Keysearch Review: Affordable Keyword Search Competition Tool

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Are your page views stagnant, erratic, or non-existent? Mine were, too, and I could not figure out why. I was publishing two or three times per week and then shouting from the rooftops about the articles on social media. The problem? It’s your keyword search game.

The Solution? A solid search engine optimisation (SEO) strategy includes searching for keywords that will help you rank on search engines (SERPs) like Google. It’s not magic; it’s strategy, procedure, and technique, and I will show you how to do it with Keysearch, the affordable keyword competition tool.

This guide has been updated to include Keysearch’s new features, which include how to find competitor keywords, content assistance, and easy-to-find bulk keywords.

Did You Know?

• The first three search results in Google get over half of all traffic
• Less than 1/4 of searchers bother to select page 2

I used to get excited and assume some Harry Potter magic had gone down when I noticed one of my articles made it onto Google.

I never really understood what being on Google meant, though.

I was ignorant that ranking on Google increases the number of people reading your posts (organic traffic), which you can monetise through ads and affiliate marketing. It also makes your brand more attractive to businesses who want to pay you to promote their products.

Ranking on Google is like a golden ticket.

Fact: Two of my best-paying clients found me on page 1 of Google and ended up paying me more than my weekly part-time high school teacher wage to be featured on my site. I did not have to hunt them down; they contacted me.

Keyword Terminology

So now we’ve established what ranking on page 1 of Google can mean for your brand and bank account, let’s look at the essential terms you need to understand before diving into keyword research.

Then, we’ll unpack keyword research and how to do it using Keysearch.

What Are Keywords?

Keywords are the search terms and phrases people use to find your content on Google.

They are direct or indirect questions that potential readers want an answer to.

These keywords should match the main points/topics/themes you discuss in your article.

This includes your title, story, message, and why you wrote the article.

We call this fulfilling user intent.

What is Keyword Research?

Keyword research is the act of finding keywords that we can create content around, increasing our chances of ranking on Google and getting all that lovely organic traffic.

The aim is to rank on page one of Google in positions 1-3.

To do this, you need to find keywords you can rank for and then create content for those keywords.

Sometimes, that means tweaking the angle of your post, so it is best to do keyword research before you start typing anything.

The Problem with Finding Keywords

SEO is now part of successful bloggers’ content creation strategies, which makes keyword research a bit more difficult.

However, it is not impossible and is really the only reliable way to increase your website page views into the hundreds of thousands.

While other traffic sources, such as social media, have some scope for referrals, they tend to be less consistent than organic traffic from search engines.

Another problem with keyword research is that some bloggers and site owners who are tying it out aren’t quite getting it right.

They are attempting to target very broad keywords with a large volume count and hefty competition!

Broad Keyword Example

For example, regardless of how well-written, humorous, or valuable your article on the Colorado City, ‘Denver’ or ‘seafood chowder’ is, it’s likely not going to rank page one of Google’s SERPs (search engine results pages) because there is too much competition for such a broad keyword.

Plus, we don’t know what the user intent is for broad keywords like Denver.

Does the searcher want a travel guide to Denver or a historical description?

What you write might not correctly target that intent, so Google can’t read what the content is about.

There is an easy solution for this keyword problem; you have to narrow the topic down.

Keywords like ‘what to see in Denver’ or ‘easy seafood chowder’ are better because they are narrower topics.

However, they are still difficult to compete for because there are many content creators before you are already ranking for those terms.

You’ll need to drill down to an even more specific topic or find topics that few others have already written about.

For example, ‘Denver date night ideas’ and ‘dairy-free seafood chowder’ are narrowly defined keywords that likely don’t have a lot of competition because they are not broad. 

We know exactly what the user wants when they type these keywords into Google, so the user intent is clear, and you can write your article to answer those specific questions.

But how do we know for sure if those keywords do or don’t have a lot of competition?

And how do we know if anyone uses those keywords to find content?

The good news is you don’t have to play a guessing game when choosing keywords, as there are keyword research tools to help you find more detailed information about keywords so that you can make a more informed decision.

Free Keyword Research Tools

While we recommend paying for the affordable Keyword research tool Keysearch, we’ll also go over a couple of free options so you can compare free versus premium software.

1. Google Recommends

Google recommends is a free keyword research tool.

If you open up Google in a new Incognito window and type in ‘Denver date night ideas’, Google will recommend the query (keywords) you have typed in.

You can also scroll to the bottom of the search results and see the ‘searches related to…’ section.

While this is a great starting point, it doesn’t provide the vital information we need to assess whether we can rank for the keywords.

What’s missing?

There’s no monthly volume or competition score for us to weigh, and while we can see the posts that rank on page one of Google, we cannot quickly glance at their stats to see if we have a chance of outranking them.

For me, this is still just the brainstorming stage.

Google Recommends is a great starting point for planning your articles.

