10 Best SaaS Keyword Research Tools for SEO

Did you know that Google processes 99,000 searches every second? Surely, you’d want your website to appear at the top of search engine result pages (SERP). Good SEO is the answer, especially using the right keywords. Hence, we came up with the 10 best SaaS keyword research tools for SEO.

Consumer tastes and preferences change. People go for what’s hot and hip. Today, it’s easy to go online and do a simple search for what’s popular. And businesses are tuned in to what people search for – terms, words, phrases.

Keyword research is vital for businesses because it will be able to address consumer needs and wants. It will also guide businesses in crafting relevant content and coming up with effective marketing campaigns. Remember, understanding keyword research and knowing the tools used can translate to profit potential.

In this article, we’ll let you in on the best SaaS keyword research tools for SEO and why you should use them to grow your business. While we’re at it, we’ll revisit the workings of SaaS and the fine points of SEO.

What is Saas?

Before we go any further, let us clear some terms. You may have heard of it and may even be using it in your company with your team. We’re talking about Software-as-a-Service better known by its acronym SaaS.

SaaS came about with the introduction and subsequent widespread use of cloud computing. Whereas before, software was delivered to you in a physical form such as a disc or you download it from the vendor and then install it on your local computers and servers.

You take care of securing, maintaining, and updating the software. It was a burdensome, meticulous, and costly activity prone to technical errors and mismanagement. It put pressure on the IT department to keep the software working and the hardware that housed it in top shape.

SaaS revolutionized the delivery and use of software which is now located “in the cloud.” Its distribution model allows the cloud provider or vendor to host the app and make it available for use by customers over the Internet.

In other words, you access the software online and pay for its use which is usually on a monthly or annual subscription basis. It eliminated all the things we discussed beforehand and offered more efficiency, customization, and flexible pricing.

SaaS Benefits

Businesses have embraced cloud-based SaaS solutions because of the many advantages they bring which include the following:

• Accessibility. Essentially, all you need is an Internet connection to access the online app from any browser on any networked device.
• Scalability. Who will access and use the software? Is it you, your team, or everyone in the company? The software can accommodate as many people who need to use a few or the full lineup of its features and functionalities.
• Affordability. You do away with the cost of infrastructure and setup and pay only for features you require. With several pricing plans available, you can upgrade to the next higher plan in the pricing tier when the need arises.
• Security. Since apps are hosted on servers located in data centers, the highest levels of security are in place in these physical facilities as well as in system environments and frameworks.
• Automatic updates. Usually, based on customer needs or user feedback, Saas providers frequently introduce improvements to their apps to make them even better and more responsive. Updates are also regularly done to fix bugs or any vulnerability in the software system.
• Performance guarantees. SLAs or service level agreements are laid out between the SaaS provider and customer to ensure that industry standards are followed and that the software will be accessible and available anytime it is needed.

Now that we have a clearer grasp of what SaaS is all about, let’s focus our attention on another set of initials – SEO or search engine optimization – which is much used by marketers and website owners but seldom understood by regular people.

What is SEO and What Are Its Tools? 

                                                            

SEO involves the process of optimizing your website to improve its visibility when people use search engines (Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc.) to look for services and products associated with your business.

You have better visibility when your website shows up on the first or second page of search results despite millions of other websites in your business niche or industry. This means you are more likely to be noticed by prospective customers while existing customers would probably stick with your business knowing your high ranking.

As we said earlier, SEO redounds to profit potential. That is why every web owner aims to have more organic search traffic to their website. More people turning up on your site increase the chances of conversion from visitors to customers.

But how does it work and what are the tools employed? Let’s further enhance our knowledge and revisit this topic.

SEO Techniques & Tools

Search engines utilize bots to crawl billions of pages, going to each website to collect information on these pages and put them in an index, sort of a humongous library. Now when you use Bing or Google to look for information on the Web, the “librarian” can pull out the book or web page to help you in your search.

