URLs one-by-one into Ahrefs to see all of the other keywords they are ranking for. This tells us what ancillary keywords we should include on our page.
After we've tackled this on-page research, Ahrefs comes in handy with its Link Intersect tool. This allows us to view patterns in our competition's backlink strategy so we can understand what types of links will be necessary for the page.
Google Keyword Planner is another favorite. It's often overlooked because it's not a shiny new toy, but when you dive into the tool you will find it can generate many helpful keyword ideas. We can start with a simple list of seed terms, enter them into Keyword Planner and ta-da... endless inspiration! We welcome these new ideas and use them as the basis for building new pages. You can essentially plan out a site from scratch this way if you choose to.
Keyword Planner is probably the best way to understand the commercial value of various keywords. The CPC and Search Volume information is coming directly from the source, Google, so we know the true value of terms we picking to build our pages.
One trick you can do when sorting the data is to create an additional column where you multiply CPC by Search Volume for each keyword on the list. You can then filter this list from the highest to the lowest value of that column. This will give you a top to bottom list of terms from highest to lowest overall commercial value. It also helps when selecting phrases for Google Ads campaigns.
Lastly, WebSite Auditor helps us complete our on-page optimization process by providing important LSI terms to support our main keyphrases. It's no secret that topical relevance is massive this year, and moving forward will continue to be huge, so we ensure that our page is using all the terms Google will want to see. This will not only help you rank higher for your main keyphrases, but it'll pull in several other terms to help you further dominate the SERPs.
5) Amanda Webb
Amanda Webb: Amanda from Spiderworking helps small businesses win at online strategy.
She's a blogger, vlogger, podcaster and self-confessed content addict. Her blog has won awards nationally and internationally and she just loves to talk marketing.
When she's not creating she loves watching Dr. Who, playing with her cats and going for long cycles in the Irish countryside.
Amanda's Best Keyword Research Tool:
My customers are busy business owners or marketers. Although they understand the value of SEO they are often the only person in their business doing marketing so they need quick and easy tools for keyword research.
As much as they'd love to use tools like Semrush, MOZ or Ahrefs they don't have the time to learn how to use them effectively so they ignore them.
My challenge is to find tools that they can use quickly, that is simple to learn and will have some impact on their SEO.
And it's these basic tools that I will share with you today.
A good starting point for keyword research is Google itself. The auto-complete function will help you identify terms that people are already searching for.
Start typing your topic into Google and see what results it suggests in the drop-down menu. These will be keywords that begin with the word you typed into the search box.
For more results complete your search.
Once Google has completed the search, click into the search box just after your Keyword. Now you'll not only get the suggestions starting with your search term but others that include it.
For example; by just typing 'Cats' into the search bar I get:
Google Auto-completeCats protection
Cats for sale
Cats musical
Catspaw
Cats and dogs
After I complete the search for Cats I also get:
Cute cats
Facts about cats
Keywords Everywhere is a plugin for Chrome or Firefox that suggests related keywords to searches you complete in any search engine.
Now when I search for 'Cats' I get a full list of keywords and volumes listed on the right-hand side of my search screen.
As well as keywords it gives you an estimated search volume, cost per click and an indication of how competitive the term is depending on your region.
MozBar: https://moz.com/products/pro/seo-toolbar
Now you've identified your keywords it's time to research the competition. MozBar adds a line to your search results showing you the DA (domain authority) and PA (page authority) for each search result.
Scroll through the results. How many sites on the results page have a larger DA than your website? If they are all much higher, it could be difficult to rank.
If they have a similar or lower DA, there's a good chance you can own this search term.
Take a deeper look at the search results. How relevant are they to the keyword? Can you write a longer, more helpful post that includes more images or a video? If so, you have a chance of getting onto page one.
All these tools are free to use and can quickly mastered. They are ideal for businesses short on time who are dabbling in SEO and keyword research. Even though they are simple, they can still deliver keywords that can guide your online content.
6) Sean Work
Sean Work: Multi-century search engine optimization consultant.
Sean's Best Keyword Research Tool:
I usually start with reading the copy of a website, jotting down all the obvious keywords on the home page and about page copy. Then I use my brain to come up with variations and other keywords I think might be relevant. THEN, I'll ask my client what they think are good keywords or keywords they wish to rank for. After that, I'll ask if I can see support tickets or emails from customers to learn the language they use. Finally, I'll use Ahrefs to see traffic volume, keyword difficulty and even scrounge around for more ideas.
Website/Blog: judinc.com7) Dorien Morin-van Dam
Dorien Morin-van Dam:Dorien Morin-van Dam is a social media consultant, trainer, community manager, and keynote speaker.
She is a regularly featured expert on CBS where she shares social media strategies, live video tips and the latest marketing news for small businesses.
