The 6 Best Keyword Research Services on the Market

1. Ahrefs Keyword Explorer

Ahrefs is my #1 keyword research service.

Ahrefs is the most comprehensive tool, and while it offers more functions than research, we’re focusing on keyword research here.

You can access the usual difficulty score for keyword ideas.

And it provides a vast array of keyword suggestions.

Ahrefs will uncover how your competitors’ content performs, and you can target their best-performing keywords.

You can also view your site’s performance and get a search engine’s eye view of your content.

Speed up slow pages or fix broken elements to improve the user experience.

Why not track the progress of targeted keywords over time?

Ahrefs can even send a weekly report of your rankings.

It even splits your rank into mobile and desktop results.

Its only downside is the price. It might put beginners off, but veteran digital marketers will understand the investment.

2. KWFinder

KWFinder aims to take the complication out of keyword research.

It mixes a user-friendly interface with comprehensive data to satisfy both veterans and newcomers to SEO. 

As a web-based app, KWFinder dispenses with compatibility problems.

So don’t worry about finding suitable software if you use a Mac.

However, if you do run into problems, their support is highly rated.

Identify seed keywords and plug them into KWFinder.

The software generates suggestions for related keywords and lets you evaluate the difficulty of any suggestion.

In other words, find out at a glance how easy it will be to hit page 1 of Google’s search results.

At $12 a month, it’s cheaper than other keyword research services.

On the downside, they do cap keyword results at 200 or 500, depending on your plan.

They place limitations on requests, so heavy users might want to look elsewhere.

It’s not ideal for competitor research, either. You can’t plug in a URL to pinpoint keywords used elsewhere.

If that’s not an issue, then check out KWFinder.

3. Moz.com

Moz offers their Keyword Explorer as part of the Moz Pro suite.

It features a clean interface and focuses on presenting data using visuals.

It also provides a relevance score for any keyword suggestions.

That makes it easier to sort hundreds of suggestions.

Moz also uses ranges like Google’s Keyword Planner, but they use machine learning, so the program predicts fluctuations in search volume.

But it caps suggestions at 1000, which is a little low. It’s not what you’d call a comprehensive tool.

That said, the organic nature of its algorithms gives much more up-to-date results than some of the other tools.

4. SEMrush

SEMrush offered the first keyword research services with the ability to reverse-engineer keywords for competitors.

In the early days, you couldn’t use it for traditional analysis.

While you can now use it for traditional keyword research, it works better when you plug in a competitor’s URL.

Targeting keywords that others are ranking for means you’re using proven keywords.

SEMrush lets you discover a competitor’s organic ranking.

The results you’ll get are overwhelming unless you know what you’re looking for. 

Then you can use the sidebar to filter the results to get the data you need.

Its cluttered user interface is one of SEMrush’s downsides. It looks far more complex than it actually is. 

It also only includes desktop browsing data, which is a shame since 60% of traffic came from mobile in 2016.

But despite its downside, SEMrush had 100 updates in 2016. They keep on top of things.

But at its heart, SEMrush lets you cherry pick the best performing keywords for your competitors.

Target those with better content to get the best results.

5. CognitiveSEO

CognitiveSEO is a new kid on the keyword research services block.

They provide a lot of the same functionality as the other tools on this list.

But where CognitiveSEO shines is in its link management module.

It tracks links in real-time, meaning you’re instantly alerted to broken links.

Emails keep you up-to-date with your link status.

Thanks to Penguin 4.0, that’s important to track.

You can also track link partners so you’ll know if someone has taken your link down.

Building relationships with other site owners is easy once you can identify your backlinks.

While its interface is largely easy to use, and it offers lots of data, some of the sub-domain data is sometimes lacking.

So it might throw up ‘The Huffington Post’ as a source but not tell you which page on that site.

Aside from that, it is definitely worth a look for its value through backlinks.

6. SECockpit

Like KWFinder, SECockpit works within your web browser. 

It also boasts a mobile app that lets you conduct keyword research while you’re away from your desk.

The app syncs with your desktop account to keep all your data in one place.

SECockpit prides itself on its speed, promising to return 200 keywords per minute.

Not just any keywords; results are processed and analyzed before you ever see them.

The app aims to provide a ‘one-stop-shop’ approach so that you can track SEO campaigns within your account.

With the Pro plan, you can track backlinks and follow SECockpit’s ranking advice through a series of checkboxes.

Finding keywords is one thing, but finding good opportunities is another.

SECockpit cuts out low-traffic keywords so you can identify keywords in your niche with the most ranking potential.

SECockpit collates competitor data while it processes its results.

You can filter results according to competition, which gives instant access to the best keywords in your niche.

While SECockpit does take information from AdWords, the Pro version also offers the Google Suggest and Amazon Suggest scraper.

Each of these tools ‘scrapes’ Google and Amazon to check what real people are actually searching for.

Given that 20% of searches are already conducted by voice, it’s vital that you include keywords humans will use too.

On the downside, its user interface is more complicated than KWFinder, though they do offer a lot of tutorials.