Keyword generators help you home in on what your potential customers want to know. They scrape search engines and question-and-answer databases to reveal new blog topics and keyword ideas.
Keyword Surfer
Keyword Surfer is a newer tool that plugs right into the Chrome web browser. When it’s on, results automatically display on the right side of your results page each time you enter a search term.
The data delivered by Keyword Surfer includes:
Keyword ideas with their volume
Cost per click (CPC) for each search term
Pages that rank for the term you entered
Traffic to pages ranked 1 through 10 for that term
It’s a highly efficient keyword research tool and delivers results as you use your web browser. As a new tool, there may be some kinks to work out. Data delivered by the plugin can sometimes differ from data supplied by other Google search tools. However, it’s a fast and easy way to get content ideas.
AnswerThePublic
AnswerThePublic is a great place to see raw search insights. After you enter your search term(s), it displays the questions people are asking related to that topic. The results are shown in a graphic display with all the who, what, where, when, why and other questions users ask.
It’s a powerful way to generate keyword ideas and see what your potential customers actually want to know. You can download the data as a graph or a list.
There is one con for this tool: With a limit of 3 free searches a day, you have to be thoughtful about each phrase you search.
Keyword Sheeter
Keyword Sheeter pulls autocomplete results from Google. It delivers real-time data on what people are typing into the search engine.
If you want to generate a long list of keyword ideas fast, Keyword Sheeter is an excellent choice. It pulls about 1,000 ideas per minute, and exporting your list is free.
It’s a simple and powerful resource to identify ideas for blog topics. However, the free features of Keyword Sheeter do not include search volume or data on how competitive it is to rank for a phrase.
Keyworddit
Keyworddit mines Reddit for keywords. To use it, enter a specific subreddit with at least 10,000 subscribers and specify a timeframe. The tool searches through the titles and comments to extract up to 500 keywords with search volumes.
Due to the variety of answers within each subreddit, the relevance of the results may vary. There is an option to specify high relevance, which slows down the tool somewhat.
Keyworddit is not designed to replace other keyword research tools, but it can be an interesting complement to your existing strategy. Reddit is a popular site where people with specific interests take deep dives into a topic. It may reveal keyword phrases and blog topics you wouldn’t find using other search tools.
QuestionDB
QuestionDB is an excellent blog topic idea generator. It pulls from several question-and-answer websites, including Reddit and Quora, to give you questions people are actively asking related to your keywords.
The free version of the tool allows unlimited searches without registering for an account. You can download your results with a single click.
You have the option to display the source link for each question. This allows you to review additional details about how people are framing their questions. You can also review the answers. QuestionDB also displays related topics mentioned in the questions.
The free account limits you to 50 results per query.
I have not personally used all of these aids, so cannot vouch for their usefullness.