You'll recognize Dorien online and on-stage by her signature orange glasses, a nod to her Dutch heritage.
Dorien's Best Keyword Research Tool:
I am loving SEMrush for keyword research right now! I do a lot of blogging and it is helping my client's blog rank high. I especially love using their SEO writing assistant as I write.
Website/Blog: https://www.moreinmedia.com/8) Ryan Stewart
Ryan Stewart: Ryan is a Marketer with over 10 years of experience building, growing and scaling websites.
Ryan's Best Keyword Research Tool:
I use 2 main tools for keyword research:
1. A custom tool we built in Google Sheets to help us track and pull data and find keyword "gaps" on our client sites ( https://theblueprint.training/tools/keyword-gap-finder/)
2. WonderSearch ( https://wondersear.ch/)
Website: https://ryanwashere.com9) Shane Barker
Shane Barker: Shane Barker is a digital marketing consultant who specializes in influencer marketing, product launches, sales funnels, targeted traffic, and website conversions. He has consulted with Fortune 500 companies, influencers with digital products, and a number of A-List celebrities.
Shane's Best Keyword Research Tool:
The Google Keyword Planner and Google Trends are two of the best free tools for keyword research.
The Google Keyword Planner uses the massive search query data from Google to inform you which keywords have the highest search volumes. It also shows how much advertisers are bidding on a particular keyword, so you can find the top money keywords.
Google Trends allows you to not only find keywords in your niche but also tell you how a keyword has performed over time. It provides historical trend reports for each keyword, so you can choose the ones that have been consistently performing well.
Ahrefs is another useful keyword research tool that provides in-depth details for each keyword. It provides metrics like keyword difficulty score, search volume, clicks, and a lot more for each keyword.
Website: https://shanebarker.com/blogAnd, the best part is that it shows how many backlinks your web page will need to rank for a particular keyword. This is very useful information when you want to optimize your content for SEO.
10) Andrea Loubier
Andrea Loubier: Andrea Loubier has been recognized as one of the thought leaders and top female entrepreneurs in Southeast Asia. As CEO of Mailbird, Andrea takes inspiration from many other leading female tech entrepreneurs in changing the mindset and way we conduct personal and business communication through email today.
With Andrea as the muscle behind pushing Mailbird into the forefront of tech companies in the world, Mailbird has been nominated by PC World as one of the best productivity tools for the business person, IT World named Mailbird the best email client for Windows, and Microsoft even nominated this tech startup as Startup of the Day. Andrea is a contributor to Forbes and The Asian Entrepreneur. She's been featured and interviewed on Bloomberg TV and BBC.
Andrea's backbone comes from her experience in building strategic relationships, conceptual selling skills, multiple projects and people management, cross-team communication and coordination, leadership, project bidding and billing, and client correspondence with top international corporate enterprises that include Proctor and Gamble, KAO Brands and Ubisoft, among many other highly reputable brands. As the CEO of Mailbird, dedicated to building a great company and finding opportunities in business and for her team in developing a healthy relationship with email.
Andrea's Best Keyword Research Tool:
Ahrefs- We use Ahrefs for our overall SEO efforts including of course Keywords Research. What's great with Ahrefs is that you can look for the keywords your competition is using easily so you can start identifying the content you should either optimize if you already have content ranking for the defined keywords or created if you don't have any content ranking for the keywords your competition is ranking for. With their Keywords difficulty analysis, you then get a full plan for keywords optimization and you can start working on the low hanging fruits first and then start optimizing for more competitive keywords.
Google Console Manager- What I like a lot with Google Console Search (GCS) is that you get actual data on search volume, click-through rate (CTR) and average position. As the head of Growth, I got tons of discussions around the validity of average rankings as it seems that it does not reflect the reality of the actual position. People tend to believe what they see in the SERP are the actual positions but search results are very contextual and what's shown for you might be different from someone else depending on many factors. Those average rankings are also a great way to optimize positions on the long run because since they aren't integer (#1 #2 or #7) but actual real numbers (for example 4.3) which allows you to follow the evolution of the keywords overtime for individual keywords, groups of keywords so you can evaluate the health of your overall keywords optimization strategy.
Google Search- From time to time, I like to take a look at the end of each search results pages in order to get additional insights on what people are looking for thanks to the associated search tool that Google is providing at the end of the search page. As I do this manually, it also helps me understand what is the flow of thoughts that our potential users could be in (looking for a keyword and being influenced by the suggestions they got).
Website: http://www.getmailbird.com/11) Carl Potak
Carl Potak: Carl is the Founder and CEO of StartupDevKit, a new type of online startup incubator and accelerator that's membership-based, so anyone can join and benefit from it. He's built a huge startup incubator platform with hundreds of the best curated and original startup resources to help anyone from idea-stage creators to recently launched startups grow easier, smarter, and faster.
