Keywords are integral to effective SEO and other aspects of digital marketing.
By targeting the right keywords effectively, you can attract your intended audience (see my previous post on how to get your website on Google's first page).
This post gives you with over 15 different keyword suggestion tools to choose from, whether basic or advanced, free or paid.
15+ Top Keyword Suggestion Tools
1. Ahrefs Keywords Explorer
Ahrefs is one of the most popular tools for SEO agencies and marketers, offering tools such as:
- Keyword suggestions
- In-depth backlink analysis
- Competitor analysis
Its powerful keyword research tool gives you numerous keyword ideas from any keyword you enter.
The tool also provides in-depth information on individual keywords.
(Ahrefs has a free basic version available, and its paid plans start from $99/month.
There are four pricing plans to choose from, up to $999/month.
For their Lite and Standard plans, you can test out the software for 7 days for $7.
2. Google Keyword Planner
Google Keyword Planner is a free tool available through a Google Ads account.
It’s one of the most commonly used options, though relatively basic when compared to other tools.
However, with data coming straight from Google itself, it’s probably the most accurate and the one I default to personally when doing keyword research (here’s how I use it).
While primarily designed for businesses placing paid ads, you can simply ignore that part of the data.
As well as plenty of keyword suggestions related to the keyword(s) you type in, you can also see how many people are searching per month for those keywords, and see how that’s changing over time.
The results can be filtered based on certain countries you want to focus on, and language.
3. Moz Keyword Explorer
Moz is a well-respected brand in SEO circles, and its platform offers a complete suite of SEO tools—including an excellent keyword suggestion tool.
As well as providing alternative suggestions similar to the seed keywords, in terms of the word matching, it also offers laterally-related keywords, which refer to phrases likely to attract the same audience.
You’ll also get:
- Information indicating the expected click-through rate (CTR).
- A priority metric that indicates you how much traffic particular keywords may bring you via the SERPs.
Subscribers to Moz can get 10 free queries a month.
Their paid plans start from $99/month, with 3 other plans available up to $599/month.
A free 30-day trial is available with their Medium plan ($179/month), though seemingly not with other plans.
4. Serpstat
Serpstat is another suite of SEO tools useful for helping to rank your website and grow search visibility.
The software includes tools for:
- Backlink analysis
- Website auditing
- SERP analysis
- Keyword research
Their keyword suggestion tool provides insights such as trends and keyword difficulty, and provides a useful graph that helps visualize which keywords are preferable to others.
Serpstat’s basic keyword research tool can be used for free, but only for a limited number of times.
After that, for unlimited access, they offer four paid plans, starting with Lite at $69/month, up to $399/month for their Enterprise plan.
5. Google Trends
Another free tool from Google, Google Trends offers keyword suggestions, along with some powerful insights for each keyword.
Of course, that includes whether a particular keyword has been trending up or down over the past few months, or even years, with data available right back to 2004.
You can also filter that data based on specific countries, or choose to see it worldwide.
But in terms of keyword suggestions, the tool gives you up to 25 related queries. By choosing the Top filter option as shown below, you can see their relative popularity.
It’s not the most comprehensive suggestion tool, as it focuses on trends over time.
But it comes in very handy when for example used in conjunction with other keyword suggestion tools, providing an indication as to the longevity of keywords you might want to focus on.
6. SEMrush
SEMrush offers a whole suite of SEO tools, including its keyword suggestion tool.
Rather than providing a list of suggestions from a seed keyword, it asks for a URL, from which it will let you know which keywords they are ranking for.
This can help uncover potential keywords by for example looking at competitors' URLs.
The tool also provides:
- Organic traffic insights
- Keyword difficulty analysis
- Bulk analysis
- Performs keyword analysis based on geographic location.
SEMrush offers a free 7-day trial, with 3 paid plans to choose from.
These range from the Pro plan at $119.95/month when paid monthly, to the Business plan at $449.95/month.
Additional users and add-ons are available for a fee.
7. KWFinder
Packed full of features, KWFinder is also intuitive and easy to use, and particularly good at uncovering long-tail keywords.