You may want to begin formulating your ideas around some of these suggestions.

Google Recommends

Pros

• Free
• Good starting point

Cons

• No volume, so no idea how many people are searching for it
• Competitiveness not identified

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2. Google Trends

Google Trends is a nifty site that was created by Google.

It allows users to compare data and analyze search queries from Google Search.

The data is shown in graph form so you can visualize what people are searching for, where they are located, and at what time of year they are searching for the query.

Again, this is a great starting point, especially for planning seasonal content or prioritizing which posts to create and publish first.

3. Domain Authority and Moz Keyword Explorer

Moz is the team that measures our DAs (domain authority).

DA is formulated by investigating around 40 criteria, including the quality of the links to your posts.

If your site is new or your DA is low, you may find it harder to rank on Google.

It’s not impossible, just more of a challenge.

You can check out your domain authority here.

Health warning: I did not start tracking my DA until it was in its 20s, as I had no idea what it was! Concentrate on building your brand, enjoy writing and improve your authority.

SEO companies often ask for your DA via email when building links to client’s sites.

Moz has also created a free keyword research tool called Moz Keyword Explorer.

It is a step up from Google Recommends as it details keyword volume and how competitive those keywords are.

However, it is free; as the saying goes, the devil is in the details.

Moz’s free level does not tell you much about your competitors, like other paid software, like Keysearch, and the monthly search volume is not exact.

It also restricts your use to ten searches per month.

Believe me; you will want to do more keyword research than that once you see how easy it is and how quickly it can increase traffic to your website.

Moz Free Keyword Research Tool

Pros

• It’s free
• Highlights competitiveness
• Identifies competitors
• Additional keywords

Cons

• Volume is vague and sometimes inaccurate
• Monthly limit of ten searches

Keysearch: Affordable Keyword Search Competition Tool

Keysearch is the most popular paid keyword research tool amongst the content creators we network with. It is relatively cheap at $24 per month or $240 annually.

Keysearch not only fills in flaws that the free tools above fail on but also offers:

• Keyword tracking.
• Backlink check.
• Google Trends.
• Competition comparison.
• Saved lists.

Keysearch is a website I use often, not only for new content but also for old posts.

In the graph below, you can see from my Google Analytics where I started implementing SEO on my travel site.

How to Use Keysearch for Keyword Analysis 

After you have taken time do some brainstorming, follow the following steps:

• Type your keywords into the keyword analysis search bar.
• ‎Choose your location or leave ‘all locations’.
• Hit return. You can also filter for a certain keyword.
• Sort by volume, with the largest at the top.

The results will pull up a series of potential keywords, monthly volume, and competition scores.

The above image displays Keysearch information.

We can see the following from the keyword analyzer returns:

• The volume of our defined keyword ‘Denver date night ideas’ is 1000.
• I am happy with a volume above 100. Naturally, the larger, the better.
• It also states how difficult the keywords would be for us regarding competitiveness.
• Red is difficult, amber would be tough and green is possible. Denver date night ideas is a go-gettum green. Light blue is a unicorn!
• The goal is to find a keyword that is high in volume but low in difficulty.
• To the left-hand side, variations of the keywords are displayed, as well as other keywords we might want to consider, such as cheap date night ideas (in) Denver. You are getting two services for the price of one! BOGOF.
• You can use the ‘filter’ option to refine your search and also the categories at the top such as volume to organise the results better.

Bingo! You have your targeted defined keyword, variations, and other keywords for which you can potentially rank.

New website or new to SEO?

You may have difficulty finding keywords you can rank for, but you must start somewhere!

Checking Out the Competition

Cast your eyes to the right-hand side table on Keysearch.

This is who is currently ranking for the selected keywords.

This is where we assess how likely we can elbow into the top slots.

Are there sites on the list with a lower DA than yours?

If these sites do not have the keywords in the URL, (meta) description, title and/or they lack links (backlinks from other respectable sites/internal links) then we may be in for a chance of competing to rank on page one of Google.

The ‘Auth‘ column tells us to follow external links to the post.

The higher the backlinks, the harder it might be to beat.

‘Links‘ calculates do/nofollow links, internal and external, but not outbound links.

Note: If the competitor’s domain name contains the keyword, there is a good chance that Google will see them as more authoritative if they have solid content on their site to prove it.

That makes an exact match domain site harder to outrank.

This is also true for the amount of content the competition has about a topic on their site.

If the competitor has a lot of Denver content – more than your site – it might also be difficult to outrank them. It’s generally better to write in-depth and go wide than write thinly about many different topics.

If you think you can nudge out around two of the competitors on page one at present, tick the target keywords and all the additional ones that support your post (usually 8-10) add to a new list and then export them.

Additional Keysearch Features

The team at Keysearch are very excited that they have developed more than just a keyword checker.

