How to Do Keyword Research For Free Using Google Data

Keyword research helps you structure your blog content to answer a searcher’s question completely and rank higher on Google. It’s an essential part of search engine optimization (SEO) that will help you create a sane outline and sprinkle keywords within your article.

For example, keyword research will reveal long-tail keywords (like keyword research tool price). Such keywords are easier to rank for, and generally easier to convert a website visitor to a buyer. So you’d want to focus more on such keywords.

The process will also reveal the kind of questions your target audience has regarding the topic you’re writing about. Self-evidently, covering a topic exhaustively will earn the searcher’s trust and maybe even some loyalty. 

Plus, you don’t want to waste time writing about stuff that nobody googles.

Fortunately, you don’t need to spend a lot of money on all-in-one SEO content tools to discover and analyze keywords. Though, of course, these tools make the process faster.

This guide covers how to do keyword research for free using Google data.

You’ll see low-tech tools that you can use to discover and analyze keywords on Google’s search results.

But first, you need to know what to look out for in your research.

What to look for in your keyword research on Google

When researching your keywords, you’ll filter out those that don’t match the searcher’s goal or are super competitive.  

Here’s how you’ll pick keywords:

1. Find keywords that address the same goal as your primary keyword 

Why would someone search for your primary keyword? That’s their goal or better-called search intent. You need to figure out the searcher’s goal and their stage in the buyer’s journey.

For example, someone searching for “what are red bottom shoes” is only researching to learn about the shoes. That’s an informational intent. Even though they could buy in the future, they’re not ready to buy while reading the content. Why waste time marketing your product to an audience that doesn’t want to buy?

So instead of adding the keywords “best red-bottom shoes for women” in the same article, you’d create a separate article in the future for “best red-bottom shoes for women.”

Besides informational intent, there are three other types of search intent:

• Transactional intent – “bass guitar price,” the searcher is ready to buy.
• Commercial intent – “best bass guitar in Nairobi,” the searcher is comparing their options to buy later.
• Navigational intent – “Facebook login,” the searcher wants to navigate to some application.

The easiest way to verify search intent is to analyze the result page you see after searching for your keywords on Google or any other search engine (Bing, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo, etc.) It’s called a search engine results page (SERP).

SERP Screenshot

If searching for a particular keyword brings up a similar results page as your primary keyword, then Google has determined that they address the same goal. So they have the same search intent, and you should include it as a heading in your article.

For example, what are red bottom shoes, what do red bottom shoes represent, and why are red bottoms so popular, all return similar search results pages.

So you’d definitely add these keywords to an article on “What are red bottom shoes?”

Search intent is the most important part of keyword research. 

2. Prioritize keywords with medium and low search volume

If you’re writing for a new website, go for keywords with anything above 20 monthly searches and below 10k because they’re easier to rank for.

Search volume is the total number of times people search for a keyword in a country or worldwide (your tool will allow you to choose). Since no tool is ever 100% accurate, it’s not a significant factor in your content’s success compared to other factors you’ll see below. 

Your point of interest here is on long-tail keywords that are often long, super-specific, and with low search volume. 

For example, “how to do keyword research for free using google data” is very specific compared to short keywords like “keyword research.” 

Long-tail keywords are easier to rank for because most established sites go for high-volume keywords.

But here’s the catch:

Long-tail keywords are good for sales because the searcher knows exactly what they want. So they’re easier to convert (or buy) if you’re promoting a product that helps the searcher achieve what they want.

If someone googles “keyword research,” it’s hard to determine what they want. Is it a definition? A process? A tool?

If you were selling a keyword research tool, you’d prioritize the sure googlers, e.g., someone who googles “best keyword research tool in Kenya.“

3. Prioritize keywords with a low Keyword Difficulty score

A keyword with a Keyword Difficulty (aka SEO Difficulty) score below 20/100 is easier to rank for.

Keyword Difficulty score via Keywords Everywhere chrome extension

Keyword Difficulty is an SEO metric that shows content marketers how easy/hard it is to rank for a keyword. In other words, how much effort will you put into ranking the page?

Keyword Difficulty is one of the most important metrics (after search intent). A new website would have to do so much work to rank a keyword with a 90+ Keyword Difficulty score. 

Most SEO tools will show you this score. They determine the score based on the SERP, like how many backlinks the top 10 results have, the quality of their content, and their domain authority (or DA, yet another SEO metric that quantifies a website’s authority in Google’s eyes).

4. Go for keywords with a high Cost-per-Click (CPC) value

Cost-per-click is the amount that advertisers pay every time someone clicks on their ad with specific keywords. 

CPC via Google Ads Keyword Planner

High CPC signals that people searching for that keyword are willing to spend money. That’s the only reason advertisers are willing to pay for someone to click on the keyword. 

