The best free keyword research tools of 2026

When the free daily limits start to slow you down, SERPed.net is a low-cost way to test a paid suite properly. Its Premium plan costs $7 for the first 30 days, then $79 a month, or $53 a month billed yearly. That trial is longer than Semrush's seven-day free one, though it isn't free, and SERPed has no free plan. A 30-day money-back guarantee covers you if it doesn't fit.

Its keyword tools cover the jobs this guide splits across several free tools. The main research tool connects to Google's API and returns search volume, cost per click, traffic value and PPC competition. Long Tail Keywords pulls suggestions from Google, Bing, YouTube, Amazon and eBay. Keyword Analyzer gives a competition score for how hard a term is to rank for, with Moz and Majestic metrics for the current top 10. What Ranks Where lists the keywords any site ranks for in Google's top 100.

Premium allows up to 170 keyword reports a month, with up to 80,000 suggestions from the main research tool and 28,000 from Long Tail Keywords, and What Ranks Where covers 3,000 keywords. It also tracks up to 2,500 keywords a month and manages up to 20 sites, with 250 white-label audits a month and unlimited site reports, which matters if you research keywords for clients. Choose it if you would otherwise juggle three free tools and a spreadsheet. Skip it if you publish a few posts a month and Search Console already shows you enough.

Wordze is mainly an AI writing tool, but its research side works as a keyword tool for bloggers. You search by keyword, question, long-tail phrase or competitor domain and see search volumes and trends, and a topic clusters view groups ideas into a pillar topic and the posts that support it. Wordze's site doesn't mention difficulty or cost-per-click figures, so you will still want a second tool to judge competition.

The reason to choose it is what happens after the research. From a keyword, Wordze can build an outline from the top-ranking pages, draft the article and publish it to WordPress or a Shopify blog. If you would otherwise pay for a keyword tool and a separate writer, the Solo plan covers both for $15 a month, or $10 a month billed yearly, with 250,000 credits a month for one user and three sites.

There is no free plan or free trial; Wordze offers a 30-day money-back guarantee instead. Skip it if you only need keyword research, since the free tools above cover that and SERPed.net goes further on keyword data.

If your site is live, start here. The Performance report in Search Console lists the searches people typed before your pages appeared in Google, with clicks, impressions, click-through rate and average position for each query. Google describes Search Console as a free service, and you add a site by proving you own it.

The most useful habit is to sort queries by impressions and look for terms with plenty of impressions but an average position on page two. Google already connects those searches with one of your pages, so a sharper title, a new section or a few internal links can move them up sooner than a fresh article aimed at a keyword you have never ranked for.

The limits matter. You only see data for sites you have verified, so Search Console can't tell you what a competitor ranks for or how much demand a brand-new topic has. The report opens on the past three months, its tables show at most 1,000 rows, and Google says it stores top rows rather than every query, so a large site loses part of its long tail. A new site with little traffic will see a short list. Pair it with an idea tool such as KeywordTool.io for topics you haven't covered yet.

Keyword Planner sits inside Google Ads and was built for advertisers, but its numbers come from Google. Enter a few words and it returns related keyword ideas with average monthly searches, plus the low and high range advertisers bid for a place at the top of the page. That bid range is a handy sign of commercial value: when advertisers pay a few dollars a click for a term, there are usually buyers behind it.

Read the volumes as estimates. Google's help pages say search volumes are rounded, averaged over 12 months by default and shown for exact matches. Since 2016, advertisers who spend little have reported seeing broad ranges, such as 1K to 10K, instead of a single figure, and Google's help pages don't say when that happens. Check what your own account shows before you plan a content calendar around one number.

Getting in takes a few more minutes than the other tools here. Google Ads Help says you must finish setting up an Ads account, including billing details, before you can open the planner. Google doesn't list a separate price for the planner. If you would rather not enter card details, KeywordTool.io and Ahrefs' free generator work without a Google Ads account.

Semrush is one of the large paid SEO suites, and its free plan is the easiest way to see what that kind of tool adds to free sources. The pricing page lists the free plan at $0 with no credit card: one demo project, up to 10 reports a day across its core tools, and its AI visibility features.

Ten reports a day suits a quick check on a shortlist rather than planning a new site from scratch. Use it to compare a handful of keywords you found elsewhere, or to see which terms a competitor ranks for before you decide what to write.

