Good keyword research is the difference between writing things people search for and writing things nobody will ever read.
That’s the whole game. Find the words your audience types into Google, write something genuinely useful around them, and you’ve got a chance of ranking. Skip it, and you’re publishing into the void.
The good news: you don’t need to spend a penny to get started. Here are the free keyword research tools worth your time — what each one does well, where it falls short, and when it makes sense to pay for something better.
The best free keyword research tools at a glance
| Tool | Best for | Searches per day (free) |
|---|---|---|
| Google Keyword Planner | Volume data straight from the source | Unlimited |
| Google Search Console | Keywords you already rank for | Unlimited |
| Ubersuggest | Keyword ideas + rough difficulty | 3 |
| Google Trends | Checking if a topic is rising or dying | Unlimited |
| AlsoAsked | Finding “People Also Ask” angles | Limited |
| Bing Webmaster Tools | Free data most people ignore | Unlimited |
| Mangools (free plan) | Difficulty scores + full research workflow | 5 lookups |
The free keyword research tools, one by one
1. Google Keyword Planner
The most underrated free keyword research tool going, and it comes straight from Google.
It lives inside Google Ads — you need a free account to access it, but you don’t have to run any ads. Because the data comes directly from Google’s own search engine, the volume numbers are as honest as you’re going to get anywhere.
What it’s good for: Generating keyword ideas at scale, and checking approximate monthly search volumes. If you want to know whether 500 people or 50,000 people search for something each month, this tells you.
Where it falls short: Two things. First, it lumps similar keywords into volume ranges (like “1K–10K”) rather than giving you an exact number. Second — and this is the killer — it tells you nothing about how hard a keyword is to rank for. You can find a keyword with 10,000 monthly searches and have no idea whether page one is full of million-dollar brands or beatable blogs.
Use it for ideas and a volume sanity-check. Don’t use it to decide what to write about.
2. Google Search Console
If you already have a site with any traffic at all, this is the first place to look — and almost nobody does.
Search Console shows you the exact searches your site is already appearing for in Google results. That includes terms you didn’t know you were ranking for, and crucially, terms where you’re sitting on page two getting zero clicks.
What it’s good for: Finding your “almost there” keywords — pages ranking 11th to 20th for decent search terms. A solid rewrite or a few good backlinks can push those to page one. Search Console hands you that list for free. It’s the highest-leverage free keyword tool available to anyone with an existing site.
Where it falls short: It only shows you what you already rank for. It won’t help you find new territory.
3. Ubersuggest
The most popular free keyword tool, and a genuinely useful one. Put in a keyword and you get related keyword ideas, rough monthly search volumes, and an SEO difficulty score that gives you some indication of how competitive a term is.
What it’s good for: Getting a first read on keyword difficulty without paying for anything. The Chrome extension is still useful — it shows keyword data as you browse Google search results, without hitting any daily limits.
Where it falls short: The free website version limits you to three searches per day, which runs out fast if you’re doing any serious research. The difficulty scores are less reliable than paid tools. And the data can lag.
Three searches a day is enough to dip in. It’s not enough to do a proper session of keyword research.
4. Google Trends
Strictly speaking, this isn’t a keyword research tool — it doesn’t tell you search volumes or difficulty. What it does is show you whether interest in a topic is rising, falling, or seasonal.
What it’s good for: A 30-second sense-check before you commit to writing something. If the trend line is pointing down, the keyword volumes you’re looking at are from a topic in decline. Worth knowing before you spend a day writing about it.
Also useful for spotting seasonal patterns — if you’re writing about a topic that peaks at Christmas, you know when to publish.
Where it falls short: It shows relative interest, not absolute numbers. And it’s a supplement to keyword research, not a replacement for it.
5. AlsoAsked
This one does one thing, and it does it very well.
It takes a search query and maps out the “People Also Ask” questions that appear in Google results — the expandable question boxes that show up for most searches these days. That gives you a map of exactly what your audience is asking around a topic.
What it’s good for: Structuring an article. If you know the four questions people ask around your main keyword, you’ve got your subheadings handed to you. It’s also useful for finding long-tail keyword variations you wouldn’t have thought to search for.
Where it falls short: The free plan limits how many searches you can run. And it’s a research aid, not a standalone keyword tool.
6. Bing Webmaster Tools
Almost no one uses this, which is exactly why it’s worth mentioning.
Bing Webmaster Tools is Microsoft’s equivalent of Google Search Console, and it’s free to set up. The keyword research section quietly gives away data — search volumes, click-through rates, keyword ideas — that costs money to access elsewhere.