The higher the CPC, the greater the ROI in most cases. So you’d want to optimize your content for these keywords that will bring the most money.

How to do free keyword research on Google

You’ll use free Google tools and chrome extensions to discover keyword ideas and analyze them. Follow the steps below. Remember to save the list of keywords you intend to incorporate into your content in a spreadsheet. You’ll then filter them to identify keywords with high CPC + medium to low search volume + low keyword difficulty + match search intent.

1. Type in your primary keyword in Google to see autocomplete predictions

When you start typing anything on Google, you always see Google attempting to predict what you’ll finish typing. For content marketers, these suggestions reveal what people actually search for regarding the primary keyword. Google Autocomplete reveals long-tail keywords, related (semantic) keywords, and variations of the primary keyword. 

But how does Google determine these predictions?

According to Google’s Public Liason for Search, Danny Sullivan, it looks at real searches happening on Google to show trending and common keywords related to what a searcher is typing. Google also looks at previous searches (the searcher’s history) and the searcher’s location.

Here are a few ways to use the Google autosuggest keyword tool:

• Add a space, underscore (_), or asterisk (*) after your keyword phrase if you don’t see relevant keywords after typing. Google will add any keywords in any position on the phrase (after, before, or within) to reveal more ideas. 
• Add an alphabet at the end of the keyword phrase to see more predictions. Go from a to z.

• Install a VPN like Windscribe if you’re targeting a specific location.
• Use the same language as your target audience. Here’s how to change Google language settings.
• Use an incognito window to prevent your search history from interfering with the predictions. 

Once you settle on a long-tail keyword that will serve your business and content goals best, you should hit enter to see more data from Google, like related searches and questions people ask about the topic. 

But before you analyze the SERP, install a free keyword research chrome extension to see more information, like search volume and keyword difficulty. Then refresh the page. 

2. Install these free keyword research extensions for SEO data

For this tutorial, I’ll use Keywords Everywhere, Ahrefs SEO toolbar, and Keyword Surfer.

Keywords Everywhere

The Keywords Everywhere chrome extension reveals related keywords, long-tail keywords, and keywords that people also search for. It also shows keyword difficulty for free. You can also see the keywords’ search volumes, CPC (and much more SEO data).

Update: Keywords Everywhere now charges 1 credit per keyword. Fortunately, you can get 100,000 credits for only $15 per year. 

Ahrefs SEO Toolbar

Ahrefs SEO toolbar shows you more keyword ideas.

Keyword Surfer

And Keyword Surfer shows the keywords’ search volumes. It can also generate a blog content outline for free. Try it!

You’ll notice that once you install two of these extensions, they’ll overlap each other on the SERP. 

So turn off each extension after using it. 

1. Click on the Extensions icon on your chrome browser
2. Navigate to the extension you want to turn off
3. Select Manage extension. 
4. Then turn it off.

Now let’s analyze the SERP results.

Psst… Check out our Keywords Everywhere vs Keyword Surfer chrome extensions comparison here.

3. Consider Google’s People also ask questions

The People also ask section on Google’s results page reveals what people want to know regarding your primary keyword. When you click on one question, Google reveals more questions that your audience may have.

Answering the relevant questions in your content provides all the information that the searcher wants to know – which satisfies their goal.  Answering these questions also gives your page a chance to appear in the People Also Ask section or another featured snippet. 

Featured Snippet Screenshot

A featured snippet (or answer box) is typically a summarized answer to a question on Google. It appears in what SEOs call position zero because it appears as the very first answer on Google’s results page. It also appears in the People Also Ask section. In the context of this guide, it could be a paragraph that answers a question completely or a list. The way to get this position is by providing a more complete/useful answer than what’s currently on Google. 

In this step, add relevant questions (those that match the search intent) to your keywords list. 

4. Consider Google’s Related searches 

The Related searches section shows questions that don’t incorporate the exact primary keyword but are related ideas. They appear at the bottom of Google’s results page.

You can incorporate these related (semantic) keywords into your content structure if they address the same search intent or save them for future pieces in your topic cluster.

A topic cluster is a model for organizing content based on topics rather than keywords. Instead of writing one massive page targeting a hundred keywords, you have a main page/article that covers everything about the topic generally (the pillar page), then other smaller articles covering different topics about the main topic.

Final thoughts on how to do keyword research for free using Google data

You can do keyword research for free using a few tools (Ahrefs SEO toolbar extension, Keyword Surfer extension, and Google Ads Keyword Planner). Additionally, you can analyze Google’s search features (People Also Ask and Related Searches).

After you determine the right keywords, use them to create an outline that incorporates the primary keyword, related keywords, and their variations. As always, the primary keyword should appear in the page title, the first 100 words of your article, a few headings, and the last section of your article. Use the primary and other keywords in your paragraphs too.

But that’s only the beginning of creating epic content that your audience and Google will value.