Keyword Research Without Ahrefs: Free Tools That Actually Work

You do not need to spend $130 per month on keyword research tools. Six free tools, used in a deliberate sequence, give you everything you need to find the keywords your buyers search before they buy. This guide covers each tool, how to use it, and how to combine the results into a keyword list you can build content around.

Why You Do Not Need Paid Tools to Start

Ahrefs, Semrush, and Moz are excellent tools. They save time through automation and unlock data you cannot get for free. But they are optimisation tools, not discovery tools. The keywords they surface are the same keywords your competitors are already targeting.

For a small business starting a content programme, the most valuable keywords are not the ones with the highest volume. They are the ones your specific buyers search at each stage of their buying journey. Those can be found with free tools, and finding them is a function of understanding your customer, not of paying for software.

The 6 Free Keyword Research Tools

Tool 1: Google Search Console

Best for: discovering what you already rank for.

If your site has been live for more than three months and has Google Search Console connected, it shows you the actual search queries that triggered your pages to appear in Google results, along with how many impressions and clicks each query received.

Go to Search Console > Search Results. The default view shows Clicks and Impressions. Add the Position column. Queries with high impressions and low clicks (appearing in search but not getting clicked) are your first optimisation targets. Queries with position 5 to 20 are near-rankings candidates: pages that rank on page one or two but not in the top four, which respond well to content improvement.

This is the only tool that shows you your own real-world performance data. Start here before looking at any other source.

Tool 2: Google Keyword Planner

Best for: getting volume ranges for specific keywords.

Google Keyword Planner is a free tool built for Google Ads advertisers. It requires a free Google Ads account but does not require you to run ads. Navigate to Tools > Keyword Planner > Discover New Keywords, enter your product or service description, and review the results.

The volume data on the free plan shows ranges ("1,000 to 10,000") rather than exact figures, which limits precision. But it identifies related keywords your initial list may have missed, and it shows bid ranges that indicate commercial intent: keywords with high bids attract advertisers because they produce buyers, not just readers.

Use Keyword Planner to expand your list and identify patterns in which query types have commercial interest.

Tool 3: Google Autocomplete and People Also Ask

Best for: finding the exact language your buyers use.

Type any keyword related to your business into Google search and do not press Enter. Watch the autocomplete dropdown. Each suggestion represents a real query that enough people have searched for Google to predict it. These are not curated or filtered, they are drawn directly from search volume data.

After viewing autocomplete, search the keyword and look at the "People Also Ask" box in the results. These are related questions with confirmed search volume. Expand each question (clicking the arrow shows the featured snippet answer) and note the questions that reveal what buyers are trying to understand. Each question is a potential blog post or FAQ entry.

"Related searches" at the bottom of the results page provides an additional set of closely related queries.

Tool 4: Answer the Public

Best for: finding question and preposition keywords around a topic.

Answer the Public (answerthepublic.com) is a keyword discovery tool that generates visualisations of questions, prepositions, comparisons, and related searches around any seed keyword. The free version allows three to five searches per day.

Enter a broad term related to your service (e.g., "email marketing") and it returns all the question forms ("how to do email marketing for service businesses", "what is email marketing open rate"), prepositions ("email marketing for consultants", "email marketing without a list"), and comparisons ("email marketing vs social media").

This tool is particularly valuable for identifying long-tail question keywords that your buyers ask but that do not appear in volume-based tools because each specific phrasing has low individual volume while the category has high aggregate intent.

Tool 5: Ubersuggest (Free Tier)

Best for: getting exact volume numbers and difficulty scores on three searches per day.

Ubersuggest offers three keyword searches per day on the free plan, with exact search volume, SEO difficulty scores, and paid difficulty scores. The free tier also provides a limited competitor keyword analysis: enter a competitor's domain URL and it shows which keywords they rank for.

Use your three daily free searches on your highest-priority targets. Check the SEO difficulty score: below 30 is attainable for a new or low-authority site, 30 to 60 requires some backlinks to compete, above 60 requires significant domain authority.

The competitor keyword analysis, even on the limited free tier, often reveals valuable keyword clusters you had not identified: specific service modifiers, location terms, or comparison queries your competitors rank for that you are not targeting.

Tool 6: Semrush (Free Tier)

Best for: ten keyword searches per day with competitive analysis.

Semrush's free tier allows ten searches per day with exact volume data, keyword difficulty, and CPC estimates. Like Ubersuggest, entering a competitor domain (rather than a keyword) into the search bar shows their top ranking keywords.

Semrush's Keyword Overview provides the most comprehensive single-keyword view available for free: volume, trend over 12 months, keyword difficulty, CPC, and a SERP overview showing who currently ranks in the top ten. The SERP overview is particularly useful for assessing competitiveness: if the top ten results are all major national publications and brands, the keyword is too competitive for a new domain to crack.

How to Evaluate Keyword Difficulty Without a Paid Tool

The fastest way to assess whether you can rank for a keyword without a paid tool: search the keyword and examine the top five results.

Ask three questions:

1. What sites are in the top five? If results one to five are all Forbes, Wikipedia, industry trade associations, and software companies with domain authority above 70, the keyword is too competitive for a new site. If results include small business websites, niche publications, and local businesses similar in size to yours, the keyword is attainable.

2. How old are the top-ranking pages? Click on the top results and check the publication or last-updated date. Recently published pages that have quickly reached top positions indicate Google is actively updating this SERP and rewarding new content. Pages from 2018 that have held the top spot may be there because they have accumulated years of backlinks.

3. How thoroughly do the top pages answer the query? If the top results have thin content, missing sub-topics, or poor formatting, there is a content quality gap you can exploit. If they are comprehensive, well-structured, and accurate, beating them requires producing something genuinely better.

Building Your Keyword List

A usable keyword list for a content programme contains:

10 to 20 primary keywords: the main queries you want to rank for, each with clear commercial or high informational intent, and realistic difficulty for your domain authority level. One blog post per primary keyword.

3 to 5 secondary keywords per primary: related terms and variants that naturally appear in a post targeting the primary keyword. These extend the traffic potential of each post without requiring separate content.

5 to 10 long-tail question keywords: specific questions your buyers ask that can be answered in blog post sections or FAQ content. These often have lower volume but higher conversion intent and are frequently featured in "People Also Ask" boxes.

Organise your list in a spreadsheet with columns for Keyword, Estimated Monthly Volume, Difficulty Score, Search Intent (Informational/Commercial/Transactional), and Content Status (planned/in progress/published).

How to Prioritise

For a small business just starting a content programme, prioritise in this order:

1. High commercial or transactional intent keywords at medium difficulty. These convert best and can rank faster than purely informational keywords because fewer businesses produce quality commercial-intent content.
2. Keywords where you have a unique angle or data. If you have original research, case studies, or data from your own work that no competitor can replicate, those keywords are worth targeting even at higher difficulty.
3. Keywords with position 5 to 20 in your existing Search Console data. You already have momentum here. Improving the content that ranks in those positions is faster than starting from zero.

For context on how keyword research fits into a broader SEO strategy, read SEO for small business. For understanding how long it takes for content to rank, read how long does SEO take. For the writing process that turns keyword research into ranking content, read how to write SEO content that converts.

Our SEO service includes a full keyword research process using professional tools as part of every engagement. If you want a comprehensive keyword strategy built by someone who does this daily, an experienced SEO specialist can deliver a prioritised keyword map for your business in three to five days. Get in touch to discuss your specific market and competition level.