Yes, Bing has a fraction of Google’s search volume. But the data still correlates well with Google trends, and for zero cost it’s hard to argue with.
What it’s good for: A free second source of keyword volume data, and keyword ideas you might not get from Google’s tools.
Where it falls short: Bing traffic matters less than Google traffic for most sites. But as a free supplement, it’s worth the ten minutes it takes to set up.
The honest problem with free keyword research tools
Here’s what nobody selling you a course will say out loud: free tools are excellent for generating keyword ideas and hopeless for making decisions.
They’ll happily give you a list of a hundred keywords. What they won’t do reliably is tell you which of those hundred you can actually rank for. You end up switching between five tabs, copying numbers into a spreadsheet, and still guessing.
When you’re writing one article a month, that’s manageable. When you’re trying to build a site seriously, it quietly eats your time — and it leads to writing articles targeting keywords you were never going to rank for.
The thing free tools can’t give you is a reliable keyword difficulty score. A number that tells you, at a glance, whether a keyword is in reach or whether page one is stitched up by sites with ten years and ten thousand backlinks on you. That’s the decision that matters, and it’s the one you have to guess at for free.
The one paid keyword research tool I’d actually pay for
I’ve used the main options. Ahrefs and Semrush are excellent — and at £100+ a month, they should be. That’s fine if SEO is your full-time job. It’s absurd if you’re a blogger or a small business trying to do sensible keyword research without it becoming another big monthly expense.
For everyone else, I use Mangools.
It’s a suite of five tools:
- KWFinder — the keyword research tool. Type in a keyword, get search volume, trend data, and a difficulty score on a scale from 0 to 100. Green means beatable. Red means forget it.
- SERPChecker — shows you exactly who’s on page one for a keyword and how strong they are, so you can judge whether you’ve got a realistic shot.
- SERPWatcher — tracks your rankings over time, so you can see whether your work is paying off.
- LinkMiner — backlink analysis.
- SiteProfiler — site authority overview.
The keyword difficulty score is the bit that changes how you work. Instead of guessing whether a keyword is worth targeting, you get a number. That single piece of information stops you writing articles that were always going to bury on page five.
It’s not the most powerful tool on the market. It’s the one with the best ratio of “does what I need” to “doesn’t cost the earth.” Plans start at around $49 a month, or closer to $29.90 a month if you pay annually.
And you can try it for free before paying anything: there’s a 10-day free trial with no credit card required. Run your actual keywords through it. See if the difficulty scores change which articles you’d write. If it doesn’t pay for itself in time saved, don’t subscribe.
So what should you actually use?
Just starting out: Google Keyword Planner for ideas, Google Search Console for what you already rank for, and Ubersuggest for a quick difficulty check. That combination is free and it’ll take you further than most people get.
Past the dabbling stage: Take the free Mangools trial, run a week of real keyword research through KWFinder, and see whether the difficulty scores save you from writing things you were never going to rank for.
Because the most expensive keyword tool isn’t the one you pay £20 a month for. It’s the ten articles you wrote targeting keywords you had no hope of ranking for.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best free keyword research tool?
Google Keyword Planner is the most reliable source of search volume data because it comes directly from Google. For keyword ideas and a rough difficulty check, Ubersuggest is the most useful free option — though you’re limited to three searches a day on the website.
Is there a completely free keyword research tool with difficulty scores?
Ubersuggest provides basic difficulty scores on its free plan. Mangools also has a free plan with five lookups per day after the 10-day trial ends. Both are limited compared to paid plans, but enough to get a feel for how they work.
Is Mangools really free?
There’s a 10-day free trial with no credit card required, which gives you full access to all five tools. After that, you can stay on a limited free plan with five daily lookups, or subscribe from around $49 a month (closer to $29.90 a month if you pay annually). It’s not free long-term, but the trial is genuinely useful.
What’s the difference between Mangools and Ahrefs or Semrush?
Ahrefs and Semrush are more powerful and significantly more expensive (£100+ a month). Mangools does the core jobs — keyword research, difficulty scoring, rank tracking — at a fraction of the price. For most bloggers and small businesses, that’s the better trade-off.
How do I find keywords my site already ranks for?
Google Search Console. Go to Performance > Search Results and it shows every query your site appears for in Google, along with impressions, clicks, and average position. It’s free and it’s the most underused tool in SEO.
Affiliate disclosure: some links in this post are affiliate links. If you sign up through them it costs you nothing extra and helps keep this site running. I only recommend tools I actually use.