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When you plan your SEO strategy (as well as your SEM strategy), you must think of researching keywords. Keyword research is actually a crucial step in the SEO process, that is why you shouldn't neglect it.

What is keyword research? Keyword research is about striving to understand and analyze what keywords people interested in your products and/or services look for on the search engines.

Knowing what your target market search is really important in terms of SEO. You must therefore adapt your content to what your potential customers look for, so your website is more relevant for them and search engines. For instance, that is why your web pages must contain the keywords your users search for.

Below are 12 free SEO tools for keyword research that will help you implement an effective SEO strategy:

1. Google Trends

Google Trends is a free and simple keyword research tool that enables you to have insights into search patterns. You can get search volume and traffic estimates for keywords and websites by time range and location, and compare several search terms at the same time. The graph shows you the evolution between the multiple search terms over a defined period of time.

2. Google Insights for Search

Google Insights for Search is actually a more advanced mode of Google Trends. You can compare search volume patterns across specific categories, regions, time ranges and properties. Note that you don't see absolute search volume but normalized date on a scale up to 100.

In our example, you can see that in 2011 the keyword  “SEO services” was actually more searched worldwide than “Web Design Services”, and “Web Development Services”. For “SEM services”, Google doesn’t have enough data to give estimates.

3. Google AdWords Keyword Tool

Another very popular and free SEO tool by Google, AdWords keyword tool helps you to find keyword ideas based on some words/phrases, web pages, and/or specific category you enter. You can filter your search by location, language, and device. This tool is really helpful as it estimates the local and global monthly searches for your keywords, as well as the competition.

4. Baidu Index

For your Chinese keyword research, Baidu Index is a tool you should have a look at, especially if your target market is China. You can check user and media interest rends for a specific keyword, find related keywords as well as rising searches, and focus on a certain region, or type of users (gender, age, education, industry). If you want to optimize your website for China's leading search engine, you can also check out Baidu SEO Audit Tool.

5. Wordtracker SEO Blogger

Wordtracker SEO Blogger is a very useful Firefox extension that enables you to find the most popular keywords for your subject without leaving your blog editing screen. The tool works with any blog publishing software, so you can do your keyword research and optimize your posts as you write. Wordtracker also developed a premium Keyword Research tool.

6. Microsoft Advertising Intelligence

Microsoft Advertising Intelligence, formerly known as adCenter Add-in for Excel Beta, is a free keyword research and optimization tool that operates in Microsoft Office Excel. It provides keyword expansion and research that helps you build out lists of suggested keywords and develop informed keyword strategies based on Bing and MSN query data such as volume, relevance, demography and location.

7. SEO for Chrome

The SEO for Chrome extensions provides easy access to Search Engine Optimization Tools that can help you with keyword research, competitive analysis, and also other useful information such as backlinks, pageranks and many more. You can find more SEO extensions for Chrome or try our Baidu SEO tool for Chrome.

8. SEO Fuze

The SEO Fuze Extension is very similar to the above Chrome extension and offers the same kinds of features.

9. Kgen

KGen (Keyword Generator) is a Firefox add-on that allows you to check keyword density on visited web pages. KGen retrieves every words of a page and lets you know how many time they appears and their weight in the page and their average position in the web page. KGen's also a good tool to view your competitors keyword strategy. Check out other SEO add-ons for Firefox.

10. Good Keywords

Good Keywords is a free SEO tool that helps you research and manage your keywords. The new version features search volume statistics.

11. SEM Rush

SEM Rush provides you with a free professional SEO/SEM tool to get information about keywords (volume, CPC, competition, results, trends, etc.) on two major search engines, namely Google and Bing. The premium version gives you access to more detailed statistics and features.

12. Keyword Selector Tool

Keyword Selector Tool allows you to search for most popular search queries. It also displays the percentage of overall search queries that contain the keyword you enter.