KWFinder Review: Worthy Google Keyword Planner Alternative or Not?
Picking up high search volume, and low-competition keywords are the key to an actionable SEO strategy. However, with the recent removal of accurate and free keyword data from the Google Keyword Planner, premium tools have become a must-have.
The problem is, many premium tool providers often don’t understand what marketers need to find keywords that generate profits.
Tools are often full of bloat—unhelpful and unnecessary features that look fancy but do not help the marketer find the right data.
KWFinder is one of the newest premium research tools that manage to furnish useful tools that will help you find the right keywords to boost your site’s SEO.
It is one of the most popular keyword research tools that simplify keyword research in a way other tools just haven’t managed to do.
The data is presented intuitively, and the neat interface makes keyword research easy to do—even if you’re a beginner. The comprehensive data set will keep the veteran SEO happy.
In this review, we will go over all of KWFinder’s features and weigh the pros and cons to help you decide if the tool is worth trying out.
What Makes KWFinder Different
Created by Mangools, KWFinder boasts a modern design with a strong focus on simplicity. The tool keeps user experience at the heart of both functionality and design.
Apart from KW Finder’s impressively clean interface, another great feature is the one-click keyword difficulty score system. It also features some other unique research options that are rarely found in other keyword research tools.
Let’s take a more in-depth look and find how this tool performs traditional keyword research.
How Well Does It Perform Traditional Keyword Research?
Traditionally, keyword research uses a seed keyword to find the search terms your target audience will use. These keywords are then analyzed to see which of them could provide the best ROI.
Keyword research involves looking at individual keyword phrases and then evaluating both the overall strength and monthly search volume of Google’s first page results.
Here’s how KWFinder helps you do that:
Firstly, it allows you to type in a seed keyword to generate a list of related keywords. The list even includes alternative research options that will give you a different mix of results.
You can also quickly evaluate the difficulty of a keyword suggestion using either the reliable built-in SERP analysis or the keyword difficulty score.
Finally, you can trim down and manage results with the filter options. These include monthly search volumes, keyword competitiveness, and other specific modifiers.
Competitor Keyword Research Performance
Competitor keyword research is about reverse-engineering competitors’ sites and their organic search rankings.
You can find and target the search terms your competitors rank for since they already produce great results.
If your site is better optimized overall, there’s a good chance you can rank better for these keywords by creating better content.
Unfortunately, KWFinder does not have an option that allows you to plug in competitor URLs.
If you’re looking to research your competitors and track their keyword performance, KWFinder is not for you.
You could combine KWFinder with SEMRush and find which keywords your competitors are ranking for, but this would take a lot of work.
Review by Comparison
Comparing KWFinder with other tools is the best way to find if it’s worth the price.
Let us see how KWFinder fares against some of the best tools on the market.
User Interface: First Impressions
As mentioned earlier, one of the first things you will notice about KWFinder is the clean, user-friendly interface.
The design is flat and uncomplicated. Also, it displays data in a comprehensive yet easy-to-digest manner.
A keyword tool that’s aimed to help beginners and bloggers improve their sites’ SEO—it does an excellent job of presenting a lot of otherwise-confusing information in a sensible and intelligible manner.
KWFinder is miles ahead in the user-interface department when compared to other tools. The great UI makes the keyword research so much easier to do.
Reliability and Accuracy
Google recently changed the way users can look at search volumes in the keyword planner.
Before the update, you would be able to pull up specific search volumes for particular keywords.
However, now Google combines related keywords and close variants if your Adwords spend does not meet the threshold.
Hence, unless you’re an Adwords tycoon, the Keyword Planner will show you a very rough range of search volumes (like “1K–10K” or “2K–5K”).
Although there are a few workarounds, the data that Google supplies is a lot less accurate for practical use. The range-style data the Keyword Planner now furnishes is increasingly harder to count on.
Any tool that relies on an Adwords account for this data will also pull up these broad data ranges, which renders some premium tools ineffective.
KWFinder internally pulls its search volume data from Google’s Keyword Planner too. However, it applies an algorithm that supplies users with the exact search volumes for all keywords.
Not only are the search volumes accurate and reliable, but they’re also more specific than what you would see in the Keyword Planner.
The robust algorithm makes KWFinder much more useful than other tools on the market.
Application Format
Some applications aren’t meant for use as a desktop client, and keyword research tools belong in that category.
The benefits of KWFinder being a web-based tool are too hard to ignore.
Since it is a web-based application, you can access KWFinder from any computer: PC, Mac, or even a phone or a tablet, as long as it has an internet connection and a web browser.
Compatibility issues are eliminated, and users do not need to go through the hassle of manually updating the software since it’s all managed internally, in real time.
Another significant benefit is that you do not need to connect your personal Google AdWords account or any other account to KWFinder for it to work.
Most other tools on the market, on the other hand, require you to log in with your AdWords account.
KWFinder works right out of the box—no setup required!
