I get it...
Keyword research tools are expensive.
I do recommend them, however there are some great free keyword research tools and methods that are worth trying.
And that's exactly what I've done in this tutorial.
In fact, the very first method I used found me a great keyword that had almost zero competition. These are the keywords that will help get your business up and running.
So check out the video and the resources listed below.
Free Bonus:
Download the 5 Step Blueprint for beginners which outlines the exact steps I personally use for building online businesses with affiliate marketing.
Unlock the Power of Finding Free Keywords With These 5 Beginner Friendly Strategies
The example niche for this demonstration is "French Bulldogs". I chose this niche because it was recommended when I did a brainstorming exercise for finding niches. You can watch that full video here.
Search Reddit
Head over to Reddit.com and find the subreddit for your niche.
Within the subreddit, search for topics within your niche. For the French Bulldog topic I search for "food".
Sort the findings based on most comments. What you will find is a topic in a subreddit for your niche that has received a lot of comments. This is an indication that it might be a popular topic for your website, and you might find a good keyword to target.
In the demonstration, the top listing I found had a title:
"best dry food for sensitive Frenchies".
When I searched this keyword in Google, it showed that there were hardly any pages targeting keywords associated with "food" and "stomach issues" for French Bulldogs.
Here are some screenshots of this keyword and a related keyword showing little to no competition.
Google is showing that there are only a few pages on the internet which have these keywords in their titles.
Bottom line:
Threads in Reddit might help you find low competition keywords that are about popular topics within your niche.
Visit FAQ Pages
Visiting the FAQ pages of related websites in your niche will help you find common questions that you can target on your website.
You can visit the FAQ sections from your affiliate partners and find the common questions that customers are asking about the products you might be promoting. Then you can answer these questions on your site.
Search Forums
This method works the same way as the Reddit method. Find a bunch of forums in your niche and dig into the most popular threads. You might be able to find some popular questions and topics that reveal good keywords you can target on your site.
Search Wikipedia
Wikipedia can sometimes give you a great outline of your niche. The sub headings of a Wikipedia post can reveal some good keywords you might want to cover.
Search Suggest
Search suggest is a great way to gather a ton of keywords for free.
You can basically let Google suggest keywords over and over for you.
Simply do a Google search and check out the section called "People also ask" which is found in most search results. You can also scroll to the bottom of the search results and see what else Google is suggesting.
You can also start typing a phrase and watch Google attempt to complete the sentence with a list of potentially great keywords.
6 Free Tools You Can Use to Find Easy Winnable Keywords
ChatGPT
ChatGPT is a powerful AI tool that can help you find good keyword topics.
The best way to use ChatGPT in my opinion is to use it to suggest "topics" for your website.
It's not great at giving you a list of keywords, but it is really good at giving you a good outline of the topics you should cover on your website.
Google Keyword Tool
Google's Keyword Planner is one of the best free keyword tools you can find. Check out the full guide on how to set it up here.
What's great about this tool is you do get some data on the search volume of the keywords. It's not exact, but it does give a rough estimate.
You can use the tool to give you a list of keywords, or you can use it analyze a competitor's website.
You can export the list of keywords it generates, and you can paste in other lists to the tool to get some search volume data.
Keywords Everywhere
Keywords Everywhere is a Firefox and Chrome extension that provides keyword information from within the Google search results. I have a video tutorial about setting up this tool you can watch here.
The tool will show you related search suggestions, and give you some data on the websites that are currently ranking in Google. The paid version is super affordable and gives you some added features.
Keyword Sheeter
This tool is pretty straight forward.
Simply plug in a keyword and the tool generates tons of keywords in a few seconds. Keep in mind it will only generate keywords that contain the "seed" keyword you plugged into the tool.
What you can do once you have a large list of keywords, is copy and paste them into the Google Keyword Planner and get some data on them.
AnswerThePublic.com
AnswerThePublic.com is a great website that will deliver a ton of good keywords. At the time of publishing this article it is still free, however you do need to sign up for an account.
With one simple search you will get a list of questions, prepositions, comparisons and related terms. What's great is that the keywords are sorted into nice tables and diagrams for you to view and export.
Ahrefs' Free Keyword Tools
Ahrefs is the premium SEO tool that I use and recommend, and they have a few free tools you can use.
What's great about their tool is that they will give you the search volume and their estimate on how difficult a keyword is.
When you're ready to take your keyword research to the next level, I would highly recommend their premium tools.
Links to the Best Tools and Methods Plus Your Next Steps
Your Next Step:
If you're new to researching keywords, I would suggest you visit my keyword research guide here. You will learn about keywords in general, and discover other ways to research them.