The librarian uses algorithms to analyze numerous ranking factors to organize and order pages on where they should appear in search results. Will they be on the first, second, or third page of the results? As determined by search algorithms those at the top will provide the best or nearest answers to a given query.

This is where SEO strategies and techniques come in. These involve, analyzing, tweaking, and enhancing the various elements in your website. According to Backlinko.com, there are nine steps to creating an SEO strategy that will boost organic search rankings. These include:

1. Creating a keywords list
2. Studying Google’s first page results
3. Coming up with a better or different content
4. Adding a hook to your content
5. Optimizing your site for on-page SEO
6. Optimizing the site for search intent
7. Improving content/visual design
8. Building value-adding links to your page
9. Bolstering and updating your content

Most of the above items in the list would involve keyword analysis and research, showing you the overall importance of keywords. What then are the tools most commonly used to implement SEO techniques and strategies? Here are some of them:

• Web Analytics. Tracks and analyzes data about your site and its visitors. Examples include Google Analytics, Kissmetrics, StatCounter, and Matomo.
• Search Metrics. Provide data about site search issues like site indexing, keyword performance, mobile usability, high or low click-through pages, etc. Apps for these include Google Search Console, SimilarWeb, Conductor, and BrightEdge.
• Content Explorer. Learn about top-performing content in your business or niche and discover prospective links. Notable apps are Scoop.It, Feedly, PublishThis, and Twitter.
• Rank Tracker. Examine your site’s ranking over time and monitor its performance against competitors in your industry. Popular tools include AccuRanker, Rank Ranger, SE Ranker, and Wincher.
• Keyword Research. Find out about keyword ideas that connect, rank, and are relevant and most searched in your niche. Also, learn about keyword ranking difficulty as well as the keywords’ potential for traffic. Prime examples are the 10 best SaaS keyword research tools we have in this article.

It is no understatement to say that keyword research plays a pivotal role in your SEO approach. Below we’ll tell you why.

Why is Keyword Research Important for SEO?

 

Marketers and other professionals know that keyword research is at the forefront when it comes to embarking on a marketing campaign or creating content. It holds much significance because it allows you to understand the following:

The Competition

Understanding the competitive environment and getting a clearer view of who you’re up against is crucial if you are to survive and grow your business.

Doing the right keyword research lets you see which among the many domains are already deep in competition with particular keywords.

Search Intent

Your content must not only be refreshing and interesting, but it must also be in sync with search intent. Google gives you the most relevant results for every search query.

With keyword research, you can align your content to target keywords that are commonly used by people when they search online and plan to do something like buy, shop, get reservations, look for a service, etc.

Content Opportunities

What you’re looking to uncover using keyword research are content opportunities with low competition. Target keywords with low competition increase the chances of your content attracting more organic traffic and visitors to your site using search engines.

In contrast, you may also be able to dig up high competition keywords so you can avoid them, especially if they are already being ranked by established domains.

Create New Content

We all often run out of content topics and ideas. Call it writer’s block or idea fatigue but humans, however innovative and imaginative, are not equipped with an eternal wellspring of ideas. Keyword research comes to the rescue, offering a most significant role for SEO – generating new ideas for content.

What keyword research ultimately boils down to when it comes to SEO is that it unravels indispensable information to help your business thrive online. What then are the tools to aid you in keyword research? Below are the leading ones we can recommend.

Best SaaS Keyword Research Tools

We laid down the following criteria in our choice of best SaaS keyword research tools:

• Simple. No bells and whistles are needed when it comes to keyword research. It should be straightforward enough that when you search for a particular keyword, it tells you everything about it.
• Features. Simple does not mean lacking. It should have features to provide you with all the data needed for your chosen keyword to rank as well as tools to analyze competitive SERP, traffic, keyword difficulty, and others.
• Reliable. By this, we mean the reliability of data sources to ensure that they are at least devoid of biases or errors.
• User-friendly. Some tools will give very technical stuff that only marketing gurus and SEO experts can fathom. That’s fine, but we appreciate tools that regular guys (like the new business website owner) can understand.
• Plans. Our lineup of keyword research tools should preferably have free plans or at least free trials so you can test them out. They must also have reasonably-priced packages to fit every budget.

