In this post, I will tell you about the top 10 free keyword planner tools that I have discovered.
If you are unsure of what SEO and keywords mean, please look at this post, which explains what it’s all about.
Researching the keywords you use is essential if you want to take advantage of all the people already using Etsy searching for products. If you want to know how to do keyword planning and research, take a look at this post.
To do complete keyword research means a keyword planner tool should be high up on your must-have list.
Keyword planners come in various guises and can be free or paid for. It is not always essential for you to pay for a service if you know how to work the system to get the information you need.
What makes a useful keyword planner tool.
As part of your keyword planning, you want to research potential keywords. This means identifying popular words and combinations of words that can be used to describe your listing.
Many keyword planner tools can be used as part of your keyword research, but the following features should be looked for when determining which tool to use. They should either:
- help you come up with the right combination of words that are searched for by real people.
- tell you how many times the keywords are searched for.
- tell you how big the competition is.
Using all of this information will help you determine the keyword’s quality and whether it is worth using.
Often it is a balance between all of these factors that make a good keyword. If the search numbers are high, and the competition is also high, it is probably better to focus on fewer searches and less competition.
Here is my list of the top 10 free keyword planner tools that I have used.
1. Etsy Search bar
If you are selling on Etsy and are researching keywords for listings on Etsy, then the Etsy search bar should be one of your first places to start your research.
Begin typing in the search bar and a list will drop down of recent and commonly searched terms. The more you type in, the more suggestions Etsy gives you to better describe the product.
The choices displayed only show recent searches and do not indicate their overall popularity.
By performing the search in Etsy, you can immediately see how many listings are returned. This is a true reflection of your competition.
If you search with your keywords surrounded by ” ” this will tell you the exact number of listings have that exact keyword combination. This is your competition. Etsy prioritises exact word order matches. If the exact match produces a lower number than the original search you should leapfrog the non-exact matches.
Obviously, other factors are also taken into account for search ranking, so this is just an indicator of how easy it will be to get included in the search results, not where you will appear.
2. Etsy stats page
The Etsy Stats page of your Etsy shop shows you what your listings have already been found for. This can give you some ideas of what real people actually search for, leading them directly to your listing. You can even alter the date range to show the search terms over different time periods.
To access your Etsy stats, go to your Etsy Shop Manager→Stats.
This will take you to your Stats page. Scroll down until you see your “How shoppers found you. Click on the Etsy Search option. This will then open the Traffic Details page.
From here, scroll down until you find the ‘Search Terms’ section.
These are the terms that people are finding your listings with.
The words at the top of the list are the most commonly used words to find your listings.
You will probably notice some bizarre combinations of words! These are good examples of a customer filtering their results to get more specific and are examples of long-tailed keywords.
You can’t possibly second guess all combinations that can be used, which is why it is handy that Etsy uses all of the words you supply in your titles and tags to see if the words in the long-tail keywords can be found in any order.
Therefore, it is important that if you notice a common word being used over several long-tail keywords, try to keep this as you move forward.
3. Competitors listings
This might seem sneaky, but it is always a good starting point to see what keywords your competitors think are important on Etsy.
However, care should be used here as they could be at the top of search results due to the number of sales they have had, and these could’ve been gained through their own marketing and have nothing to do with their keyword strategy.
How you find your competitors tags seems to be changing. When writing this, you see the keywords that Etsy can make sense of at the bottom of the listing page. Etsy used to display the actual words used, now they are trying to make them search terms in their own right.
4. Google Search bar
Like the Etsy search bar, as you type in your chosen keyword, the Google search bar will offer you suggestions.
Again, these are recent popular searches.
You can also use the Google search bar to find Etsy market pages in your niche. Simply add ‘Etsy’ to the end of your search. Any result that is from Etsy and has Market in the URL is a market page. The words after the ‘www.etsy.com > market >’ indicate the keyword Etsy is using for that market page.
IN the above screenshot the keyword Etsy is using is ‘postal brownies’. This happens to match what was searched in Google, but this isn’t always the case. So take care you use the correct Etsy keyword.
These Etsy keywords are great to target as they mean you will be included in searches direct from a Google search. However, if the competition is still high in Etsy, you may not feel it worthwhile.
5. Pinterest, Amazon, eBay or any other market place search bar suggestions
All marketplaces behave similarly. The search bar will offer you suggestions of recent or popular searches.
Again take note to see if there is anything new or inspiring that they offer that you can analyse further.
6. Google Ads keyword planner tool
The Google Ads Keyword Planner tool was created to research keywords for creating ads for Google but can easily research any keywords. All you need is a gmail account.
The results it returns only covers Google searches, but as Google is such a major player, this should give you a good idea of what is popular and what is not.
Once you enter your base keywords, it will display many suggestions that are related to these keywords. You can filter and add other keywords to further refine the results.
You can also filter the results for your location and export the results into a CSV file.
Just remember the results are all based on Google, this includes competition, so you will need to check the actual competition back on Etsy.
7. Ubersuggest
The Ubersuggest tool’s free version limits you to 3 searches a day, but Volume, costs per click, and SEO competitor ranking data are available. This is great for a free tool.
You can also select the country you want to filter your searches by. Also, you can export the results to CSV or a clipboard.
