Whether you're new to keyword research or you're a seasoned veteran of the practice, one thing you should know is that keyword research doesn't have to be terribly complex or expensive. In fact, It can be as simple as knowing your post topic, searching for terms, and selecting something that fits in the headline of your article and is of reasonably low competition in the search engines.

With the Google Adwords Keyword Tool recently being converted to a paid-only tool, many bloggers and internet entrepreneurs (like yourself) are looking for additional free options. And while many of the free tools are not quite as loaded with exciting features as Google Adwords Keyword Tool was, they are sufficient.

I would wager to guess that most bloggers and entrepreneurs don't need a lot of fancy tools to do basic keyword research. In fact, I think that a paid service is overkill for the average entrepreneur, and you'd be paying for services you don't even fully understand how to use.

So, if you're ready to start doing keyword research, here are 6 of the top free keyword research tools of 2017 that I recommend.

SEOBOOK Keyword Tool

My favorite keyword research tool, hands down, is the SEOBOOK Keyword Tool. I use this tool on a weekly basis for my own keyword research. You do have to create a login account to access this free tool, but it's well worth it.

This free keyword research tool gives you information about daily and monthly search volume, as well as cost per click value and the monthly value of each keyword. One more plus is that you can click directly over to Google or Bing search for each keyword, so you can do more digging.

SERPs Keyword Tool

SERPs free keyword research tool is also easy to use and does not require you to create an account. However, it does give less information to work from. This free keyword research tool provide monthly search volume, cost per click, and total value information.

Wordstream Keyword Tool

The free version of the Wordstream Keyword Tool is limited, but may serve a purpose for those who want to get quick keyword suggestions and not much else. It does offer the “relative frequency” of each keyword term.

UberSuggest

UberSuggest can help you come up with an endless array of topic ideas, while also giving you a few tools to explore keywords further, including the ability to view the google trends of certain keywords.

It doesn't offer much in the way of search volume information, but can serve as a jumping off point for more keyword research.

Search Combination Tool

Internet Marketing Ninja's search combination tool can help you come up with keyword ideas that you had never thought of. You do this by entering several words that fit in with your topic. Then, the search combination tool comes up with a wide selection of ideas that combine the words you entered.

This tool comes in handy if you're really not sure where to start in your search for a keyword.

Google

Did you know that the Google search engine itself actually makes a good keyword suggestion tool? All you have to do is perform a search using a topic idea. At the bottom of the search results, Google will give a list of “suggested search terms” for you to pick from.

These suggestions will give you an idea of what other things people are searching for, and usually these suggestions are super relevant. Not only that, but they may open up your mind to new topic ideas for future posts that fit within the same framework.

Overall, my favorite tool to use is SEOBOOK Keyword Tool, but you can use any combination of tools to get the results that you want.

If you're new to keywords and keyword research, read my post about How to Increase Blog Traffic with Targeted Keywords.