To keep us clear of any knowledge gaps, we went through the pertinent areas above – SaaS, SEO, and keyword research. It’s time to tie them all up and come up with the best SaaS keyword research tools for SEO.

1. Ahrefs

 

An all-in-one online SEO platform, Ahrefs is designed for one ultimate purpose – to get you more traffic and help you rank higher. It is a set of tools that includes a site explorer, site audit, rank tracker, content explorer, and keyword explorer. You get to manage and control everything through a dashboard that serves as a cockpit, giving you a high-level view of SEO progress, performance, and projects.

All these Ahrefs tools will give you tons of data. After all, it boasts of being next only to Google when it comes to having the most active crawler. This means it has amassed quite an enormous index, which is put to good use. For instance, type in any URL and it will give you the site’s full backlink profile, referring domains and pages, domain rank, etc. Other apps will give you roughly the same features, but Ahrefs provides more thorough filtering and sorting for a faster search.

Its keywords explorer operates the biggest third-party search queries database in the world and is deemed the most complete tool of its kind. It is engineered to give you full-on data for any chosen keyword as well as thousands of keyword ideas backed by precise search volume numbers.

Highlights

Ahref’s keyword explorer is brimming with features to give you rich, targeted results as well as deep and detailed insights. Among its many highlights are:

• 10 search engines. Estimated keyword volumes are processed from clickstream data coming from Google, Bing, Baidu, Amazon, YouTube, and others.
• 7 billion keywords. That huge database is updated every month so it won’t run dry of keyword suggestions for your content ideas.
• Keyword difficulty score. A handy feature that computes how hard it is for your keyword to rank based on the latest top-ranking pages.
• Clicks metric. Ahrefs can estimate and show the number of clicks for a given keyword.

Pricing

SaaS subscription plans are offered at different prices. This applies to all other keyword research tools in our list. Ahrefs’ SEO tools can’t be bought separately. Even at its lowest-priced plan, you get to use all the tools. As you go up the price ladder, you’re given more features, more reports and projects per month, and more keyword lists.

• Ahrefs monthly pricing plans start at: Lite – $99, Standard – $199, Advanced – $399, and Enterprise – $999
• Free trial is available but a credit card is required
• All plans include access to all Ahrefs tools

2. SEMrush

 

SEMrush is an expansive platform that gives you not only SEO tools but also solutions for content marketing, market research, advertising, social media as well as agency growth and management. Its multi-functionality and robust features allowed it to bag top-name clients including nearly a third of Fortune 500 companies. It’s no surprise that SEMrush has won numerous awards and is the software of choice by millions of marketing professionals.

Big and small businesses alike can rely on SEMrush to help increase organic traffic. It offers an on-page SEO, competitor analysis, link building, content optimization, market analysis, and a dozen more tools to give you insightful data. SEMrush can do all these because of an immense SEO database that consists of over 800 million domain profiles and 43 trillion backlinks.

On the keyword research front, SEMrush has built a toolkit guaranteed to gain you more traffic and mastery of SERPs. It has one of the broadest ranges of keyword research tools from search volume and standard traffic data to competitive keyword gap analysis and content-driven keyword research.

Highlights

• Keyword overview. Unearth the advertising and organic value of whatever keyword based on several factors such as intent, search volume, number of results, keyword difficulty, and many more.
• Organic research. Optimize organic keywords by ranking the most profitable keywords of competitors.
• Keyword magic tool. With more than 22 billion keywords in its database, it can generate keyword combos by the thousands from a single seed keyword.
• Keyword manager. Create and organize master lists of up to a thousand keywords at once complete with real-time metrics.

Pricing

SaaS providers normally give options for monthly or annual subscriptions with substantial discounts for the latter. SEO is not a one-shot affair but a continuing process of tweaks and improvements over time. As such, study your needs and budget since, in the long run, it may be cost-effective to pay for a yearly plan.

