No money to buy Ahrefs/SEMrush | Get High-Traffic Keywords for Free (5 Tools Included)

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

While you’re hesitating over Ahrefs’ $99/month fee, Google’s algorithm updates have already let competitors use free tools to snatch your long-tail keyword rankings.

According to Moz research, 72% of SEO professionals give up on keyword optimization due to tool costs, but few people know: Google’s officially provided free data can solve 85% of paid tool needs.

Google Keyword Planner

✅ Advantages

• Data comes from Google searches, covering 90% of languages/regions
• Directly shows ad bid ranges (judging commercial value)

❌ Disadvantages

• Monthly search volume shown as ranges (e.g., 100-1K), not exact values
• Requires registering a Google Ads account (but no payment needed)

🔧 Operation Steps (Desktop)

1. Visit Google Ads → Register account → Click “Tools” → “Keyword Planner” after logging in
2. Enter seed keywords (e.g., “fitness meals”) → Click “Get Results”
3. In filters, check:
   • Monthly search volume: 1000-10,000
   • Competition level: Low
4. Export to Excel, prioritize keywords with “Suggested bids” under $1 (high commercial value but fewer advertisers)

📌 Applicable Scenarios

✓ Determine feasibility of entering new markets ✓ E-commerce product keyword filtering

Ubersuggest (Free Version)

✅ Advantages

• Shows keyword difficulty (KD value) and CPC data
• Can analyze competitor websites’ TOP keywords

❌ Disadvantages

• Free version limited to 3 searches per day
• Long-tail keyword coverage lower than Ahrefs

🔧 Operation Steps (Mobile-Optimized)

1. Visit Ubersuggest Official Website → Enter competitor domain (e.g., http://www.xxx.com)
2. Click “Keyword Analysis” → Sort by “Traffic (Monthly)”
3. Filter conditions:
   • Keyword difficulty (KD) < 40
   • Traffic > 500
4. Copy “Low KD High Traffic” keywords to content schedule (prioritize writing about extended topics that already have traffic)

📌 Applicable Scenarios

✓ Quickly find competitor vulnerability keywords ✓ Small/medium blog content priority sorting

AnswerThePublic (Question Keyword Mining)

✅ Advantages

• Visualizes user search intent (question trees/preposition structures)
• Supports Chinese search (requires manual URL parameter modification)

❌ Disadvantages

• Free version limited to 3 searches per day
• Chinese data richness not as good as English

🔧 Operation Steps (Chinese Keyword Tips)

1. Visit AnswerThePublic → Enter Chinese keyword (e.g., “immigration”)
2. Add &localse=zh at the end of the URL, press Enter (force display of Chinese results)
3. Download CSV file, filter keywords containing:
   • Question words: how/why/which
   • Prepositions: cost/conditions/risks
4. Use the filtered question keywords as article subheadings (improve FAQ section coverage)

📌 Applicable Scenarios

✓ Q&A platform content library building for Zhihu/Xiaohongshu ✓ Video script pain point mining

Keyword Tool Dominator (Long-tail Keyword Expansion)

✅ Advantages

• Real-time scraping of Google/YouTube/Bing autocomplete suggestions
• Supports non-English keywords (e.g., Japanese/Spanish)

❌ Disadvantages

• Requires browser extension installation
• Some results contain duplicates or meaningless combinations

🔧 Operation Steps (Cross-border E-commerce Usage)

1. Install Chrome Extension → Open Google Japan (http://www.google.co.jp)
2. Search core keyword (e.g., “歯磨き粉 おすすめ”) → Click extension icon
3. On results page, check:
   • Include local keywords (example: Japan → “楽天””ドラッグ 스토어”)
   • Exclude brand keywords (example: “クリニカ””システマ”)
4. Import final keyword list to Google Translate, prioritize creating multilingual product pages

📌 Applicable Scenarios

✓ Amazon/Etsy platform Listing optimization ✓ Local service SEO (food/beverage/beauty, etc.)

Google Trends (Trend Insights)

✅ Advantages

• Real-time reflection of search popularity changes (with region/time dimensions)
• Related keyword mining (rising/declining keywords)

❌ Disadvantages

• Doesn’t show specific search volumes
• Requires manual comparison of multiple keywords

🔧 Operation Steps (Hot Topic Leverage)

1. Visit Google Trends → Enter industry keyword (e.g., “camping”)
2. Time range: “Past 12 months” → Region: “China”
3. Click “Related Queries” → Filter “Rising”
4. Plant rising keywords (example: “summer camping outfit for women”) into existing article opening paragraphs (use Ctrl+F to find suitable positions)

📌 Applicable Scenarios

✓ Seasonal product content warm-up ✓ Headline/WeChat Official Account hot topic topic selection

Quickly match tools based on your needs:

Pitfall Reminders

⚠️ Free ≠ Almighty: Combine tools to compensate for individual flaws (example: use Google Trends to verify if keywords found on Ubersuggest are in a rising phase)
⚠️ Chinese Limitations: AnswerThePublic prioritizes English by default, Chinese keywords need manual parameter addition
✅ Data Calibration: All tool results need secondary filtering using real click-through rates from Google Search Console