Next to the SERP Analysis (image above), you can select ‘rankings/traffic, ‘which will give you some insight into the keywords that the post is ranking for (choose ‘URL keywords’ for the pop-up) and the estimated URL traffic that the specific post/page actually gets.

You can then assess the additional keywords that you could potentially rank for, too.

This function acts as a bulk keyword difficulty checker.

You can also use Keysearch to investigate YouTube keywords. 

Competitor Keyword Analysis 

The biggest change for Keysearch is comparing URLs against each other to check out what keywords the competition is ranking for that you are not using.

If you select ‘Competitive Analysis‘ at the top of the page and then ‘Competitor Gap’, you will be faced with two search bars.

Put the URL you want to check first (I would guess you just want to know the keywords of one post, so choose the ‘specific page’ in the drop-down).

Next, add your URL on a similar topic in the second search bar and choose a specific page again. Keysearch will then return any keywords that you are not targeting, but the competition is.

Keysearch Content Assist

Keysearch has a new beta feature available that can assist you while you optimise old posts or write new content. 

Look for the ‘Content Assist’ button on the top navigation bar. 

Add the desired keywords and read the information to the right.

The first column identifies the ‘must words’ – these are words you might consider using. 

Some of them are very generic; others are targeted. 

‘Keywords’ pulls these from Google’s suggestions, so check the volume of these keywords before using them. 

‘Relevant information’ pulls up relevant snippets. 

I’ve found that the top 10 it pulls up here differs from the top 10 in the SERPs section for a few I tested. 

The ‘questions’ section identifies the questions people ask about the keywords.

Finally, SERPs outline the word count of the top 10 on page one of Google.

Overall, this is another handy feature by the Keysearch team. Do you agree?

For 20% off, use the code MTH20—see here to try it for yourself. 

Backlink Checker

Not a new feature but still useful, you will find the ‘Backlink Checker’ in the ‘Competitive Analysis’ drop-down.

Here, you can see who links to your post or full website. It also indicates if the link is ‘do or no follow’.

Do-follow links pass link juice to your site, while no-follow links do not.

If you left a comment on a post or paid for the ad space, it is likely that there will be no follow-up.

Naturally, you can also use the tool to look at your competition’s backlinks.

Rank Tracking

Once you start optimising your posts, you need to assess if the strategy is working.

You can do this by tracking your keyword’s ranking position.

Go to the top of the dashboard, choose ‘Rank Tracking,’ type in your website URL, and add keywords.

You need to refresh them using the arrow every time you want to track them.

I would advise doing this along with the keywords in Google Search Console and checking your placement on Google using the incognito mode, too.

Frequently Asked Questions

• How do I see monthly Google searches for specific words for free?
  
  Above, you will see a review of Moz’s keyword planner and Keysearch. Keysearch’s keyword competition checker also offers a one-month trial.
  
• What is the best way to keyword research? 
  
  The most effective way to do keyword research is to brainstorm as part of your planning stage, use the Keysearch brainstorming tool and Google suggestions, and then assess the keyword difficulty in a premium tool of your choice.
  
• Keysearch is bringing up a ‘zero’ response for volume.
  
  What does this mean? Keysearch’s official response is that they collect information from Google, which is the return.
  
• Can I rank for keywords that are 0 in volume? 
  
  Some bloggers report ranking for 0 volume keywords. Our advice would always be to aim for the highest volume and lowest competition. You can continually assess the progress using Search Console once the post ranks and tweak again.
  
• What about grammar?
  
  Does Google care about grammar when it comes to potential keywords? If you put the keyword idea into Google, the SERPs return likely pulls up sites which use correct grammar regardless of the keyword ignoring it.
  
• Which is the most affordable and cheapest keyword research tool for bloggers?
  
  If you want to move from hobbyist to professional, you definitely need to invest in a keyword research tool. There are more advanced programmes on the market, like Ahrefs and SEMrush, which both cost around $140 per month. Keysearch offers keyword research, tracking, analysis, and now competitor information, making it a sound investment at $24 per month. I’ve been using it since 2017, as have Laura and most of our blogging friends.

Final Words

A keyword difficulty checker is a tool every blogger should have in their toolkit if they want to increase their traffic, monetise and show partners that they can genuinely meet deliverables.

Although there are free keyword difficulty tools, they can only take you so far, and eventually, a premium program will be required to move your blog from hobby to business. This is an investment; you have to speculate to accumulate in business.

For us, Keysearch is the best keyword difficulty tool because it is affordable, assesses keyword difficulty, tracks ranking, offers backlink checks and compares your keywords to the competition.

You can have all that for $24 per month or $240 for the year (plus 20% off with our coupon code MTH20).

About the Authors

Gemma owns several travel and lifestyle websites, including Two Scots Abroad Travel Guides. Laura runs a portfolio of travel, food, and lifestyle sites. They both love to travel, drink wine, and increase their website traffic through SEO!