• SEMrush monthly pricing plans: Pro – $119.95, Guru – $229.95, Business – $449.95
• A free demo trial is available and a credit card is required from which a nominal amount will be charged and refunded immediately once the card has been confirmed.
• A free account is offered although as a free user you get to manage just one project and track only 10 keywords.

3. Moz

 

Moz is a full-scale SaaS platform that gives you all the SEO solutions you need. It provides site audits, rank tracking, backlink analysis, and keyword research. Its top-of-the-line proprietary metrics give insights sourced from 43 trillion links indexed, 100K local business listings, and 8 million SERPs analyzed every day.

Whatever your requirement, whether for localized SEO to enterprise-level SERP analysis, Moz can provide the right tools. Its keyword explorer is but one of several powerful tools in the Moz vault. Keyword research is drastically simplified and sped up with its database of over 500 million keyword suggestions and 180 million newly ranking keywords derived from 170 Google search engines.

Moz can do predictive keyword analysis by search volume with over 95% accuracy. It can also perform comprehensive keyword ranking, and assess monthly volume, keyword difficulty, and organic CTR. In addition, it has a competitive research tool that gives you all the keywords your rivals rank for but which you don’t.

Highlights

• Priority score. This facilitates keyword research by crunching all indicators like keyword volume, difficulty, etc., and together with the metrics you set gives out an assessment if a keyword is worth pursuing or not.
• Massive datasets. Estimating keyword ranking difficulty in SEO is made more precise with the huge in-house datasets and data points utilized by Moz.
• Comprehensive reports. Get reporting data on target keywords through detailed lists, well-formatted CSVs, or data visualizations like interactive infographics.

Pricing

• Moz monthly pricing plans: Standard – $99, Medium – $179, Large – $299, Premium – $599
• 30-day free trial (credit card info required)
• All plans include 24-hour online support and 1-on1 walkthrough

4. Long Tail Pro

 

Long Tail Pro is ideal for SEO consultants, marketers, and agencies looking to improve site rankings in Google search results. It has the five foremost tools in its SEO product lineup including those for SERP analysis, rank tracking, site audit, backlink analysis, and keyword research. What it specializes in is finding long-tail keywords in minutes.

There are many types of keywords but the three major categories are short-tail (ex. bread, flower), mid-tail (buy bread, white flower), and long-tail (buy fresh wheat bread, find nearest white flower shop). You get the difference. Searching for “bread” would be very generic and very competitive, so you’d want to avoid that. But long-tail keywords indicate an intention to buy.

Long-tail keywords are longer yet more specific phrases that visitors use especially when doing voice searches or when they are nearer to a point of purchase. They are less competitive keywords but bring in lots of high converting traffic. With its tool, Long Tail Pro lets you discover tons of profitable keywords that you can optimize.

Highlights

• Single root keyword. That one root keyword or even multiple root keywords can give you thousands of long-tail keywords in a few minutes.
• Built-in filters. Powerful filters enable you to sort your search preferences according to volume, rank value, average CPC bid, etc.
• Learn competitor keywords. Simply enter competitors’ pages or domains and discover their keyword strategy.

Pricing

• Long Tail Pro monthly pricing plans: Starter – $37, Pro – $67, Agency – $147
• Pay an annual subscription and you get 4 months free
• Free training and trial is offered

5. SpyFu

 

SpyFu is a SaaS SEO marketing suite to help you stay competitive and on top of your game. It delivers tools to generate analysis, insights, and reports on competitors, backlinks, ranks, SERP, domain comparisons, and keywords that matter. The platform digs dip into its huge database of 109 million domains spanning 7 billion results to bring you a clearer view of implementable SEO strategies and the direction you should take.

Three main functions are offered by SpyFu – PPC competitor research, SEO competitor research, and keyword research. Each of these areas brings you tools that give a clearer picture and better understanding of what your rivals are implementing and the path they are taking, SEO strategy-wise. This is crucial so you will know what to do and what to avoid about your competitors.

