Whenever you type a request into the search box looking for something, you get search results related to the words in the search box. That means if you want your ads floating around the Internet you have to put it on a keyword. Therefore, to ensure that your ads are shown for relevant search requests, you need to do thorough keyword research. In this article, we will go through the main keyword types and keyword match options. We have also prepared an ultimate review of top keyword research tools to identify the most profitable segments for your business.

Keyword types and keyword match options

There are several types of keywords depending on a user intention:

• Informational – when a user is trying to find an answer to a question or learn something;
• Navigational – when a user is trying to trace a specific website;
• Transactional – when a user is trying to make a purchase.

Relying on your CTA and user intention, you can target specific keywords to help you reach out to the relevant audience and increase conversion rate.

When setting ad campaign, you are to choose a keyword match type. You should treat it very attentively as this will have a direct impact on the campaign performance. Google Ads offers such keyword match types as broad match, phrase match, and exact match.

• With broad match type, your ad may be shown whenever users’ search requests include any word in your key phrase irrespective of the order. This match type ensures max reach but usually brings lots of irrelevant traffic.
• Phrase match suggests some of the flexibility of broad match with a higher level of control. It is something of a golden mean: you decrease the amount of traffic by increasing its quality.
• Exact match is the match type that brings you high-quality traffic. However, if you aim to increase brand awareness of your product, that’s not the best way to do it as you will get very poor traffic.

Top keyword research tools

Searching around the internet we checked lots of websites and tools. Here we’ve collected the most relevant tools for keyword research.

• Semrush
• Ubersuggest
• Google Keyword Planner/Google Keyword Tool
• SpyFu
• Kwfinder

Semrush

Semrush is a multiple platform with lots of tools for SEO and PPC: Content, Market Research, Advertising, or SMM & SERM. We would like to focus on the PPC Keyword Tool category.

Features

• Keyword Overview

• Organic Research
• Keyword Magic Tool

• Keyword Gap
• Keyword Manager
• Organic Traffic Insights

Pricing

Pros

• Semrush has an extremely large collection of keyword data available for the users.
• The tool helps consolidate software and accounts being used, staying within one platform, and adding value to building SEO audits and reports.
• Semrush offers the ability to pivot and make changes with all of the information in one platform.

Cons

• The plan allows having only one user. As an agency, you can have only 1 person logged in and using an account.
• Access to APIs is only available with higher packages.

SpyFu

SpyFu is a platform that provides tools for PPC and SEO. You just need to use the domain to see all of the keywords they have. Here you can have deep keyword research without any problems.

Features

• Keyword overview

• Related keywords

SpyFu provides related keywords for a given search term and search volume information for keywords.

Pricing

Pros

• SpyFu gives great guidance for future campaigns.
• The tool provides accurate data.
• SpyFu insights into organic keyword positions are informative.

Cons

• The free version has a very limited set of features.

Ahrefs

Ahrefs offers an all-in-one SEO toolset with free tutorials for marketing specialists.

Features

With the help of Ahrefs keywords explorer, you will be able to discover a great number of keyword ideas, analyze their ranking difficulty, and calculate traffic potential. You may learn more about the most efficient data analysis tools in our recent article.

• Provides keyword ideas with accurate search volume numbers

• Adjusts keyword ideas for ten different search engines

• Applies various filters to find and prioritize the best keywords

• Provides unique “Keyword difficulty” score to measure how hard it would be to rank in the top 10 search results for a given keyword

• Showcases advanced metrics for deeper insights: Clicks, Clicks per Search, % of Clicks, % of Paid Clicks vs Organic Clicks, and Return Rate

• Delivers exclussive “SERP overview” report to see the top-ranking results, along with all their SEO metrics

Pricing

Pros

• Ahrefs provides a free keyword research tool. You do not need to pay for the current tool ahead.
• The tool is easy to use and has a user-friendly interface.

Cons

• The free keyword research tool has a limited set of features available.
• Search volumes provided in Ahrefs are usually on the low side to what they get in reality.

Google Keyword Planner

Google Keyword Planner offers words or phrases searching based on your products and services. Keyword research tool helps to find the keywords that are most relevant for your business.

Features

With Google Keyword Planner you will be able to use the following features:

• Detect new keywords: use keywords suggestions related to your products, services, or websites;
• Analyze average monthly searches: evaluate the number of searches a keyword gets each month;
• Define cost to see the average cost of your ad based on a keyword;

• Organize keywords to see how your keywords bland in different categories based on your needs;
• Create new campaigns: use your keyword plan to create new campaigns focusing on advanced keyword research.

Pricing

Google Keyword Planner is totally free. You don’t need to spend a penny on Google Ads to get access. All you need is a Google account.

Pros

• The tool is totally free of charge.
• Google Keywords Planner lets you easily create and manage advertisements on Google.
• The tool ensures seamless integration with Google Analytics.

Cons

• Google Keyword Planner does not provide a negative keyword list.
• The solution doesn’t share long-tail keywords suggestion for most of the categories.
• You can’t search for volumes on mobile and desktop devices separately due to Google’s updated feature list.

Ubersuggest

Ubersuggest allows you to get insights about your competitors and their working strategies to take them over, improve and gain an advantage.

Features

• Showcases Top SEO pages to discover which of your competitor’s pages are ranking for popular organic keyword phrases

• Provides content ideas to focus on keywords and topics that people are actually interested in

• Reveals backlink data to define an action plan for improving your link profile

Pricing

Ubersuggest offers three pricing plans relying on your business size and number of managed websites.

Pros

• Ubersuggest offers advanced features for monitoring broken links and helping you optimize your Google ranking.
• The tool ensures very fast and reliable research.
• The solution has an easy-to-use interface.

Cons

• Ubersuggest has a limited set of features in the free version.

Summing up

We have prepared a list of the most reliable tools for keyword research. We have compared them to show you their pros and cons and choose the best option tailored to your business needs. Let us know in the comments about your experience of using these tools.