The pricing page doesn't say how many rows or which metrics a free report shows, so expect samples and upgrade prompts. Paid plans add tracking for 500 keywords a day, site audits and more searches, and Semrush offers a seven-day free trial. Semrush's plan FAQ lists the paid SEO toolkit at $139.95 a month.

Ahrefs sells a large paid SEO suite, and its free Keyword Generator gives you a sample of the keyword database behind it, which Ahrefs says holds more than 8 billion queries. Type up to ten words or phrases, choose Google, Bing, YouTube or Amazon and a country, and it returns ideas sorted into reports: phrase match, the same terms in any order, keywords the top pages also rank for, autocomplete suggestions and questions.

Ahrefs lists local and global volume estimates, Keyword Difficulty and cost per click among the metrics in its keyword data. The free page doesn't say how many results or which of those metrics a free search shows, so treat it as a sampler that ends with an upgrade prompt. For a blogger checking whether a topic has demand on YouTube as well as Google, that sample is often enough.

If you own a site, Ahrefs Free gives limited access to Site Explorer and Site Audit for it at no cost. Ahrefs says it doesn't run discounts, and its pricing FAQ points people who want to try it to Ahrefs Free rather than a trial. Paid access starts with the Starter plan at $29 a month.

Keyword Tool reads autocomplete, the phrases a search box suggests as you type, and turns one seed word into a long list of long-tail ideas. The free version needs no account and returns up to 750 or more suggestions per search from Google autocomplete. You can pick one of more than 190 Google domains and more than 120 languages, which helps if you write for readers outside the US.

It supports 17 search platforms, including YouTube, Bing, Amazon, eBay, the App Store, Play Store and Instagram, so you can see how people phrase a search on the site where your content will live. Keyword Tool's own page says the free version is for keyword inspiration; search volume and cost per click are what Keyword Tool Pro adds.

Pro starts at $88 a month, or $68 a month billed yearly, for 50 requests a day and volume data for up to 50,000 keywords a day. There's no free trial, and Keyword Tool offers a 30-day money-back guarantee instead. That is a big step up from free, so most people pair the free version with Keyword Planner or Semrush's free plan to check volume on the ideas they keep.

AnswerThePublic takes a topic and returns the questions and related phrases people search around it. It suits writers planning FAQ sections, how-to posts and the supporting articles around a pillar page. It does less for judging how hard a keyword is to rank for.

The free allowance is small. Without an account you get one search a day, and a free account raises that to three. Paid plans add search volume and cost per click: Starter is $20 a month, or $120 a year (works out to $10 a month), for one user and 100 searches a month. Growth costs $99 a month, or $49.50 a month billed yearly, for up to three users and 200 searches a month.

Three searches a day is enough if you use them on purpose. Run your main topics here, export the questions worth answering, then check volume for the best ones in Google Keyword Planner. The paid plans also bundle Content Studio, an AI writing tool, which you can ignore if you already write with something else.

Google Trends shows relative interest instead of search volume. Each chart runs from 0 to 100, where 100 is the peak for the terms, place and dates you chose. That makes it the right tool for two questions the other tools answer poorly: when in the year a topic peaks, and which of two phrasings people use more.

In the current Explore view you can compare up to eight groups of terms, with up to 50 terms in each, and set a country or region and a date range for each one. Google builds the charts from a sample of searches, adds a little noise for privacy and shows low-interest terms as 0, so Trends is no help with niche long-tail phrases.

One practical use: before you write a holiday gift guide or a tax-season post, look at last year's curve to see how many weeks ahead interest starts to climb, then publish before that point. Trends also helps when two tools disagree about volume, because it shows which phrasing people prefer without either tool's estimate.

Moz's Keyword Explorer draws on an index of more than 1.25 billion keyword suggestions and shows monthly search volume and a difficulty score, plus the URLs a site already ranks with. A free Moz Community account gives limited access to Keyword Explorer, along with the MozBar browser extension and Link Explorer. Moz doesn't publish how many free lookups that covers, so plan to use it sparingly.

It earns its place as a second opinion. Every vendor builds its own difficulty model, so scores for the same keyword differ from tool to tool. When Moz and a second tool both rate a term as hard, you can trust that more than either score alone.

If you outgrow the free account, Moz sells an entry plan for $49 a month aimed at people managing one website. Moz Pro Standard is $99 a month, or $79 a month billed yearly, with 150 keyword queries a month, which is tight for heavy research. Moz offers a free trial of Moz Pro, but the pricing page doesn't give its length.