So I am going to apologize early for this being a longer answer but here it goes anyways. I have started just yesterday a 3 step process for keyword research. It is all completely 100% free. Now please understand that this method seems to be interesting for me and I am going to be watching how my final content appears with GSC. Step #1: goto keywordsheeter.com (not an affiliate link) and type in your seed keyword. This tool basically scrapes Google Search bar and instantly comes back with hundreds of potential keywords to use. Step #2: goto google keyword planner. You will need to setup an Adwords account if you do not already have one. Once inside the keyword planner, copy and paste about 250 of the potential keywords from keyword sheeter. Make sure that you have United States selected before you search those keywords. From those results organize them in a way that the results will display to you the searches with a minimum of 100 monthly searches. Step #3: Goto ahrefs. Scroll all the way down to the bottom of the page where it says Free SEO tools and click on Check Keyword Difficulty. If you are running a new blog then you are going to want to get the results that come up with an Easy rating of 0 - 9. Step #4: Start creating your content for those keywords. The entire process takes around an hour to an hour and a half. The reason being is because ahrefs keyword difficulty gives you a rating for organic traffic volume. Where as keyword planner is all about ad placement volume. Again I have just started this process for my new content so I cannot give you any kind of results that I have personally seen. It just seems like a more fun way for me to do keyword research. I sincerely hope this helps you. More on reddit.com

Hey! For keyword research under $50, I've actually tried quite a few tools over the years. Mangools/KWFinder is decent but personally I think Keysearch is better value - its around $17/month and pretty comparable to the basic semrush features. They have a good difficulty score metric and show you plenty of long tail keywords. Another approach thats worked well for me: Use ubersuggest's free version for initial research then cross reference with google trends + google's 'people also ask' sections. its not perfect but gives you decent insights if your on a budget Whatever tool you go with, focus on finding lower competition long-tail keywords that are still relevant to your niche. Thats how I grew my first few SEO clients before I could afford the premium tools. btw if your doing SEO for clients, you might want to look into adding backlinks to your services. Ive found thats where the real value is for most businesses trying to rank. Feel free to dm me if you want some tips on that! cheers More on reddit.com

With AI Mode, even SimilarWeb is hit and miss. It all stems from Keywords being so vast and anonymized. The keyword visibility that these tools have comes mostly from Google Ads. Volumes and specificty are about 1% accurate. It also doesnt account for the 25% of searches every day are brand new. If you're stuggling with exact data now, things are going to get worse - we're in the worst visiblity position since 2010... GDPR and Cookie opt-out is getting bigger Growth of direct traffic - most traffic tools are still based on a 1990s W3C concept of Browser Referral information: today, becuse of apps like EMail, Outlook, Reddit, Linkedin - all = direct raffic in GA4 Keyword encryption in google hidden AI Overview data hidden LLM Data This is not going to get better, even if you start adopting UTMs (which you should) More on reddit.com

SEO tools can be pricey. For budget-friendly options, check out Ubersuggest or KeywordTool.io; they are solid choices for basic keyword research. Google Keyword Planner is free and surprisingly useful. For competitor research, try SpyFu's free version. Mix and match to save cash! More on reddit.com