How to Do Keyword Research (With Free Tools)
A student showed me her blog draft last week and said, “Sir, I’ve written good content, but the traffic still isn’t coming.” I opened it up and asked the obvious question first — did you do any keyword research before writing this? Her answer was, “No sir, I just wrote about a topic I liked.”
This is the mistake most people make. They write about what they find interesting, not what their audience is actually typing into Google. And that one difference decides whether a blog ranks or just sits there unread.
What Keyword Research Actually Means
In simple terms, keyword research is figuring out the exact words people type into Google when they’re trying to solve a problem or learn something. You build your content around those words, so when someone searches, your page has a shot at showing up.
It’s not about grabbing one keyword and stuffing it ten times into a page. It’s about understanding how your audience phrases their questions, what words they naturally use, and what they’re really after when they type that search in.
Search Intent Comes Before Anything Else
Before you even go hunting for keywords, you need to understand what the user wants behind that search.
Sometimes someone just wants information — something like “what is SEO.” Sometimes they’re comparing options — “Google Ads vs Facebook Ads.” And sometimes they’re ready to buy — “best digital marketing course in Gurgaon.”
If you build a sales page around an informational keyword, you’ll get neither the ranking nor the conversion. Matching intent to content is really the whole game here.
Now, the Free Tools
Paid tools give better data, no argument there. But when you’re starting out, free tools do the job, and honestly they do it quite well.
Google Keyword Planner sits inside Google Ads, and a free account gives you decent access. You get a search volume range along with a bunch of related keyword ideas.
Google Search Console is gold if your website is already live. It shows you the exact queries people are already using to land on your pages — often surfacing opportunities you didn’t even know existed.
Google’s own “People also ask” and “Related searches” sections are underrated. Search any keyword, scroll down, and those boxes are basically free keyword research sitting right there.
AnswerThePublic gives a limited number of free searches per day, but it lays keywords out in question format, which works really well for building blog headings.
Ubersuggest, built by Neil Patel, also offers a few free searches daily and shows both keyword difficulty and volume in one place.
What I tell students is — try all of these in the beginning, see which one feels natural to use, and then stick with it as your go-to.
What to Look For When Picking a Keyword
Don’t just chase volume. A keyword with 10,000 monthly searches sounds great, but if it’s highly competitive, a new website has almost no chance of ranking for it.
A better approach is going after long-tail keywords. “SEO” on its own is broad and heavily contested, but something like “how to learn SEO as a beginner” is specific, has less competition, and tells you exactly what the searcher wants.
Long-tail keywords are what bring in traffic early on. As your site builds authority over time, the broader, higher-volume keywords start becoming reachable too.
A Real Example
That same student changed her blog topic from “Digital Marketing” to “Digital Marketing Course Fees in Gurgaon.” Within two weeks, impressions started showing up in Search Console. Same writing quality, same effort — just a smarter keyword choice.
The Bottom Line
Keyword research isn’t a one-time task. You go through this process before every new blog, because search trends shift and new questions keep popping up that people are asking Google.
If you want to learn this hands-on, actually working with the tools instead of just reading about them, this is one of the core modules we walk through live in our SEO training.