What is the best way to choose a keyword research tool?

1 Your goals and budget

The first thing you need to do is define your goals and budget for keyword research. What are you trying to achieve with your content? How much are you willing to spend on a tool? How often do you need to do keyword research? These questions will help you narrow down your options and find a tool that suits your needs and resources. For example, if you are a beginner or have a limited budget, you might want to start with a free or low-cost tool that offers basic features and data. If you are more advanced or have a larger budget, you might want to opt for a premium tool that provides more comprehensive and accurate insights and functionalities.

2 The features and data

When looking for a keyword research tool, you should take into account the features and data it offers. Different tools have different strengths and weaknesses, so you need to find one that meets your requirements. The most common features and data to consider include keyword difficulty, which tells you how hard it is to rank for a specific keyword; keyword volume, which indicates how often a keyword is searched; keyword trends, which show how the popularity of a keyword changes over time; keyword suggestions, which provide related keywords to expand your topic; keyword analysis, which allows you to examine the SERP for a keyword; and keyword tracking, which enables you to monitor your ranking position and performance for your target keywords.

3 The usability and support

The last thing you need to consider is the usability and support of the tool. How easy is it to use and navigate the tool? How reliable and fast is the tool? How often is the tool updated and improved? How responsive and helpful is the customer service and technical support? These factors will affect your user experience and satisfaction with the tool. You can check the reviews and ratings of the tool online, or try out the free trial or demo version if available, to get a sense of the usability and support of the tool.

Choosing a keyword research tool is not a one-size-fits-all decision. You need to weigh the pros and cons of each tool and compare them based on your goals, budget, features, data, usability, and support. By doing so, you will be able to find the best tool for your content development needs.

4 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?