Organic rankings have long been the lifeblood of any well-established site.
Play your cards right and you’ll be able to tap into an endless stream of free, highly-targeted traffic… on autopilot.
Sounds awesome, and it is. But getting there requires smart planning. Not throwing up a hundred articles, stuffing them with every keyword under the sun and calling it a day. That’s not what keyword research is about.
You need an intelligent approach that allows you to strategically find the right keywords. Keywords that are not only possible to rank for, but those that also generate a positive ROI.
Fortunately, a number of tools have emerged over the years to help us do just that. In this post, we’ll tear them apart in order to find out who’s the real daddy of keyword research tools.
It’s a valid question, and a good starting point.
After all, before these “essential” tools showed up, people were ranking just fine. Google’s page 1 wasn’t just an empty, desolate void of white space.
So what makes a premium keyword research tool worth the investment?
Answer: Time & Data.
Not only do they directly speed up the research process, but they give you the keys to a myriad of data and insights you otherwise wouldn’t have had access to.
The kind of information that allows you to strategically target keywords as opposed to shooting blind, and giving you a basis to create content around keywords that are statistically proven.
There’s really no doubting the benefits of using a premium keyword research tool. They perform a function that’s invaluable to anyone looking to grow an online business.
The question really comes down to which tool does the job in the fastest and most efficient way possible. And that, my little internet marketing friends, is exactly what we’re about to find out.
Before we dive into actual tools themselves, it’s important to understand that not all keyword research tools are created equal.
In fact, there are 2 distinct approaches you can take:
Each approach follows a different set of steps in order to reach the same goal. The goal, of course, is to uncover ‘easy to rank’ keywords that’ll offer a positive ROI.
As for keyword research tools, there’s a clear divide between tools that help with the traditional approach versus the competitor-based approach. And very few are good for both (but we’ll get to that).
In order to identify which tool to use, you’ll first need to identify which approach is right for you.
Let’s go further down the rabbit hole, shall we?
The traditional approach takes a more linear angle and is by far the most common approach when it comes keyword research.
(Although that’s becoming less and less the case – hint hint.)
These are the fundamental steps involved for carrying out traditional keyword research:
Learn More : The Simple Guide to Traditional Keyword Research
Most keyword research tools on the market are built on the traditional approach, simply because it’s long been the default strategy for SEO’s.
Here are some of the key players:
KW Finder is a fairly new traditional keyword research tool built from a KISS (keep it simple stupid) perspective, and without compromising on a detailed analysis.
Long Tail Pro is a veteran in the traditional keyword research marketplace and one of the first to introduce a keyword competitiveness score. It continues to see upgrades and improvements to this day.
SE Cockpit is yet another traditional keyword research tool with over 67,000 users. A somewhat less talked about tool, SE Cockpit boldly claims to to offer keyword research at “warp speed.”
Moz Pro is well-established player in the SEO market offering a suite of SEO-based tools. One of those is a traditional keyword research tool, called the ‘Moz Keyword Explorer’.
The competitor-based approach flips the traditional approach on it’s head by looking for keywords that are already proven.
It’s uniquely different in a sense that your research (step 1 and 2) isn’t based on seed keywords, but seed websites. In other words, reverse-engineering your competitor’s rankings.
These are the fundamental steps involved for carrying out competitor-based keyword research:
Learn More : The Simple Guide to Competitor Keyword Research
Fewer keyword research tools are built on the competitor-based approach, simply because it’s a newer, and far more resource-intensive way to do keyword research.
I should also mention that some competitor-based tools have incorporated traditional research, which is currently not true in reverse.
Here are some of the key players:
SEMRush was one of the first competitor-based keyword research tools to emerge, and it quickly became a popular choice among SEO’s in the community.
Ahrefs is an established competitor-based research tool that – as of recently – also offers a robust traditional keyword research tool as part of the package.
SEPStat is another all-in-one SEO tool (not just keyword research) that was recently featured in a lifetime AppSumo deal. It’s still relatively new but it seems to have already made a splash.
This is the big question.
On one hand we’ve got the traditional approach, and on the other hand, we’ve got the competitor-based approach.
They both work when it comes to finding low-competition, high-value keywords, but it still begs the question…
….which approach works best?
As I’ve already alluded to, more and more SEO’s are adopting the competitor-based approach. The reason for that is simple:
It’s wayyyyy more effective.
By leveraging keywords that are already proven, you remove a lot of the risk associated with traditional research, which is largely based on theory.
The point I’m trying to make is, there’s no need to reinvent the wheel. If it works for your closest competitors, it’s probably going to work for you as well.
So with that said, you should obviously take the competitor-based approach to keyword research, right?
Wrong.
Unfortunately, it’s not as cut and dry as that.
Just because it’s “the best” approach, doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the right approach for you specifically.
I know, this might seem a little counter-intuitive.
After all, I just told you that competitor-based research is a more effective approach, so why would anyone even consider taking the traditional route?
Truth is, the traditional approach does makes sense if you fit into any of the following:
At this stage, we’ve covered the different ways to approach keyword research and how to determine the right one to take.
But here’s the thing:
Knowing which approach to take only tells you the type of tool you need, but it still doesn’t tell whichtool you need, specifically.
So with that in mind, let’s cover the “must have” features when it comes to choosing a keyword research tool.
There are really only a few key features that’ll move the needle, and once you know what they are, you can make a MUCH better buying decision.
The first one is pretty obvious, but it needs to be said.
That’s right, the number of suggestions it spits out. Generally, the more keywords you have to work with, the more likely you are to find those gems.
But while you should absolutely look for a tool that brings back a reasonable number of suggestions, there is a trade off.
Relevance.
Larger lists are inherently less relevant. When you have a bunch of low-relevance keywords, you need to be able to effectively filter that list based on different data points.
And while any decent keyword research tool will allow you to filter and analyze suggestions, it’s access to data that determines how well this works.
We’ll come back to this again shortly, but for now, just keep this relationship in mind.
The only logical way to compare keyword tools based on suggestions is to run the same query through each and record the results.
For this test, I used the keyword phrase “massage”. (Mostly because I could really use a massage right about now. This chair is awful.)