One of the key to become successful in blogging is to know what topics to write for your niche AND to ensure the article that you spend hours writing, find its way to the first page of Google. The rule of thumb is pretty straightforward – use long-tail-low-competition phrases as the foundation of your content.
In this week’s program review, we’ll take a look at the efficacy of KWFinder in generating these phrases and whether this tool is worth investing for the long term.
What Is KWFinder
KWFinder is a keyword research software created by Mangools, a Slovakian SEO company. They also have a search competition analysis tool called the SERP Checker which is integrated into the program.
As you can see from the image above, the program interface is basically divided into two sections; the keyword results on the left and the SERPs (search engine results page) list on the right hand side. When searching for keywords, you may use any of these 3 categories to propagate the desired data.
- Suggestions, which is based on our know-how algorithm.
- Autocomplete that generates additional related keywords.
- Autocomplete that generates questions.
The results are then interpreted based on these 5 types of metrics;
- Trend
- Monthly Searches
- CPC
- PPC
- SEO Difficulty (aka competition) – the data from this metric will be extrapolated on the second section to show the top competing URLs for a particular keyphrase.
KWFinder offers two levels of subscription, Basic and Premium, which is billed monthly or annually.
Monthly – $29 (Basic) and $49 (Premium)
Annual – $144 (Basic) and $299 (Premium)
It also comes with a free trial that provides 3 keywords lookups, 3 SERPs and 25 related keyword searches within 24 hours.
What I Like About This Program
- First and foremost, what I like about this tool is that the data loads fairly fast. If you are a frequent blogger, this means you can focus more on content writing rather than waiting for keywords to generate.
- Grouping keywords according to 3 different categories before commencing the search can help to produce results that are more relevant to the original keyphrase.
- KWFinder allows search to target a specific country and language so this would be a good tool to consider if there are certain criteria for your focus audience.
- The trend metric is a nice feature to have as you can visualize the popularity of a keyphrase over the course of 12 months.
What I Don’t Like
- Maybe it’s just me, but I find that having two sections of data makes the user interface very cluttered while trying to interpret the results.
- The SEO Difficulty metric has 8 levels, which isn’t bad for grouping purposes, but I find that this can be confusing as to which keywords is best to use.
- As a pure keyword tool, KWFinder doesn’t provide any brainstorming features nor does domain name searches.
- Lastly, my biggest complaint would have to be the limits that are being applied for each subscription. For example, in the Basic plan, you are only allowed up to 100 searches within 24 hours. If you are a heavy user (which you should be if you want to drive organic traffic through blogging) or building sites for clients, 100 keyword searches per day isn’t going to be sufficient. This limits your overall ability to find new ideas for content creation and totally defeat the purpose of a so-called ‘efficient keyword tool’, in my opinion.
So, Is KWFinder Worthy of Your Money?
In summary, KWFinder does offer some great metrics for keywords evaluation and the program isn’t too difficult to use. However, I feel that the development of the tool is still in its infancy and for a lower subscription fee, I could actually get more features with Jaaxy Keyword Tool such as;
- Brainstorm long tail keywords using the Alphabet Soup Technique.
- Retrieve the search history of my past keywords.
- Check my page ranking for a targeted keyphrase.
- Reveal potential domain names for other niches.
- Search for affiliate programs across four affiliate networks; Commission Junction, Rakuten Linkshare, Digital River and Clickbank.
- Use alongside Wealthy Affiliate which is where I get most of my training and resources on how to grow my affiliate business.
But don’t take my word for it. Enter a keyword below to start your 30 free searches with this powerful tool OR read my in-depth review about Jaaxy here.
I hope you’ll make the most out of the trial to have a better comparison with KWFinder. If you want to know anything else, just leave your comment below and I shall get back to you as soon.
You might also be interested in;
How to Research for Long Tail Keywords
Tips for Getting High Ranking on Google
How One Article Can Rank for Many Keywords
Maria says
Thank you for this review, Cathy.
This is the first time I hear about KWfinder. I was looking a keyword tool that works with other languages too. So did I understand well that I can use it to search keywords in Italian? And can Jaaxy do that?
How does the free trial work for this tool? I mean that do I have 3 keyword lookup for 24 hours for one time or multiple times?
Wow, you say that 100 keywords lookup in 24 hours are not enough! For me, it would be more than enough. I can’t imagine having enough time to write content if I would be making more than 100 keyword searches a day. Are you really doing so many keywords searches a day?
Cathy says
Hi Maria,
1) Apparently, you can do keyword searches in Italian with this tool.
2) With the free trial, you’d get 3 keywords/24 hours, 3 SERPs/24 hours and 25 related keywords/search.
3) I have a very tight blogging schedule so what I usually do is that I would brainstorm keywords and ideas at one go so that I could get a list of targeted keywords for my topics for the next few months to come. As I ramp up my writing skills, I noticed that I am more selective with keywords. I would usually dig further into the long tail until I get something that I think will rank.
It usually takes me 10 keyword searches to find the right one. Sometimes more, sometimes less depending on the topic difficulty. For me, putting a limit to the searches hinder my blogging routine. I prefer having a bucket of them and just focus on the writing process thereafter.
Hope this helps.
Gary D says
Thank you Cathy, I was looking into a keyword tool to compare to Jaaxy. If you are just starting out then KWFinder is probably good enough to get started as you can get just the couple you need per day, but I can see as time goes on, you have to upgrade and I see the features in Jaaxy are a little more streamlined. Great review.
isaac says
Many thanks for this review on KWfinder. I really like its feature to search keywords based on country as I’m an affiliate with amazon and am only targeting US based customers. Other keyword tool does not have this and this limits my keyword research a bit.
On the other hand, if I’m paying for the tool monthly, I’d like unlimited searches. You’ve pointed out that this is one major disadvantage as most of us need to search for lots of keywords before finding the right one to use.
By the way, does your recommendation has the ability to search keywords based on country?
Cathy says
Hey Isaac, unfortunately Jaaxy doesn’t have that feature yet. It would definitely come handy and I’ll put in the suggestion to Kyle and Carson to see if they can do something about it in the near future.
Sandy says
Thank you Cathy for the good review of KWfinder keyword research software. I have been using mostly Google Adwords Keyword tool and the Wealthy Affiliate Keyword tool for my keyword research.
I have been thinking lately about getting the paid version of Jaxxy, and it seems from your review that it would be a better choice than KWfinder.
Cathy says
Hi Sandy,
The paid version will speed things up for your blogging routine like brainstorming keywords and digging niche ideas. I usually spend once a week about 1 to 2 hours, gathering keywords for my articles in queue for the next 1 month. It helps me to plan ahead and give me more time to do other things like social and updating old posts.
Monica Bouteiller says
Finding quality keywords can be very time consuming and I agree with you in using a keyword research software is definitely the way to go.
I’ve been reading into your cons of this KWFinder and according to what you’re saying, interpreting some info can be confusing. I like simplicity and something that will get me all the precise information that will give me my quality keyword phrases.
I’m actually a Jaaxy user myself and it’s quick, easy, and accurate.
Monique Hrebeniuk says
Hi Cathy. I enjoyed your article on KWFinder and your comparison with Jaaxy. It was very clear and concise. I didn’t know that Jaaxy searches for affiliate program with your keyword or that it checks for the page rank for my keyword. I will be definitely checking out your in-depth review on Jaaxy. Thanks for the info.