No Money to Buy Ahrefs/SEMrush丨Get High-Traffic Keywords Without Spending a Cent (Including 5 Tool List)

We tried using ChatGPT to generate keywords — traffic dropped by 43%

While you’re hesitating over Ahrefs’ $99 monthly fee, Google’s algorithm updates are already helping your competitors grab your long-tail keyword rankings using free tools.

According to a survey by Moz, 72% of SEO professionals have given up on keyword optimization because of tool costs. But what most people don’t know is: Google’s free official data can cover 85% of what paid tools offer.

Google Keyword Planner

✅ Pros

• Data straight from Google Search, covering 90% of languages and regions
• Shows ad bidding range (helps assess commercial value)

❌ Cons

• Monthly search volume is shown as a range (like 100–1K), not exact numbers
• You need a Google Ads account (but you don’t have to pay)

🔧 How to Use (Desktop Version)

1. Go to Google Ads → Sign up → After logging in, click “Tools” → “Keyword Planner”
2. Type in a seed keyword (like “fitness meal”) → Click “Get Results”
3. In the filters, check:
   • Monthly search volume: 1,000–10,000
   • Competition: Low
4. Export to Excel and prioritize keywords with “Suggested Bid” under $1 (high commercial value but fewer advertisers)

📌 Best for

✓ Testing new market potential ✓ Picking e-commerce product keywords

Ubersuggest (Free Version)

✅ Pros

• Shows Keyword Difficulty (KD) and CPC data
• Lets you analyze competitors’ top keywords

❌ Cons

• Free version limits you to 3 searches a day
• Lower long-tail keyword coverage compared to Ahrefs

🔧 How to Use (Mobile-Friendly)

1. Go to Ubersuggest official site → Enter a competitor’s website (like http://www.xxx.com)
2. Click “Keyword Analysis” → Sort by “Traffic (Monthly)”
3. Apply filters:
   • Keyword Difficulty (KD) < 40
   • Traffic > 500
4. Copy the “low KD, high traffic” keywords into your content calendar (focus on expanding topics that already have traffic)

📌 Best for

✓ Quickly spotting competitor gaps ✓ Prioritizing content for small blogs

AnswerThePublic (Question-Based Keywords)

✅ Pros

• Visually shows user search intent (question trees/preposition structures)
• Supports Chinese searches (with manual URL tweaks)

❌ Cons

• Free version limited to 3 searches per day
• Chinese data isn’t as rich as English data

🔧 How to Use (Tips for Chinese Keywords)

1. Go to AnswerThePublic → Enter a Chinese keyword (like “immigration”)
2. Add &localse=zh to the URL and hit Enter (forces Chinese results)
3. Download the CSV file and filter for:
   • Question words: how/why/which
   • Prepositions: cost/requirements/risks
4. Use the question-based keywords as subheadings for your articles (boosts FAQ section coverage)

📌 Best for

✓ Building content libraries on Q&A platforms like Zhihu or Xiaohongshu ✓ Finding pain points for video scripts

Keyword Tool Dominator (Long-Tail Expansion)

✅ Pros

• Scrapes real-time Google/YouTube/Bing autocomplete suggestions
• Supports non-English keywords (like Japanese/Spanish)

❌ Cons

• Requires installing a browser plugin
• Some results may include duplicates or meaningless combinations

🔧 Steps (for Cross-border E-commerce Use)

1. Install the Chrome extension → Open Google Japan (http://www.google.co.jp)
2. Search a main keyword (like “歯磨き粉 おすすめ” / “recommended toothpaste”) → Click on the plugin icon
3. On the results page, check:
   • Include local words (example: for Japan → “楽天” (Rakuten), “ドラッグストア” (drugstore))
   • Exclude brand names (example: “クリニカ” (Clinica), “システマ” (Systema))
4. Import the final keyword list into Google Translate and prioritize creating multilingual product pages

📌 Best for

✓ Optimizing Amazon/Etsy Listings ✓ Local SEO for services like restaurants/beauty salons

Google Trends (Trend Insights)

✅ Pros

• Shows real-time search popularity changes (by region and time)
• Finds related rising and falling keywords

❌ Cons

• Doesn’t show exact search volumes
• Need to manually compare multiple keywords

🔧 Steps (for Newsjacking)

1. Go to Google Trends → Enter an industry keyword (like “camping”)
2. Set time range to “Past 12 months” → Set region to “China”
3. Click “Related Queries” → Filter by “Rising”
4. Insert trending keywords (like “summer camping outfits for women”) into the intro paragraph of your existing articles (use Ctrl+F to find the best spot)

📌 Best for

✓ Seasonal product content planning ✓ Topic selection for platforms like Toutiao/WeChat Official Accounts

Quick Tool Match Based on Your Needs:

Important Reminders

⚠️ Free doesn’t mean perfect: Use multiple tools together to cover each tool’s weaknesses (for example, validate Ubersuggest keywords by checking if they are trending upward in Google Trends)
⚠️ Chinese limitations: AnswerThePublic defaults to English, so you’ll need to manually add parameters for Chinese results
✅ Data validation: Always cross-check your keyword research results with real CTR data from Google Search Console