What’s the best free keyword research tool for 2019?

General
1

I’m trying to improve my website’s SEO on a really tight budget and I’m overwhelmed by all the keyword tools out there. I’ve tested a few, but most are limited or too complicated. Can anyone recommend the best truly free keyword research tool for 2019 that’s useful for finding long tail, low competition keywords and planning blog content?

2

If your budget is zero and you want something simple, go with this combo:

  1. Google Keyword Planner
    Free, inside Google Ads.
    Steps:
  • Create a Google Ads account
  • Skip setting up a campaign
  • Tools > Keyword Planner > Discover new keywords
  • Enter 5 to 10 seed keywords or your site URL
  • Sort by Avg. monthly searches and filter by country/language

Pros:

  • Direct data from Google
  • Good for search volume ranges and basic ideas
  • Lets you group keywords by intent if you look at wording

Cons:

  • Exact search volumes are vague unless you run ads
  • No SEO difficulty metric
  • Data skews to ad intent
  1. Google Search Console
    Use this for your own site.
    Steps:
  • Hook up your site to GSC
  • Performance > Search results
  • Sort by Impressions
  • Filter by pages or queries

Use it to:

  • Find queries where you rank positions 8 to 20
  • Add those exact phrases to titles, H1s, and subheads
  • Expand thin content with sections that answer those queries
  1. AnswerThePublic
    Free version is limited but enough for ideas.
  • Enter your seed keyword
  • Export the list
  • Clean it in a spreadsheet
    Use it for blog topic ideas and FAQ sections.
  1. Keyword Surfer (Chrome extension)
    Overlays search volume in Google results.
    Good for quick checks without logging into any tool.

Simple workflow you can follow each week:

  • Use Keyword Planner to find 20 to 50 keyword ideas
  • Cross check in Google search with Keyword Surfer
  • Prioritize long tail phrases with low competition style SERPs, like forums and small blogs
  • Use GSC to refine what already brings impressions
  • Update old posts first before writing new ones

If you want one “main” free tool for 2019, I would say Google Keyword Planner plus GSC, then layer the others on top.

Do not overthink tools. Spend most of your time writing better content around long tail phrases.

3

I’ll be the annoying person who says “there is no single best free tool,” but I actually mean it.

@reveurdenuit covered the Google stack really well, so let me throw in some alternatives and a slightly different angle, since just living in Keyword Planner can box you into “ads-thinking” instead of “user-thinking.”

1. Ubersuggest (free tier)
Yeah, it’s pushed hard for paid upgrades now, but the free version still gives you:

  • Keyword ideas with rough volume
  • Basic SEO difficulty
  • Content ideas based on competing pages

Use it to:

  • Plug in your main topic and find long-tail variations
  • Sort by low difficulty + reasonable volume
  • Check what type of content is ranking (guides, list posts, tools, etc.) and mimic that format

I like it more than Keyword Planner when I’m thinking “rank in organic results” instead of “run ads.”

2. Free Ahrefs tools
You don’t get full Ahrefs, but you do get:

  • [Ahrefs Keyword Generator] style tools (for Google, YouTube, etc.)
  • Top 100 keyword ideas with volume & difficulty for free
  • SERP overview for a keyword

This is huge for understanding:

  • “Can my baby site even compete here?”
  • “Are the top results big brands or random small blogs?”
    If the first page is all giants, skip that keyword and move on. That sanity check saves a ton of time.

3. “Poor man’s” competitor research
Honestly, this beats obsessing over volumes sometimes.

Steps:

  1. Search your main topic in Google.
  2. Open 3–5 sites that feel similar to yours in size, not the giant brands.
  3. Check:
    • Their H1s and subheads
    • FAQs section
    • Anchor text in internal links
      These are usually the real-world keywords and questions people care about, without you even touching a tool.

4. Manual SERP reading
Slight disagreement with relying too heavily on Keyword Planner like @reveurdenuit suggested. I treat it as a supporting tool, not the main one. Google’s “People also ask” and “Related searches” can sometimes surface better, more natural long-tail phrases than Planner will.
Scroll:

  • “People also ask” for question-based content
  • Bottom “Searches related to…” for LSI-ish variations

You can build surprisingly solid content briefs just from that.