SpyFu’s keyword research tool is positioned as an alternative to that of Google’s. It can create targeted keyword ideas, filter by preferences (CPC, CTR, difficulty, search volume, etc.), and show the most profitable keywords in a particular niche, among other features.

Highlights

• Advanced insights. Every keyword search brings statistics and metrics on ranking domains, SERP, PPC, and even non-traditional data like “desktop vs. mobile.”
• Backlinks checker. See sites and backlinks when you enter a keyword, to help you rank for a chosen keyword.
• Ads intel. Get the rundown and details of every advertisement test that was initiated so you can avoid mistakes and replicate successes.

Pricing

• SpyFu monthly pricing plans: Basic – $39, Professional – $79, Team – $299
• 30-day money-back guarantee
• All plans include unlimited downloads and searches

6. Keyword Tool

 

Keyword Tool is a free online keyword research platform touted as the top alternative to Google’s Keyword Planner or other comparable apps, for that matter. Their claim is no exaggeration. You can try their free keyword search right on their website. It will show hundreds of results. Keyword Tool states that it can generate 750 long-tail keywords from every root keyword. That is impressive for a free app.

The catch is that you won’t see the details of those results, the meat of the matter to finding SEO growth opportunities. Metrics like search volume, monthly trend, average CPC value in USD, and keyword competitiveness can only be viewed if you subscribe to Keyword Tool Pro. Three paid plans are offered which allow you, depending on the plan, to do bulk search analysis, add more users to your account, and use other premium features.

Highlights

• Precise search data. You get 100% accuracy on search volume data by month, unlike others that are shown in ranges.
• Volume search. With a premium subscription, you can do bulk keyword searches up to 70,000 words per day.
• Get hidden keywords. The tool can give you 2X more keyword suggestions than those provided by Google in its autocomplete web interface or by other search engines.

Pricing

• Keyword Tool Pro monthly pricing plans: Pro Basic – $89, Pro Plus – $99, Pro Business – $199
• Free keyword search tool on its homepage
• 30-day money-back guarantee

7. Ubersuggest

 

Ubersuggest is designed to streamline keyword research and facilitate the growth of your website. It does these through SEO training and support as well as the primary tools for site optimization like site audit, rank tracking, competitive analysis, and keyword research. Since relevant data and timely information is the basis for your SEO strategy, Ubersuggest straightforwardly gives you these.

The SaaS platform distinguishes itself with a user-friendly interface and easy-to-comprehend visualizations. It comes with an intuitive dashboard for easy navigation and to get an encompassing view of metrics and data. When it comes to keywords, it provides detailed suggestions filtered from comprehensive research. As such, descriptive data comes with every keyword.

Ubersuggest has one of the lowest sets of pricing packages, making it suitable for startups, individual marketers, and solo entrepreneurs. These target users can appreciate how the platform was built as such to accommodate the uncomplicated SEO requirements of ordinary users and small businesses.

Highlights

• Detailed suggestions. Keywords suggestions will give you rich information about volume, competition, what people are searching for on Google, and even keyword seasonal trends.
• Content ideas. Discover top-performing content for any chosen keyword so you can craft interesting pieces that will get you backlinks and social media engagements.
• Ubbersuggest Labs. That is where Ubersuggest owner Neil Pattel concocts his SEO tools including a backlinks checker, traffic checker, and a Chrome extension, among others, all meant to facilitate keyword research tasks.

Pricing

• Ubersuggest monthly pricing plans: Individual – $29, Business – $49, Enterprise/Agency – $99
• Go for an annual subscription and get 2 months free
• 7-day free trial, 30-day money-back guarantee

8. Serpstat

 

Serpstat bills itself as a hacking tool for marketing and SEO. It carries the usual tools expected from an all-in-one SEO suite – rank tracker, backlink analysis, site audit, competitor research, and keyword research. Inside all these tools are more features and functions, making Serpstat a truly complete platform to help you grow your audience and search ranking.