He's also the author of the book Startup Survival Secrets (releasing soon), which is about the top 20 reasons why startups fail, the root causes for each of those reasons, how to prevent them, and what to do instead. Being that 99% of startup accelerator applicants don't get in and 90% of startups fail, both the platform and the book are here to help the worldwide startup community thrive. Carl has built the entirety of the StartupDevKit website and the Incubator Platform on his own.
Carl is a serial founder and has been building and growing startups since 2007. He's been a founder, marketing and startup consultant, marketing director, WordPress website creator, a technical IT recruiter for an intrapreneurial recruiting startup, and has dabbled in technical support as well.
Carl earned a certification in Inbound Marketing from HubSpot Academy, earned a certification in Google Analytics from Google, and earned a Bachelor's Degree from Binghamton University (SUNY) in Political Science. In addition, as a young adult, Carl achieved Eagle Scout from the BSA and led a top-ranked Counter-Strike team for years, called Performance, until he started his last year of his college started in 2008 and started his first startup.
Carl's Best Keyword Research Tool:
The free tools I use for keyword research are SEO Book's keyword research tool, Ubersuggest, Moz's Keyword Research Tool, Answer the Public, Google's Webmaster Tools Search Console, Buzzsumo ((their free version) to see the types of posts that are highly shared), and Google's search engine by typing in my keywords and seeing the similar keywords it suggests to search for. Then I use the data from Google Analytics and Search Console to help refine posts and pages after they're published.
SEO Book has been around for a few years and only requires you to sign up for a free account. Once done, you get to punch in keywords and get data on traffic, CPC pricing, and other similar keywords with their data.
Ubersuggest is from Neil Patel, the SEO and content marketing king. He created an almost all-encompassing SEO tool that rivals many paid ones. Being that he also created the push notification tool, Subscribers.com, which was free at first and then started charging for it, it's very likely that he will do the same with Ubersuggest at some point.
Website: https://StartupDevKit.comMoz is a very popular and great site that's dedicated to helping people with their SEO. They have a number of tools and tons of blog articles that you can use for free, but you can also pay for their product/service to get greater details and more results. I primarily use their keyword research tool, as it's free. It helps to have different reports from different services to do a comparative analysis and verify the data I'm getting from the other services are correct.
Answer the Public is a bit more in-depth in terms of topical keywords and related terms. However, it doesn't provide search engine data, so it can only be used for keyword idea generation.
Google's Webmaster Tools Search Console has been amazing to show how your posts, pages, and keywords are actually performing. You can see how many impressions and clicks a particular keyword combo, page, or post is getting. You can see past performance and see comparative performance reports. You can see mobile usage vs desktop and more. What's best, you can see every single keyword that your posts or pages have ranked for. It's quite an awesome tool and I expect it will remain free because that's how Google rolls.
Buzzsumo helps me see what the most shared posts are for a particular search term. And with their free version of the tool, you can only do one search per day. So it's important to use it after you've identified the topic and long-tail keyword(s) you'll be using. Their paid version allows you to have unlimited searches but is very expensive for small organizations.
12) Jacob Cass
Jacob Cass: Jacob Cass is a prolific graphic designer who runs the popular design blog, Just Creative, which doubles as his award-winning graphic design & branding firm. Jacob's clients include the likes of Disney, Jerry Seinfeld, and Nintendo. Jacob has spoken at TEDx, been featured in Forbes, Entrepreneur and has been awarded LinkedIn's exclusive "Best of" for graphic design.
Jacob's Best Keyword Research Tool:
I often just think to myself, what would I type into Google to find what I am looking for? From this, you can get a shortlist of keywords found at the bottom of Googles related searches. And pick up on other keywords found in the titles of other high ranking posts. From that, I can then put together a summary of keywords and craft new keywords or strings that will outrank the prior articles.
13) Mike Gingerich
Mike Gingerich: Mike's background is in marketing, business development, and web design sales. As social media took off he gravitated towards Facebook and the marketing side of how to use social media and digital tools to grow your audience, increase your leads, and convert more sales.
He has 10+ years of experience in Internet Marketing, having created and implemented marketing strategies across many industries enabling clients to expand their reach, gain market share, and extend their brand awareness.
Mike's Best Keyword Research Tool:
Website: JustCreative.comKeyword research for website SEO can be defined as researching the terms people type into search engines when looking for resources similar to your site. Once you know what these keywords are, you can incorporate them into your website content. Do this consistently, and your site will rank for the keywords and keyword phrases on search engine result pages.
But if you're using the wrong keywords, no matter how much you stuff your content you'll still not reach your intended audience. This is why it's necessary to do keyword research. All your subsequent efforts are useless if your keywords aren't targeted enough.
General terms are more popular, which makes them more competitive and expensive. Let's say you have a law firm in Newport, RI specializing in divorce, and you want its site rank better in the search engine results.
