Updated August 2018

Keyword research is a crucial phase of any digital marketing strategy.

It doesn’t matter if you’re preparing for SEO, PPC, or content marketing. Targeting the right set of keywords will ensure that your messages are visible to the right audience.

Unfortunately, keyword research can also be a repetitive and tedious time suck especially if you’re ill-equipped for the job. After all, there are endless amounts of keywords out there that you can mix, match, and integrate into your strategy.

Some of them are in-demand but overused, while others are utterly worthless.

What you do want, however, are keywords that are still in demand, yet have a decent level of competitiveness. Of course, with a powerful keyword research tool, you’d be able to uncover these keywords in minutes.

In this post, we’ll take a closer look at the best keyword research tools in the market today.

We’ll kick it off with a couple of free options first and then look into why you should use LongTailPro.

Let’s get started.

1. Google AdWords Keyword Planner

The Google AdWords Keyword Planner is perhaps the most popular keyword research tool in the market. It’s completely free to use for those who have a Google account — which is basically everyone at this point.

In the new Google interface, the Keyword Planner can be launched through the “Tools, billing, and settings” button.

Keyword Planner generates keyword suggestions based on specific information, such as your landing page URL, business category, and terms that are relevant to your brand or niche.

You can also filter results by location, average monthly searches, language, and date range.

The results page will then provide you with a bird’s-eye view of potential keyword ideas along with important metrics, namely, the average searches per month, competition level, and suggested bid price.

Pros

• Fast Results
  When it comes to keyword research, the Google Keyword Planner is as simple as it gets. It can pull in hundreds of keyword suggestions using only tidbits of information.
• Combining Keyword Lists
  The Keyword Planner also allows you to “multiply” two or more keyword lists to generate more ideas.
• It’s Free

Cons

• Too Basic
  The Keyword Planner can provide you with keyword suggestions, but it’s definitely not designed for in-depth comparisons or competitor research.
• Your Competitors are Using it Too
  If you’re using the same keyword tool as your competitors, then you will most likely end up targeting the same keywords.
• Results Are Limited
  Google Keyword planner will not give you an exact search volume for the keywords you are targeting. In fact, the search volume will be a huge range. Ex. 1K – 10K searches monthly. It will be nearly impossible to develop a content plan based on these results.

2. Ubersuggest

Next up is Ubersuggest, another straightforward keyword research tool that can provide hundreds of suggestions based on a single phrase or term.

As far as features go, Ubersuggest works similarly to AdWords Keyword Planner. It does, however, leave out critical information such as search volumes and competitiveness.

Ubersuggest also automatically generates a “word cloud” that can help you detect words with high usage, which you could combine with the others you’ve collected from the main search results.

Not only will this help you find more unique keywords, but it also enables you to have a deeper understanding of what people are searching for.

Pros

• Simple and clutter-free
  Ubersuggest promises and delivers hundreds of keyword ideas in every niche — nothing more, nothing less. As such, the keyword research interface is the only thing you’ll find in the tool.
• Loads faster
  Compared to AdWords Keyword Planner, Ubersuggest lets you do your keyword research right off the bat. It’s also consistently faster when loading results or navigating to other pages.
• Easy Keyword Expansion
  If you happen to find a keyword idea you like, you can quickly expand it to uncover variations literally just two clicks.
• It’s Free

Cons

• Very Limited Functionality
  Just like AdWords Keyword Planner, Ubersuggest is not ideal for more extensive research tasks.
• No metrics.
  Ubersuggest only gives you keyword suggestions — that’s it. You won’t find average monthly searches, competitiveness, or anything else that can help you gauge profitability.

3. LongTailPro

As a marketer, you should never settle for a mediocre keyword research tool.

It’s true that AdWords Keyword Planner and Ubersuggest can give you a wealth of keyword ideas in a flash, but that’s only the first step of keyword research.

Remember, you need to find keywords that get a reasonable amount of monthly searches while making sure that the level of competition you’ll get for targeting the keyword is manageable.

With the wrong keyword research tool, it could take you hours upon hours digging up keyword variations and taking a look at what competitors are doing.

But if you have a tool like LongTailPro, you can cut through the number-crunching and obtain profitable keyword ideas within minutes.

Unlike the free tools mentioned earlier, LongTailPro is armed to the teeth with features that can help you find profitable keyword ideas within minutes.

It’s arguably the best tool for keyword research out there.

For example, after producing a list of keyword ideas based on your “seed keywords,” LongTailPro also provides crucial metrics such as the competition level, search volume, and rank value for SEO.

With LongTailPro, you can also sort the results by word length, which is useful if you’re looking for long-tail keywords.

This will help you find low-hanging fruit keywords. These are keywords that generate a decent amount of traffic without being too competitive for smaller brands.

Furthermore, LongTailPro comes with “Competitor Keyword Suggestions” for conducting competitor research in their Agency Plan.

Simply type in your competitor’s page or domain URL to scout out their top-performing keywords and absorb them into your own strategy.

Benefits of LongTailPro

Here’s a quick breakdown of the specific advantages of using LongTailPro:

• In-Depth Keyword Research Metrics
  To help you select keywords, LongTailPro also presents their competitiveness level, SEO rank value, search volume, and suggested advertiser bid.
• Competitor Research
  The convenient “Competitor Keyword Suggestions” in the Agency Plan can help you outmaneuver your competitors by targeting their top-performing keywords.
• Advanced Search Filters
  To refine your keyword search, you can use the built-in filters to scrape the ones that match your specific needs.
• Rank Tracker
  LongTailPro can assist you on the SEO front by tracking your website’s rankings for specific keywords. Apart from Google, it also covers Bing and Yahoo Search — local and international.
• Free Trial
  Finally, LongTailPro comes with a free 7-day trial that you can use and examine in any way you want.

Key Points

Tools to marketers are like brushes to an artist.

You can have all the talent in the world, but without the right kinds of brushes for specific types of material, the artist’s capacity to create a masterpiece would only be hampered.

While the first two keyword research tools are amazing in their own way, they cannot compete with LongTailPro when it comes to efficiency and benefits.

If you’re looking for a keyword tool to help you find the best keywords to target, check out LongTailPro’s free 7-day trial now.