For SEO content and rankings alone, you’ll get tools like link building, SERP rank tracking, localization, content insights, and keyword research. Furthermore, some features provide you with SEO monitoring and auditing, social listening and measurement, trend analysis, ads campaign management and optimization as well as custom reporting and data visualization.

Highlights

• Highly-rated keyword tool. Many industry experts and tech writers have given favorable reviews of the tool for its keyword accuracy, quality, and many other strong points.
• Vast database. You’re looking at a database that contains nearly 7 billion keywords, almost 5 billion search suggestions, and over 1.6 billion domains. Its keyword database is updated daily.
• Devil in the details. With keywords, find niche leaders, analyze competitors, know all keyword options and suggestions, and collect site semantics using indicators like volume, popularity, difficulty, etc.

Pricing

• Serpstat monthly pricing plans: Lite – $69, Standard – $149, Advanced -$299, Enterprise – $499, Custom plan & pricing
• All plans include complete tools and features, and access to 14 Yandex and 230 Google databases
• Sign up for free and get basic access to test the platform.

9. KWFinder

 

KWFinder is a dedicated keyword research tool for SEO. Unlike other keyword research tools that are part of an SEO suite, this one exists for the sole purpose of helping you find keywords that you can rank for, fast and easy. KWFinder puts it simply: “go for keywords with low SEO difficulty and high search volume.” The software was made with this purpose in mind.

As such, KWFinder offers an intuitive platform with lots of features all purposely designed to give you keywords that rank and convert. You’ll get to know the best keywords that rank for your competitors, keywords with long-term trends and historical search volumes, and keywords that are hot topics. With these, you’ll know which keywords to target and pursue, those to avoid, and those that can create great ideas so you can make compelling content.

Highlights

• Under the hood. KWFinder’s database consists of 2.5 billion related keywords growing at 20 million words per month, 100 million competitor keywords examined monthly, and 52K supported locations.
• Accurate keyword difficulty. Selected metrics are calculated to give you keywords with the lowest difficulty to make it easier to land at the top of search results.
• Keyword lists. Save and organize the best keywords into a list. Create as many lists with up to 1,000 keywords each complete with aggregate info such as average PPC, CPC, difficulty, etc.

Pricing

• KWFinder monthly pricing plans: Basic – $49, Premium – $69, Agency – $129
• 10-day free trial, no credit card needed
• 48-hour money-back guarantee

10. SECockpit

 

SECockpit is another low-cost option for your keyword research task. It is primarily two-in-one software consisting of a rank tracker and keyword research tool. The former lets you automatically monitor your site’s daily ranking for all countries and languages while the latter provides you with keyword ideas and analysis.

At considerable speed, it will help you find the best keywords for both PPC and SEO as well as filter and organize keywords for easy management. The platform can generate thousands of keyword ideas and provide extensive details on each including trends, data points, and suggestions. You’ll get keyword ideas from competitors and see their strengths as well as Achilles heels.

Highlights

• Don’t miss out. The tool won’t let you miss out on overlooked keywords or current trends since it can scrape from multiple sources.
• Valuable keywords. SECockpit ensures that you only get the best keywords that have the lowest competition, and the highest level of traffic and earning potential.
• Full competition analysis. “Guestimates” won’t cut it when it comes to rivals. You get a complete analysis of competitors for every single keyword.

Pricing

• SECockpit monthly pricing plans: Personal – $39, Pro – 59, Agency – $99
• Price discounts up to 35% for annual subscriptions
• Free 7-day trial, 30-day money-back guarantee

Check SECockpit Pricing

Beef Up Your SEO Stack

A keyword research tool will form part of your SEO arsenal to boost and grow your website. It will be among your most potent tools to rank in search results, expand your online reach, increase visitors and conversions, and enrich your website content.

Unlike a paid search that is left to an external service beyond your control, keyword research is a task you will undertake. It will take your patience and creativity to come up with optimal results. Fortunately, there are keyword research tools such as those we’ve featured here to make the job easier.