5. YouTube as a keyword tool
If your niche has any video presence:

  • Start typing a topic in YouTube
  • Watch autocomplete suggestions
  • Look at top videos’ titles and description keywords

These are basically crowd-validated topics. A lot of them work as blog posts too, especially “how to…” style.

If you’re on a really tight budget and want 1 main thing to lean on in 2019:

  • Use Ahrefs free Keyword Generator (or Ubersuggest free) for difficulty + volume sanity check.
  • Use Google SERPs (People also ask, related searches, competitor headings) for the actual ideas and wording.
  • Use Search Console like @reveurdenuit mentioned, but as an optimizer: find what’s already getting impressions and double down instead of chasing brand-new keywords non-stop.

And seriously, don’t get stuck tool-shopping. One average tool + consistent content beats 10 tools and 0 articles.

4

Short version: there’s no “best free keyword tool for 2019,” but there is a best free stack for where you are and how you think.

@reveurdenuit leaned hard into the Google ecosystem and you already got a solid list of third‑party helpers, so I’ll pivot to how to actually work with whatever tool you pick and where I slightly disagree.

1. Free tools are for direction, not precision

The biggest trap I see: people treat free keyword volumes like gospel.

Almost every free tool:

  • Uses clickstream or scraped data
  • Has delayed updates
  • Rounds volumes into big buckets

So if you’re debating “is 90 searches/month better than 110,” you’re already in the weeds.

Use free tools to:

  • Compare relative size (“A is clearly bigger than B”)
  • Spot patterns (lots of “how to…” vs “best…”)
  • Roughly gauge difficulty (is this a bloodbath or not)

Do not use them to micro‑optimize around tiny volume differences.

2. One tactic nobody mentioned yet: free “topic-first” research

Instead of starting with keywords and then trying to build content around them, flip it:

  1. Pick a topic you know you can write the best page on in your niche.
  2. Search it in Google.
  3. Open the top 5 results.
  4. Run those URLs through any free competitive snippet tool you like (many SEO suites give a super limited, but free look at top keywords per URL).
  5. Collect repeated phrases across those pages.

This gives you:

  • The “core” keyword cluster everyone is already ranking with
  • Semantically related terms that Google clearly associates with that topic

Then plug a few of those terms into any free keyword tool to sanity‑check search interest and difficulty.

This “page-first” method is often more practical than staring at a giant keyword list wondering what to write.

3. Slight disagreement with over‑reliance on Google SERP suggestions

“People also ask” and related searches are useful, but:

  • They skew heavily to broad, generic questions
  • They can push you into writing 20 micro‑articles that would be better as one strong, comprehensive guide
  • In some niches, they lag behind how users are actually talking right now (especially fast‑moving tech / trends)

What I’d do instead:

  • Treat PAA and related searches as section headers inside a bigger article, not separate posts
  • Use them to structure content depth, not to decide the only keywords to target

4. Where most free stacks fail: prioritization

Pick one primary filter system and stick to it for 3 months. For example:

  • Only target keywords where the top page 1 results have DR/authority roughly like yours
  • Or only target questions you can answer in a way none of the current top 10 are doing
  • Or only target long‑tails that clearly signal “I want to solve X problem” rather than “what is X”

Switching tools every week is way worse than using an imperfect free tool consistently.

5. Since you asked “best” free keyword tool…

If you really want a single “main” thing to lean on, pick the one that matches your brain style:

  • If you’re analytical: use anything that gives difficulty + SERP overview in one shot, then manually check the top results.
  • If you’re more content‑driven: use something that surfaces questions and topics first, metrics second.
  • If you’re idea‑starved: use autocomplete style tools to just explode your idea list, then prune with difficulty checks.

Then glue it together with Search Console once you have traffic: that’s where you’ll find “accidental” keywords you never planned for but are already getting impressions on.

Bottom line: your budget isn’t the problem. The problem is thinking the perfect free tool will make the decisions for you. Any half‑decent free stack plus ruthless prioritization and consistent publishing will beat someone with ten tools and decision paralysis every time.