Keyword Tool review

Keyword research made simple

Keyword Tool 1
(Image: © Keyword Tool)

TechRadar Verdict

Keyword Tool is exceptional if all you need is access to detailed keyword research. However, the platform is priced like an all-in-one SEO tool while lacking robust ranking and competition analysis features.

Pros

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    Extremely simple user interface

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    Can drill down into specific search platforms

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    Keyword results are based on autocomplete

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    Detailed search volume data included

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    30-day money back guarantee

Cons

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    Surprisingly expensive for what you get

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    Competition analysis features are very weak

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    Cost-per-click data isn’t included with Pro Basic

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    No free trial

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    Lacks direct phone support or chat

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Keyword Tool is a straightforward and highly effective SEO tool for researching keywords. It breaks down keyword data across multiple high-volume sites like Google, YouTube, Amazon, and more, with a clean interface.

Furthermore, it’s easy to dig down into essential marketing data like cost-per-click, search volume, and competition. However, keeping in mind that Keyword Tool isn’t an all-in-one SEO research platform though, we think the price for this software is somewhat high.

So, is Keyword Tool the platform to choose for your SEO and marketing efforts? Let’s go through what this tool has to offer to help you decide. 

Keyword Tool: Plans and pricing

Keyword Tool starts at $89 per month or with an annual discount at $828 per year, making it surprisingly expensive for a platform that only performs keyword analysis. At this price, the Pro Basic plan leaves out cost-per-click data and Google Ads competition scores, which are pretty important, and also you also only get a single user account. 

Keyword Tool 2

(Image credit: Keyword Tool)

Moving up a tier, the Pro Plus plan adds quite a bit more functionality for little more money. For $99 per month (or a discounted $948 paid annually), you get access to the important cost-per-click and Google Ads competition data. Your keyword search limit also jumps up from 7,000 words per day to 35,000 words per day, and also you can create up to five user accounts.

The Pro Business plan costs $199 per month or annually is discounted to $1,908 per year. With that, you can search 70,000 keywords per day, create 10 user accounts, and make 50 API requests per day.

Those needing access to the Keyword Tool API with a Plus or Basic plan or need more than 50 requests per day can add an additional API plan. Options start at $299 per month for 100 API requests per day for the API Lite plan, and the API Basic plan allows 400 API requests daily for $999/month, with annual discounts available on both. You can also contact the company to develop a custom plan if you need very significant resources.

All Keyword Tool plans come with a 30-day money-back guarantee, which gives you a chance to try out the software. However, there is no free trial.

Keyword Tool 3

(Image credit: Keyword Tool)

Keyword Tool: Features

Keyword Tool consists of three primary features: basic keyword research, competition analysis, and search volume analysis. 

Keyword Research

A major strong point for using Keyword Tool is that it clearly excels at fundamental keyword research. Just type in any keyword into a simple search bar, with the platform returning a list of keywords generated via Google autocomplete. That’s a novel approach than what many all-in-one SEO platforms take for finding keywords, but the advantage is that it is more reflective of what visitors are really searching for.

Critically important, Keyword Tool isn’t merely limited to returning country-based Google keyword results, either. Also, you can run the same keyword analysis using autocomplete with YouTube, Bing, Amazon, and eBay, and limit your results to any of 47,000 individual search markets. That enables an assessment of what keywords are popular for a specific targeted audience- instead of Internet users broadly.

This data that the software presents for each keyword in your results is quite simple yet helpful. Plus and Business users also see the cost-per-click, in dollars, for advertising around a specific keyword, along with a single number that distills the competitiveness of that keyword in Google Ads. The results table further displays the percentage gain or loss in search volume over the past 12 months, indicating the trends that simplify finding the most desirable keywords.

Keyword Tool 4

(Image credit: Keyword Tool)

Competition Analysis

Competition analysis in Keyword Tool works differently to other SEO tools. By inputting a competitor’s domain, this platform returns with a list of keywords that’s derived from site content rather than just search results.

In this aspect, Keyword Tool is fairly lackluster. You don’t get to see what search ads competitors are using, which is arguably somewhat more helpful than just seeing the words that appear with frequency in blog posts’ site headers. Finally, this tool also doesn’t let you make a comparison of two websites’ keywords in a head-to-head fashion.

Therefore, the competition analysis portion of Keyword Tool just won’t be all that useful for most digital marketers.

Search Volume Analysis

The Keyword Tool offers a search volume analysis feature as a way of deep diving into the volume data that’s presented in the keyword results tables. Users look at a bar chart to break down the precise number of searches for a keyword on a month-by-month basis. While it’s not actually necessary to look at these charts in most cases, it's definitely convenient to be able to dig deeper into this search volume data prior to potentially investing in ads around a keyword. 

Keyword Tool 5

(Image credit: Keyword Tool)

 Keyword Tool: Interface and use

Keyword Tool’s user interface exemplifies simplicity, that is to say about as simple as it can get. The browser-based interface revolves around a search bar where you can enter keywords, or a competitor’s domain. Helpful options on top of the search bar let you filter your search by geographic location (country or even city) or by the search platform.

Truth be told, we’re not sure why Keyword Tool doesn’t combine keyword research, competition analysis, and search volume analysis into a single results page. Rather, users need to navigate between the three tools using tabs at the top of the page which is not too slick. However, the three interfaces taken alone are each simple enough, with a similar interface, that there’s very little opportunity to get lost or confused.

Keyword Tool

(Image credit: Keyword Tool)

Keyword Tool: Support

You can get in touch with Keyword Tool via direct email, or by using a contact form on the company’s website. Responses during business hours are quick—usually within a few hours. Unfortunately, note that the Keyword Tool team operates on Gulf Standard Time in Asia, and has limited hours at that, 10 AM to 6PM, and weekdays only. There is also no chat, nor a direct phone number. 

Keyword Tool: The Competition

Keyword Tool is a great choice if you just want basic keyword research presented in a straightforward way. However, the platform costs about as much as a subscription with all-in-one SEO tools like Serpstat and Moz Pro. These can be a little more confusing to start out with, but they provide much more robust features for competition analysis and search engine rank monitoring. Still, one notable difference is that these platforms don’t use autocomplete to find keywords related to your search, as Keyword Tool does.

Keyword Tool: Final verdict

Keyword Tool is certainly an easy to use, and capable tool for conducting essential keyword research. The user interface is actually ridiculously simple, with available keyword data for Bing, Amazon, and eBay in addition to search giant Google. But, for the price of the admission to this software, you could just as well invest in an all-in-one SEO tool, with an overall much richer feature set. 

Michael Graw

Michael Graw is a freelance journalist and photographer based in Bellingham, Washington. His interests span a wide range from business technology to finance to creative media, with a focus on new technology and emerging trends. Michael's work has been published in TechRadar, Tom's Guide, Business Insider, Fast Company, Salon, and Harvard Business Review. 

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