Type in zero-turn lawnmowers on Google and you'll get about 1 million results. To get on the first page for that term will take considerable time, money, and effort. And even if you have the resources to get on the first page, how much goodwill it do? People looking for divorce lawyers in cities other than Newport will leave your site as soon as they realize it's not what they need. And your site will have a higher bounce rate.
But type in zero-turn lawnmowers in Harrisburg pa and you'll get around 85,000 search results. With fewer competitors, you can focus on that specific term and related terms, and get good ranking results in a shorter time. There's less competition and you are also honing in on people specifically interested in your products in your sales area.
In SEO, these specific terms are called long-tail keywords. These are targeted to people who are about to make a purchase, or who know more exactly what they want. When someone uses a very specific term, they're no longer just looking around. There's a huge chance they already know what they want and are ready to buy or are motivated to learn more.
Keyword Research Tools at Your Disposal
Luckily, you don't have to guess which long-tail keywords perform well. There are several tools I suggest and I want to dive into each a bit more here:
Website: mikegingerich.comOn Buzzsumo, you can enter any topic, and the tool will analyze what content performs best for that. It displays links to content containing the keyword you supplied, then lists statistics on its Facebook engagement, and also LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest, and Google+ shares.
For Übersuggest, you can type in a term and choose categories (web, images, etc.) and country. It then gives you an extensive list of longtail keyword based on the term you supplied.
Ahrefs is an all-in-one software as a service (SaaS) tool that provides data and tracks your SEO (Search Engine Optimization) efforts. While not free it is a robust tool that includes a powerful keyword research tool in addition to other capabilities I've mentioned in an earlier website SEO grader podcast.
One tool that will allow you to generate hundreds of long-tail keywords from a single term is KeywordTool.io. It's free and unlike Google's own Keyword Planner tool where you could wind up spending a lot of time pursuing results, it only requires a single click to give you a myriad of ideas.
Specific vs. General Keyword SearchesIf you're looking for articles ideas based on the keywords you gathered from the tools above, there's Blog About, a blog title generator. Input any keyword, and the tool will display some suggested titles and email you the rest. This is a valuable way to get SEO-optimized blog titles relevant to your long-tail keyword phrases.
As noted in the podcast, once you have the keyword phrases and optimized titles, you write your blog post and Yoast SEO in WordPress sites helps you analyze your content, images, and overall post for how well it is optimized for the long tail keyword phrase you are targeting. You simply add in the phrase and it runs through a whole series of items to evaluate your post and help you fine-tune it to be optimized for that phrase.
Another valuable resource is Small SEO Tools and their Keyword Position Checker here: https://smallseotools.com/keyword-position/
BuzzSumoKeyword Position Checker is a tool used to detect the position of a website or URL in the search engine (particularly, Google) for a given keyword as per competing with other websites for the same keyword.
In the end, a key comes down to understanding your ideal customer. Put yourself in your targeted audience's shoes. If you were in their place, what keywords would you use to find what you're looking for? That's a very good place to start.
Übersuggest14) Chris Makara
Ahrefs
Chris Makara: Since 2003, Chris Makara has developed a broad digital marketing background with a focus on SEO, Social Media, and Analytics. He is the founder of Bulkly, a social media automation tool for individuals and small businesses.
Chris' Best Keyword Research Tool:
Blog About by Impact15) Sue Dunlevie
Yoast SEO
Sue Dunlevie: Helping bloggers make money with their blogs so they can be their own boss, work from home and do what they love.
Sue's' Best Keyword Research Tool:
I recommend Ubersuggest to my clients since Neil's SEO tool is free of charge. They really like it (thanks, Neil!).
I personally use Keysearch.co - it is my go-to tool for doing SEO for my blog. It's inexpensive and works very well.
My focus, as it has been for the last 6 years, is to put out great content and build my audience. Keysearch helps is an all-in-one SEO tool that comes with keyword, SERP and competitor research, keyword rank checking, backlink analysis and lots of helpful features. It's also beginner-friendly when my clients are ready to start paying for an SEO tool.
Website: https://chrismakara.comThe things that I enjoy most about Keysearch are that:
1) It allows you to check whether or not you should target a keyword-based on its level of difficulty.
2) Let's you see who's ranked on Page One of Google and
3) gives you hundreds of keyword suggestions and gives you volume and difficulty. Plus it lets you export or even saves to the software the keyword suggestions so you can use them another time for a different post.
All in all, a well-rounded SEO search tool!
Also Read:
Conclusion: Best Tools For Keyword Research in 2019
Website: https://www.successfulblogging.comAs of now, you might have a clear cut view of Best Tools For Keyword Research in 2019. You can apply these experts advice in order to build more profitable SEO Campaigns for your business.
Which SEO Expert advice you liked the most, tell us in the comment section below.
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