Finding Keyword Competition/Difficulty
The ability to calculate a keyword’s competition or difficulty is easily the most in-demand feature at the moment.
While the scale of difficulty varies depending on the keyword research you use, the metric itself represents how difficult it would be for your site to rank on the first search results page of Google for a particular keyword/phrase.
KWFinder not only calculates a keyword difficulty score for any given keyword (based on Majestic’s data), it also puts the numbers into perspective by color-coding them.
The color-coding is a nice touch, and it does make it easier to skim through keyword lists and find the low-competition keywords at a glance.
You must note that these difficulty scores vary from tool to tool, since all of them use different algorithms.
In general, the scores will have some correlation since they work with the same data.
One drawback is that with KWFinder, you cannot calculate keyword difficulty scores for multiple keywords in one go.
If you have gathered a bunch of potential keywords that you want to check, you will have to click through each of them manually (with a few seconds delay each time) to generate individual difficulty scores.
Some competing keyword research tools allow you to find keyword difficulty for multiple keywords at once, which makes keyword research much quicker and easier.
However, the good thing about KWFinder is that the difficulty scores are surprisingly reliable. You could optimize your site by solely using the keywords that have a low difficulty score (between 1 to 30).
Another considerable drawback that limits your keyword research capabilities is that the results of the keywords are capped.
Depending on the plan you pick, the results are capped to either 200 or 700.
Filtering the limited number of results often leads to you getting no keyword suggestions.
Evaluating SERP Competition Strength
The SERP Checker enables you to analyze Google’s first page results.
A preview of the SERP Checker appears when you click on any keyword suggestion in KWFinder.
To open the full SERP Checker, which is separate from KWFinder, you must click on the link below the preview.
Despite being a standard feature in most keyword research tools, there are a few things that make KWFinder’s SERP Checker stand out from the competition.
Firstly, it has a simplistic and practical design. The color-coded data is super easy to analyze.
The application helps you dig deep into competition analysis using the Manage Metrics button. The Manage Metrics button enables you to sift through the data and compare results in multiple ways.
The SERP Checker is an essential tool for manually reviewing keyword difficulty. However, having a separate application for it is unnecessary.
The only reason you would want to open the full application is to access the data that is not accessible in the preview.
If the data was available in the preview itself, the external application would become unnecessary and redundant.
Overall, though, the combination of the keyword difficulty score and the SERP Checker will enable users to analyze SERP competition comprehensively.
Research Options
Many of the big players in the keyword research market still do not incorporate multiple research options in their tools like KWFinder does.
Finding seed keyword ideas couldn’t be easier. The research options built into KWFinder will help you find unique sets of keyword ideas.
The only downfall is that the tool shows a limited number of results.
Let’s break down what your research options are and how they work:
#1. Autocomplete
The Autocomplete option pulls keywords using Google’s autosuggest feature.
While it does work, your research is limited to the number of results shown by KWFinder.
Working with a small data set can be annoying and will sometimes force you to resort to other tools to find the right keywords.
#2. Questions
The Questions option is useful for when you need information-based keywords. The feature adds certain prefixes to your seed keyword, such as
- How
- Where
- What
- When
- Which
This feature is an excellent alternative to tools like Quora and Reddit. However, due to the result limitations, you may need to resort to the sites.
#3. Suggestions
It is the default search option. It pulls keywords the same way Google’s Keyword Planner does and applies an algorithm internally to sort the results.
Data Aggregation
The whole idea behind having a keyword research tool is to help find low-competition keywords as fast as possible.
KWFinder presents all the necessary data in one central location, and this allows the user to accurate assessments of any given keyword.
Only a few other tools give you this level of useful data aggregated on a single screen. KWFinder furnishes the data without making it look cluttered and overwhelming.
Additionally, filtering the data is fast and easy, which helps you find the right keywords fast, every time.
In case you get stuck or need help using the application, both the uncomplicated documentation and the swift live support options are super helpful.
KWFinder Pros & Cons
Let us now weigh out the pros and cons.
Pros:
- Super-intuitive UI
- Web-based, no compatibility issues
- Powerful data aggregation capabilities
- Multiple research options
- Reliable keyword difficulty score in one click
- World-class support
- Affordable
Cons:
- Stringent data request limitations
- Capped keyword results
- Unnecessary external SERP Checker application
- No support for multitabbed keyword research
- No support for competitor research
Conclusion
KWFinder is an excellent software that rivals any other keyword research tool in the market.
While it’s the keyword research tool of choice for some, it’s not quite a one-size-fits-all solution.
If you’re on a budget or are just getting started with the SEO of your website, KWFinder can be the right tool for you.
On the other hand, if you run a full-scale marketing agency or heavily use SEO tools, you may find KWFinder a little too basic and even potentially limiting for your needs.
While you can combine it with other tools like Ahrefs and SEMRush for competitor analysis, the paid plans of those tools eliminate the need for KWFinder in the first place.
Overall, though, it’s still an excellent keyword research kit with plenty of strong attributes.
