A Guide to SEO Without the Subscription
Free keyword research, done properly.
You don’t need a $99-a-month tool to learn what your customers type into Google. You need a decent process, and a handful of tools that already cost nothing.
I. The Premise
What free keyword research actually is
It’s figuring out what potential customers search for without paying for Ahrefs or Semrush — leaning instead on Google’s own Keyword Planner, Search Console, Trends, and free-tier tools like Ubersuggest. Keyword data tells you the exact words your audience uses, roughly how many people are searching, and how brutal the competition will be. That’s the whole game.
Keyword Planner was built for Google Ads, but anyone with a free Google account can dig around in it — real search volume ranges and keyword ideas, at no cost. Stack Search Console and Trends on top and you have plenty of raw material for a legitimate content strategy without spending a dime.
Real research swaps a hunch for evidence: monthly search patterns, seasonal spikes, the phrases people use right before they reach for a credit card.
↑ Back to topII. The Process
Six steps, repeated quarterly
Pin down your topic, brainstorm seed keywords, expand them with free tools, filter by relevance and intent, then check the competition before you commit. In order — this one genuinely is a sequence.
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I
Get clear on your niche
Before opening a single tool, write down what you actually sell. A furniture shop’s seeds should read “oak dining table,” not the useless umbrella term “furniture.”
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II
Brainstorm seed keywords
The broad, foundational terms — “email marketing,” “dog grooming,” “web hosting.” Write down ten to twenty, pulled from your products and the questions customers already ask.
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III
Expand into long-tail variations
Three-plus word phrases. Lower volume, far higher intent. “Web hosting” is the seed; “cheapest web hosting for small business” is the one that converts.
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IV
Check volume and competition
Run each term through the tools below. This step alone separates what’s worth chasing from what will take three years to rank for.
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V
Figure out search intent
Informational, navigational, commercial, transactional. Google the term and study the top ten — if they’re all product pages, your blog post won’t rank there.
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VI
Organize and prioritize
Group by topic and intent, then score by relevance, volume, and difficulty together — never any single metric alone. Try the scorer ↓
III. The Toolbox
Five free tools, compared
No single free tool does everything a paid suite does. That’s exactly why combining two or three of them is the standard move.
| Tool | Best for | Free limitation | Data |
|---|---|---|---|
| Keyword Planner | Volume ranges, keyword ideas | Broad ranges without active ad spend | volume · competition · CPC |
| Ubersuggest | Ideas, content angles, difficulty score | ~3 free searches per day | volume · difficulty · CPC |
| Google Trends | Seasonal interest, rising topics | Relative lines, no absolute volume | interest over time |
| Search Console | Keywords you already rank for | Needs existing traffic history | impressions · clicks · position |
| AnswerThePublic | Question-based, conversational terms | Limited daily searches, free tier | questions · comparisons |
Most beginners start in Keyword Planner for volume, layer Ubersuggest for a difficulty score, then use Trends as a gut-check before investing real effort. See how each one is actually used in Field Notes ↓.
IV. Field Notes
Two tools, in detail
Setting up, without launching a campaign
Head to ads.google.com and create an account. Google will nudge you hard toward an active campaign during setup — dodge it by switching to “Expert Mode” and choosing to create an account without one. Then: Tools & Settings → Planning → Keyword Planner.
Finding keyword ideas
Hit “Discover new keywords” and drop in a few seeds or your URL. You’ll get average monthly searches (a range like “1K–10K” without ad spend), a competition level of Low, Medium, or High, and top-of-page bid estimates.
Export to a spreadsheet as soon as you’re done. Keyword Planner keeps nothing anywhere easy to revisit.
Ubersuggest
Enter a seed keyword and target country. “Keyword Overview” gives search volume, an SEO Difficulty score out of 100, Paid Difficulty, and CPC. “Keyword Ideas” groups related terms into suggestions, questions, prepositions, and comparisons — genuinely useful for planning posts against different intents.
The supporting cast
Trends is brilliant for seasonality — “tax preparation services” spikes every March like clockwork. Search Console, once your site has history, reveals the actual queries people used to find you. AnswerThePublic maps question-based searches, handy for FAQ pages.
V. The Manual Check
Finding low-competition keywords by hand
Pair long-tail phrases with a manual SERP check instead of trusting one automated score. Search the term in an incognito window and study the top ten.
- Who owns the top spots?
Major brands, Wikipedia, big news sites up top usually mean brutal competition regardless of what a tool’s score claims.
- Are the results thin or dated?
That’s your opening to outrank them with something more thorough.
- Is there a mix of blogs, forums, small businesses?
That diversity usually means a newer site can actually win here.
Modifiers knock down competition while keeping traffic relevant:
“SEO services” is a bloodbath. “SEO services for small bakeries in Austin” is far easier to rank for. Don’t overlook “People Also Ask” and “related searches,” either — a free keyword expander built right into the results page. Once you’ve filtered a shortlist this way, run it through the priority scorer ↓.
VI. The Scoring System
Try the priority scorer
Once you’ve got fifty to two hundred candidate keywords, score each on relevance, volume, and competition — reverse-scored — never any single metric alone.
VII. What to Avoid
Four ways this goes wrong
Chasing vanity volume. Fifty thousand monthly searches means nothing if you can’t crack the top ten, or the searchers aren’t buying what you sell.
Ignoring intent. Target “what is [product category]” while selling a product, and you’ll pull in readers with zero intention of buying.
Treating one tool as gospel. Keyword Planner’s ranges can be absurdly wide; Ubersuggest’s difficulty score is an estimate, not a prophecy.
Never refreshing the list. Search behavior shifts with seasons and algorithm updates. A quarterly pass keeps your strategy current.
VIII. Questions on File
Frequently asked
Is free research reliable enough to build a strategy on?
Yes, for most small businesses and beginners — especially combining two or three tools like Keyword Planner and Ubersuggest with a manual SERP check. Paid tools give more precise volume and deeper history, no argument there. But the core decision-making — relevance, intent, competition — works the same on free data.
How many keywords before I start writing?
Most beginners do well with thirty to fifty keywords grouped into five to ten topic clusters. That way you understand the shape of your niche instead of publishing disconnected one-off posts.
Volume versus difficulty — what’s the difference?
Volume is how many times a term gets searched monthly, on average. Difficulty estimates how hard it would be to rank given current competition. High volume and low difficulty is the jackpot; low volume and high difficulty is usually a trap.
Can I research keywords without a website yet?
Yes. Keyword Planner and Ubersuggest both work from just a seed term, no existing site required — a good first step before you’ve locked in a niche at all.
How does this differ from Ahrefs or Semrush?
Paid tools like Ahrefs or Semrush hand you more precise volume, deeper backlink data, and multi-year trend charts. Free tools give volume as ranges and cap your daily searches. For beginners and tight budgets, the free stuff covers the fundamentals just fine.
Build a clear list of seed keywords, run them through Keyword Planner and Ubersuggest, sanity-check your toughest calls against the actual search results, and organize everything by intent before you write a word.
