A general keyword research strategy that I recommend is as follows:
1. Use the 7-day ahrefs trial and download enough keyword data to keep you busy for several months.
2. Use free keyword research tools if you’re ever curious about the search volume and difficulty of a random keyword here and there.
For example, when I started Statology I downloaded keyword data from over 10 different competing sites in the statistics niche, which gave me a huge database of keywords to go after.
But there are still times when I occasionally think of a random keyword idea like “quadratic regression in Excel” and would like to know its search volume and keyword difficulty.
In these instances, I turn to free keyword research tools. Here are the free tools I personally use:
Ubersuggest and Word Tracker: Both tools allow you to type in a keyword and see its search volume. I find the volume metrics to be reliable but not the difficulty metrics, so I only use these tools for finding search volume. Both tools also limit the amount of searches you can use per day, which means they’re good for one-off searches but not for extensive keyword research.
MozBar: A free chrome extension that lets you see the domain authority of any site. This is the tool I use to analyze the difficulty of keywords.
Keywords Everywhere: A free chrome extension that suggests keyword ideas related to the keyword you just typed into Google.
Next, I’ll walk through an example of how I would use these tools to perform keyword research.
Example
Suppose I’m curious about the search volume and difficulty of the keyword “quadratic regression in Excel” – a keyword that would be relevant on my statistics site.
First, I would look up the search volume on Ubersuggest:
I see that this keyword gets searched 170 times per month – a fairly low amount, but something I would still consider writing an article about for a new website if the difficulty is extremely low.
Next, I would search for “quadratic regression in Excel” in Google. Since my MozBar chrome extension is installed, I now see a tiny bar across the bottom of each search result that shows the DA (domain authority) for the site. For the top result, I see that it has a DA of 14:
When I look at the search results for a certain keyword, there are three metrics that would indicate the keyword has a low difficulty:
1. At least one site on the front page that has a DA of 30 or less. This indicates that low authority sites are already ranking for that keyword, which means I can also rank for it. In general, the lower the DA’s on the front page, the lower the difficulty.
2. Q&A or forum sites on the front page. This includes sites like Reddit, Stack Exchange, Quora, or other forums. When you see these types of sites on the front page of the search results, it means that Google is unable to find individual sites that can provide good information about the keyword so it simply shows Q&A or forum sites.
Using these free tools, I can get a good idea about the search volume and difficulty of a particular keyword.
As a bonus, if I have Keywords Everywhere installed then I can get more keyword ideas related to the keyword I just searched for. These related keywords will show up in the sidebar of the search results:
Again, I recommend using ahrefs as your core keyword research tool, but these free tools are excellent for doing the occasional one-off keyword research.
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