15 Best Keyword Research Tools For 2026 (Pros And Cons)

Want to find those juicy keywords that are easy to rank for and drive a ton of traffic? You need a keyword research tool.

In this post, we’ll be exploring the best keyword research tools on the market. All of the tools below can help you to uncover new topic ideas based on the queries your target audience is searching for. 

You can then use these ideas to help plan your content strategy and inform your SEO (search engine optimization) and PPC campaigns. 

The best keyword research tools – summary

#1 – SE Ranking

SE Ranking is the best keyword research tool for for those who want the best balance of features and affordability. It offers built-in collaboration tools, a white-label interface, and flexible pricing plans that are very affordable for a large number of users and projects.

It’s another all-in-one solution that offers a suite of tools to help with all areas of SEO, including keyword research, and boasts one of the largest databases on the market, with 7 billion keywords and data spanning all countries.

You can type a keyword into the search box to analyze it. Just choose your search engine and country and hit search. Then, it’ll collect the data and display it in an easy-to-read format.

You can analyze keywords based on core parameters like difficulty score, search volume, CPC and paid competition, etc.

SE Ranking will also generate a list of similar and related keywords alongside these parameters. You can sort the results with filters like search volume or difficulty to identify the best opportunities, and export the data to build your project’s keyword list from scratch.

The keyword tool integrates with SE Ranking’s keyword position checker so you can monitor your performance in the search results. You can view data from different devices separately (desktop and mobile), track your organic position, map results, rich snippets, etc.

You can also track the rankings of up to 20 competitors alongside your own website to measure your performance against other leading sites in your niche. There’s also a backlink checker, content optimization tool, website auditor, etc.

For agencies, SE Ranking offers a white label feature, which lets you share the tool with your clients through your own domain and under your own branding. Customizable user sub-accounts allow you to set up access privileges for all team members working on the project.

Pros and cons

Pros	Cons
Flexible pricing	Complicated pricing system
Collaboration tools
White label
Powerful keyword research
All-in-one toolkit

Pricing

SE Ranking plans start from $23.52/month, but pricing is flexible based on your needs. Use the calculator on the site for an exact price. You can get started with a 14-day free trial.

Read our SE Ranking review.

#2 – Mangools

KWFinder by Mangools is the best keyword research tool for beginners. It’s affordable, intuitive, and super-effective at finding low-competition, high-volume keywords.

The whole idea behind Mangools is that SEO should be easy. In line with that goal, everything about the platform is built to be as easy to use as possible. The interface is super straightforward: you can either search by keyword or search by domain. Either option will generate a list of keyword ideas.

If you search by domain, you can see the keywords your competitors are ranking for, their average ranking position, search volume, etc. 

To pick out keywords that are easy to rank for, you can filter them by difficulty. Each keyword is assigned a Difficulty Score (from 1 to 100) based on how competitive the SERPs are. You can also view search volume, CPC, and all the other metrics that matter.

If you’re running a local business, you can find location-specific long-tail keywords for your website. Drill down into the local search results for over 50,000 locations to find out what local markets are searching for.

Another cool thing about Mangools’ KWFinder is that it lets you pull up historical keyword data. For example, a keyword might show a search volume of 1,000/month right now — but is that trending upward or down? You can dig into the historical search volume data to uncover these long-term trends and find out whether a search term might be about to take off or if it’s losing steam.

When you sign up for the Mangools package, you also get access to 4 other tools in addition to KWFinder: SERPChecker (for SERP analysis), SERPWatcher (for rank tracking), LinkMiner (for backlink analysis), and SiteProfiler (for SEO metrics).

Pros and cons

Pros	Cons
Easy to use and beginner-friendly	Not as suitable for enterprises and agencies
Great for finding low-competition keywords
Keywords in any location or language
Historical keyword data

Pricing

Free plan available. Paid plans start at €29/month, save 35% with an annual subscription. Mangools offer a 48-hour full refund policy.

Read our full Mangools review.

#3 – Semrush

Semrush has a bunch of different KW research features and more. It’s an all-in-one platform that’s ideal for enterprise customers that need the very best, most sophisticated features. However, it might be overkill for some users.

It’s a tad expensive compared to some other options, which might put it out of reach of cash-strapped entrepreneurs and small businesses. But if you can afford it, you’ll benefit from incredibly accurate data, powerful research capabilities, and tons of additional SEO and content marketing tools.

It’s also worth mentioning that it’s usage allowances are higher than most other tools so even though it looks expensive, you can get more use out of it than a lot of other tools.

The integrated keyword tool works a little differently than some of its competitors. Rather than entering a seed keyword to generate a list of related suggestions, Semrush shows you the keywords that your biggest competitors are ranking for. 

These kinds of keywords are often very valuable (if they weren’t, why would your competitors target them?). They’re also very difficult to find using other tools.

All you have to do is enter a competitor’s domain in the search box, then choose the location you want to pull suggestions from. You can pull up keywords from the worldwide database or from specific countries like the US, UK, etc.

From there, scroll down to the Organic Research section to see an overview of the website’s total organic traffic, ranked keywords, and traffic cost (an indication of the value based on CPC).

You can open up the Organic Keywords data to see an overview of the top keywords that are driving the most traffic to your competitor’s domain.  You’ll be able to see the average position they rank for each of these keywords as well as other important metrics.