The output includes an easy to understand keyword difficulty score displayed alongside each suggestion. In-depth SERP analysis is also available for each keyword, including what keywords competitors are ranking for.
KWFinder provides users with a limited number of free keyword searches.
Their paid plans start with the Mangools Basic plan at $49/month, up to the Mangools Agency plan at $129/month.
A 10-day free trial is also available.
8. Longtail Pro
As the name suggests, Longtail Pro is well tuned for finding long-tail keywords, although shorter keywords are also included in their results.
It's an easy to use tool, including:
- Information on the competitiveness of individual keywords
- The ability to search for multiple seed keywords at the same time
Longtail Pro has 3 pricing plans, starting from the Starter plan at $37/month, to the Agency plan at $147/month.
A free 7-day trial is available for their Starter and Pro plans.
9. Google Search Console
While Google Search Console doesn’t provide keyword suggestions in the same way as other tools, it does show you which keywords are attracting traffic from Google, including many long-tail keywords you may not have specifically targeted.
Such keywords can be potentially focused on in order to grow rankings further and attract additional traffic.
It's completely free to use.
10. UberSuggest
Neil Patel's UberSuggest keyword suggestion tool provides you with:
- Useful information on keyword difficulty, whether organic or paid
- Cost per click information per keyword
- The number of searches per month
- The top 10 results in the SERPs for each suggestion, along with information on their backlinks (including anchor text keyword).
UberSuggest even suggests content ideas based on other content ranking for the keyword in question.
The free version gives you 3 free searches a day.
Paid plans start from the Individual plan at $12/month, up to the Enterprise/Agency plan at $40/month when paid monthly.
A 7-day free trial is also available.
11. Spyfu
As the name suggests, Spyfu is useful for spying on the competition, including which keywords they are using to rank and the backlinks they've attracted.
You can also of course use the tool to check how your own website is performing.
Spyfu offers 3 pricing plans, starting with the Basic plan at $39/month, up to the Unlimited plan at $129/month.
12. Soovle
Soovle is a different type of keyword suggestion tool, providing keyword ideas from a wide range of channels such as Wikipedia, YouTube, Bing, Yahoo and Google, and displaying them in graphical format.
Suggestions can be dragged into a saved suggestion box, and the results can also be exported via a CSV file.
The tool is completely free to use.
13. Jaaxy
Jaaxy is a basic keyword suggestion tool that’s easy to use while providing a lot of useful information.
After searching on a seed keyword, each suggestion it shows you includes:
- Search volume
- Competition
- Potential traffic levels
You can get started via their free Starter plan, which provides a limited number of searches and limited access to features.
When you're ready to upgrade you can choose from either Pro at $49/month, or Enterprise at $99/month.
14. SECockpit
SECockpit provides a comprehensive suite of keyword research tools targeted towards SEO experts.
The data outputted from the tool includes:
- Synonym suggestions
- Monthly search volume
- Top of range bids
- How niche particular keywords are, and many more.
The tool has 3 paid plans available, from the Personal plan at $39/month, up to the Agency plan at $99/month.
There is also a 7-day free trial available.
15. KeywordTool.io
KeywordTool.io is another lite keyword suggestion tool with plenty to offer.
Users can get several keyword suggestions from a single seed keyword. The tool will also tell you:
- What keywords your competitors are ranking for
- How particular keywords are trending.
You can use their free version without needing to open an account.
For paid accounts, pricing starts at $89/month per user.
16. Majestic Keyword Generator
Majestic is an SEO toolkit best suited to small businesses and bloggers, such as helping them look for backlinks to their website.
Their keyword suggestion tool includes features like competition research, and can help you find easy to target keywords.
Majestic has 3 paid plans, starting with the Lite plan at $49.99/month up to the API plan at $399.99/month.
To Conclude
This post has summarized some of the best keyword suggestion tools currently available.
The one you choose to use will depend on factors such as your needs, your level of technical expertise, and of course your budget—and you may of course want to use a combination of tools for different purposes.
Where paid options are available, most provide free trials or demos, enabling you to test it out prior to purchase.
Effective keyword research enables you to find the right keywords to attract your audience, enabling you to increase your visibility on search and attract increasing levels of traffic.
