Keyword research is an important step in the search and inbound marketing process. Ranking for the right keywords can make or break your website. Search engines favour compelling content but you won’t be able to generate much traffic for your site if you don’t include the right keywords and phrases people are actively searching for.

The Top  Keyword Research Tools have been discussed in this article to aid your search for the right keyword tool that meets your requirement:

1. Google Keyword Planner
The Keyword Research Suite offers several tools for your search campaigns and the Google Keyword Planner tool is one of the most used and popular keyword research tools among them. It is a more focused version of the Google Keyword Tool and AdWords Traffic Estimator tool. It makes it easier for advertisers to get through the process of creating new ad groups and ad campaigns.

2. SEMrush
SEMrush is leading marketing software that shows you the keywords that your websites rank for and the number of searches done for those keywords per month. You just need to add your site URL (or your competitor’s) and it will show you all of the keywords that are ranking for that site.

3. Long Tail Pro
Long Tail Pro is paid keyword research software used by marketers and SEOs to find the best long tail keyword ideas and quickly analyse the top 10 results in Google for each of your keywords.

4. MOZ
Moz is a paid keyword research tool that retrieves the top 10 rankings for any keyword and assigns that keyword a difficulty score based on the pages that currently rank for that word.

5. SEO Book
SEO Book is a keyword tool that offers search volumes for Google, Yahoo, and Bing and links them to related global search results, Google Trends, Google Suggest, Google Synonyms, Yahoo! Suggest, and Keyword Discovery keyword research results as well as vertical databases like Topix, Google Blogsearch, and Del.icio.us and much more.

6. Wordstream
Wordstream enables you to customize searches by filtering adult keywords and offers options for identifying negative keywords, keyword grouping and finding keyword niches.

7. Ubersuggest
Ubersuggest is a basic keyword research tool that works on the principle of Google autosuggest. It appends letters alphabetically to your seed keywords and then finds all the keyword strings that come with the same letter set. It also offers results for images, news, shopping, video, and recipes.

8. Keyword Spy
Keyword Spy is an SEO optimization tool that is used to identify competitors’ keywords and do keyword research for SEO campaigns.

9. KWFinder
KWfinder is an online keyword finder tool that shows the top sites that rank for the given term along with their social metrics. It calculates the long tail keywords that have a relatively less competition and are easier to rank. It also shows an “interest over time” graph that tells you the popularity of your long tail keyword over time.

10. Market Samurai
Market Samurai is an SEO platform application that can be used for several SEO related tasks including keyword research, site planning and for improving the site ranking. Its rank tracker allows you to view your site's keyword progress as graphs. This gives a clear indication of the increases and decreases in traffic. It also stores historical data on your keywords and URLs to help you continuously view their progression.

11. Keyword IO
Keyword IO is a keyword research tool that offers a comprehensive list of highly relevant keyword suggestions to create and improve your content for PPC campaigns and SEO.

12. Advanced Web Ranking
Advanced Web Ranking is a keyword research tool that brings data from Google AdWords, Google Webmaster API, Google Trends, Google Suggest, 7Search, SEMRush, Wordtracker, and Yahoo API in one place and helps you identify efficient keywords as well as find your competitors’ best keywords.

13. SpyFu
SpyFu is a search analytics tool that shows the keywords that websites buy on Google Adwords and the keywords that websites are showing up for within the search results. It also gives cost per click and search volume statistics on keywords and uses that data to approximate what websites are spending on advertising.

14. Keyword Discovery
Keyword Discovery is a keyword research tool that provides access to the biggest keyword database derived from all the search engines as well as to search phrases that people use to find products and services, as well as the search terms that drive traffic to your competitors.

15. Jaaxy
Jaaxy is a keyword research tool that simplifies Google's keyword data. Like any other keyword research tool, you enter a seed keyword to Jaaxy and check out the relevant boxes to filter your keyword results.

16. WordTracker
WordTracker is a keyword research tool that allows users to quickly find relevant keywords for both search engine optimization and pay per click campaigns. It is used by small businesses to research keywords, build new links, and develop a strategic SEO platform.

17. Keyword Revealer
Keyword Revealer is a free SEO tool that helps you uncover low-competition keywords. Once the keywords are discovered you will be able to view the difficulty score for each phrase and analyse the competition for currently ranking on the first page of Google.

18. Keyword Eye
Keyword Eye is a suite of affordable, fast, no-nonsense visual keyword, content and competitor research tools. It lets you filter your researched keywords based on language, country just like any other premium tool. It can also be set to calculate the specific keyword and it’s potential.

19. Serpstat
Serpstat is a keyword research tool for in-depth competitor analysis, business intelligence and building advertising campaigns that offers search analytics data and filters for your specific keyword and a chosen Google domain.

Keyword Suggestion Tools learn from your decisions in your keyword list to suggest the right keywords to be included in your campaign. They also build the keyword list for you, taking cues from your site data. You just have to decide whether the suggested keywords are the ones you’d like to keep and how to organize them.

However, though most of the keyword research tools offer a comprehensive list of related keywords, not all keywords are worth working on. Only finding the best keyword using a premium tool is not enough. You also need to use your keywords strategically, because some keywords might have fewer searches related to others but perform better and convert your visitors.