If that’s not enough, you can click View all organic keywords to see a complete list of every single keyword they rank for.

With all this data at your fingertips, it should be easy to find tons of new keywords for your content strategy. But if you still need more, you can go to the Competitors section to see your competitor’s competition and click on any of those results to find their top organic keywords too! Rinse and repeat for an endless supply of keyword ideas.

Of course, you can also use Semrush to find long-tail keywords related to a seed keyword too. The Keyword Magic tool pulls suggestions from Semrush’s huge database of over 20 billion search queries.

Pros and cons

Pros	Cons
Enterprise-level solution	Expensive compared to other tools on this list
Huge database
Powerful keyword research tool
Comprehensive suite of marketing tools

Pricing

Plans start from $139.95/month. You can also try Semrush out with a limited free account.

#4 – SEO PowerSuite

SEO PowerSuite is a downloadable SEO software toolkit. Their Rank Tracker software includes both keyword research and rank tracking features.

SEO PowerSuite offers powerful 23 keyword tools under one roof. Google Ads Keyword Planner, autocomplete tools, related questions, related searches, Search Console, Google Analytics… it’s all fully integrated.

You can use these tools together to find tens of thousands of keywords. To sort through all those potential keywords, SEO PowerSuite will even automatically group them together into different topic categories, so you can analyze whole keyword groups rather than sorting through thousands of individual queries.

The Rank Tracker tool also enables you to check your global or local ranking positions in Google and 400+ other search engines to keep track of your SERP visibility. 

Pros and cons

Pros	Cons
Affordable plans	Requires downloading software to your computer
Broad feature set
Local rank tracking
23 keyword research tools

Pricing

A limited free plan is available. You can purchase a premium license to unlock additional access for $299/year.

#5 – WebCEO

WebCEO is a pro-level marketing toolkit used by over 1.4 million businesses. It comes with a powerful multi-channel keyword research tool plus a rank tracker, site audit tool, SEO content assistant, backlink checker, competitor analysis tool, and more.

WebCEO pulls keyword suggestions not just from the Google Keyword Planner, but also from the autocomplete search bar, People Also Ask widget, and various other sources.

It gives you a wealth of metrics to help you analyze different keywords, including the basics (search volume, competition, etc.) as well as advanced data points like the KEI (keyword effectiveness index), search trends, impressions, and average Google position.

Pros and cons

Pros	Cons
Local keyword suggestions	Low keyword limit (100) on Solo plan
Data from multiple sources
Spy on your competitors’ keywords
Pro-level features

Pricing

Plans start from $33/month billed annually. You can also sign up for a 14-day free trial.

#6 – Ahrefs

Ahrefs is one of the most well-known SEO software suites on the market. Its keyword research tool, Keywords Explorer, is incredibly powerful and definitely worth checking out.

Ahrefs Keywords Explorer uses clickstream data to provide accurate metrics. It provides super in-depth information for all your keywords. In addition to the usual stuff (like search volume), it also gives you a breakdown of the competition on page one and tells you how many people actually click on pages in the results.

The keyword difficulty metric is also much better than on other tools. It doesn’t just give you an arbitrary difficulty rating (like “easy”) or score (like “12/100”). Instead, it tells you exactly how many backlinks you’d typically need in order to reach page one.

Pros and cons

Pros	Cons
In-depth metrics	Expensive and additional costs applied without warning if you go over plan limits.
Click metrics to help you improve your CTR	Pricing model is confusing
Fantastic keyword difficulty metric	No free trial

Pricing

Plans start from $99 /month. But changes to their pricing model means that you get far less for your money. Monthly credits vary depending on plan. If you go over, you will get charged for overages automatically.

There’s no free trial but website owners can sign up for Ahrefs Webmaster Tools to try out Site Explorer and Site Audit with limited access.

#7 – Soovle

Soovle is a fun, powerful keyword research tool with a unique interface. You can use the customizable engine to pull search suggestions from all the most popular providers: Google, YouTube, Bing, etc.

The Soovle website might look a little ‘novelty’ but don’t be fooled—behind that odd design is one of the most powerful tools for scraping suggested keywords on the market.

Unlike other keyword research platforms, Soovle doesn’t just rely on data from Google. It pulls suggested keywords from everywhere your audience is searching online. That includes major search engines like Google and Bing, but also video platforms like YouTube, and shopping giants like eBay and Amazon.

This can help you to find untapped keyword ideas that your competitors missed. When you find a new keyword idea you want to pursue, you can save it using the drag and drop saved suggestions tool, and export your saved suggestions as a CSV file.

And the best part? It’s all totally free!

Pros and cons

Pros	Cons
Great for finding untapped keyword ideas	Confusing and messy interface
Find suggestions from all major search engines	No metrics (search volume, competition, etc.)
Drag and drop to save suggestions

Pricing

Soovle is a completely free keyword tool.

#8 – SpyFu

SpyFu is the best choice for analyzing your competitors’ SEO performance and finding their most valuable keywords.

You can use SpyFu to uncover virtually untapped keywords in your niche and dig deep into data on your competitors. Just type their URL into the search bar and you’ll have a wealth of useful insights at your fingertips.

Compare the websites competing for different search terms, get accurate ranking difficulty to help you analyze your keyword ideas, view histori