How to Do Keyword Research for Free (Without Semrush)

Paid keyword tools start at $99/month. The free workflow below gets you 80% of the data — enough to find ranking opportunities for any small or mid-sized site.

Step 1 — Mine your own data

Open Search Console → Performance → Queries. Filter to position 11–20. These are queries you're almost ranking for. Move them to position 1–10 by improving the matching page (better title, more depth, internal links). This is the highest-ROI keyword research you'll ever do.

Step 2 — Expand with Google Suggest

Type your seed keyword into Google with a space, then a, b, c, d... Google's autocomplete shows what people actually search. Repeat with "keyword for", "keyword vs", "how to keyword". Free, manual, but incredibly accurate.

Step 3 — Pull volume from Keyword Planner

Sign up for Google Ads (no need to run ads). Use Keyword Planner → Get search volume to validate every keyword from steps 1–2. Free volume ranges, no rate limit.

Step 4 — Check difficulty with FreeSEO

FreeSEO's keyword research returns a realistic difficulty estimate for new sites. Target keywords with low/medium difficulty and 100+ volume/month for the fastest wins.

Step 5 — Look at the actual SERP

For each target keyword, search it in incognito. If the top 10 is dominated by Reddit, Wikipedia, and big brands — pick a longer, more specific variation. The SERP tells you what Google thinks the query means.

Step 6 — Cluster and prioritize

Group keywords by intent (informational, commercial, transactional). One page per cluster, not one page per keyword. Prioritize the clusters where you already have ranking signals (queries from step 1).

What free keyword research can't do

Bulk export of 10,000+ keywords, historical volume trends, accurate keyword difficulty for highly competitive terms. For 95% of sites, you don't need any of these.