Like KeywordTool, it also breaks out some of the keywords out to Keyword suggestions, Questions and Prepositions, which you may find helpful.
I find the free version of this tool extremely handy, so much so I have never considered upgrading to the paid version.
8. LSI Graph
The LSI Graph tool is very similar to KeywordTool and Ubersuggest, and LSI Graph has a simple layout that doesn’t overwhelm you.
It has a free version and a paid-for version. The free version limits you to only three searches a day. The premium version will give you more detailed results, but again I find the free searches provides plenty of related keywords and data to keep you going.
9. Keyword Tool
The KeywordTool‘s free version gives you a list of long-tail keywords related to the words you have entered. In this respect, it is similar to the other keyword planner tools I have already mentioned.
The difference with this tool is that it shows the results for multiple search engines and market places and it also breaks out some of the keywords out to Keyword suggestions, Questions and Prepositions, which you may find helpful.
However, to get the actual search numbers, you need to upgrade to the paid version.
As with the other tools, the suggestions it gives are great, but if you want the more detailed data, you will need to plug into one of the other tools to get search numbers and competition.
10. Answer the Public
The Answer The Public tool is not really like a keyword planner tool but is more of a product research tool.
If you go onto the Answer the Public website, type in your primary keyword phrase into the search bar and hit “Search”.
When it redirects you to your results, you’re going to see something similar to the wheel of data below. This gives you multiple questions involving that keyword.
From there, you can find questions that most relate to your product and make sure that you answer that question when you’re typing your description and taking your photos.
If you answer your customers’ questions in the description, it is just one less hurdle stopping them from buying and reducing friction.
While this wheel feature is cool, I mainly use this tool for what comes after the wheel.
If you keep scrolling down, you’ll eventually run into a massive alphabetic list of keyword phrases that begin with the main keyword that you typed in.
You’re bound to find some hidden gems of keywords in the list.
Paid for keyword planner tools
So far, we have covered the best of the free keyword planner tools, but of course, there are paid versions. In fact, many of the above have a paid version which you could opt to use to allow you to get more searches or more data.
But here are some additional ones that are worth specifically mentioning.
Marmalead
Marmalead is a keyword planner tool explicitly designed for Etsy searches. This means that the search results aren’t bloated with random Google searches.
When I first started on Etsy, I compared using this tool and Erank, and I have to admit I chose Erank over Marmalead. The reason was relatively simple – it was cheaper.
As a result, I can’t really comment too much on its use, all I can say is that the tools it provides are comparable to Erank.
The only difference between Marmalead and Erank that I know about is that the data it uses is global data, whereas Erank just uses US data.
Both tools do what they do well, so it comes down to the functions and user interface you prefer.
Erank
Erank is another tool that provides data solely on Etsy searches. I believe the data comes from just the US, so if you need it for a specific local market, it may not be useful to you.
When trying to decide which search tool to use, I chose Erank over Marmalead based on price, and I preferred some of the tools it offered.
I like that you can compare up to 20 keywords at once, I believe this is limited to 4 in Marmalead.
I also like that you can check out competitors. It gives you an easy way to look at their listings, including the tags they use. It also allows you to compare sales against them. Although this latter feature can be a bit of a time drain. You end up getting hooked on how others are doing and second-guessing how they are achieving it. This time can always be better spent working on your own shop rather than comparing your shop to others.
I think both Marmalead and Erank could be in a for a rough few months as Etsy rollouts search personalisation. These tools can work out exact comparisons for competition but cannot yet interpret how the personalisation impacts the competition.
Keywords Everywhere
KeywordsEverywhere is a new tool I have recently discovered, and I love it.
There is a free version, but it offers much more value if you pay. You buy credits, and the number of credits equates to the number of searches you get. The cost is pretty minimal for the number of searches you get. And you can switch off the tool so that you don’t burn your credits when you are not doing keyword research.
As with Google Ads, etc., you can filter by location.
The tool is an extension to your browser, and it displays the Google Adwords data directly in your browser. You may think why bother, and I could agree with this, but it makes it so much easier to click on a particular keyword suggestion, and it will show you the google search results, along with all of the numbers, direct on your search page.
The following is a screenshot of the results I get when I search WITHOUT Keywords Everywhere switched on.
The following is a screenshot of the results I get when I search WITH Keywords Everywhere switched on.
As you can see on the one page, I see the Google search results, related keywords, and other search suggestions. For each of these, I know the search volume numbers and the traffic clicking on each result. I can then click on any of the keyword suggestions and look at the results for that. And then drill down further to more suggestions for that.
You can go down a bit of a rabbit hole, but it is all valuable data!
This is now the only paid keyword planner tool that I use.
Which keyword planner tools should you use
Every keyword planner tool analyses keywords differently.
Some only look at competitive rates, some include cost per click, and others look at page bid. For the sake of researching keywords for Etsy, I usually only look at “Competition” and “Monthly Searches” and ignore most of everything else.
I want a keyword that has low competition rate with a decent number of monthly searches. You will need to make a judgement call for what are good numbers for your niche.
As with all of these keyword planner tools, I would do a sanity check back in Etsy to make sure that any keywords you decide on actually show results relevant to your product and not something completely different.
Please let me know if there are any tools that you use that I haven’t mentioned.
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