If you’ve been Googling “keysearch review” tryin’ to figure out whether this SEO tool is actually worth it (or if it’s just another overpriced dashboard that’s gonna overwhelm the shit out of you), lemme save you some time.
As a professional SEO consultant since 2015, I’ve been recommending Keysearch to my audience for YEARS as my go-to budget-friendly SEO keyword research tool.
Not because I get an affiliate kickback. I mean, I do, lololol, but that’s not WHY.
It’s genuinely the tool I point people to when they want REAL SEO keyword data without the hefty monthly subscription.
So in this Keysearch review, I’m gonna give you my honest take:
- Who Keysearch is for
- Who it’s NOT for
- What it does well (pros)
- Where it’s kinda meh (cons)
- Annnnnd then walk you through exactly how I use it, especially for SEO keyword research.
My Honest Verdict on Keysearch (The TLDR review)
Keysearch is a solid, budget-friendly SEO tool for business owners who want REAL keyword data (search volume, competition, trends) without paying agency level prices or drowning in extra features they’ll never touch.
It’s not the fanciest SEO tool on the market.
Semrush has more data and more bells & whistles. But for most small business owners doing their own SEO? Keysearch does the job, and it does it for a fraction of the cost.
That’s the QUICK review in a nutshell.
Keep reading for a special discount code, the full picture breakdown + a walkthrough of how to actually use it…
What Is Keysearch, Exactly?
Keysearch is a budget-friendly SEO platform that helps you sort through search volume, competition, trends, and current search results so you can choose topics that fit your business instead of chasing every keyword you find.
This beginner-friendly SEO tool is a practical option for bloggers, service providers, and e-commerce owners who want useful data without a complicated dashboard.
Start with a broad idea, filter it with purpose, and save the strongest terms for future content, service/money pages, or product pages.
Here’s the thing tho: the amount of data can look kinda intimidating the first time you log in. Columns everywhere. Scores everywhere. Panels everywhere.
But you don’t need to use every metric or every tool right away.
For most small business owners, the job is simple: find search terms that match what you offer, have enough people actually searching for them, and aren’t so competitive that a newer site has no shot.
Remember: a good keyword is more than a phrase with high search volume.
It needs to match your offer, your audience, and the kind of page you can actually create. If you’re still learning the larger keyword research process, this beginner guide to SEO keyword research can help you connect the data in your tool with a practical SEO strategy.
Who is Keysearch for + not for???
If you’re a service provider, blogger, or e-commerce owner who wants useful SEO data without a complicated dashboard, this is your tool.
Keysearch is a great fit if you want to:
🔍Find keyword ideas for blog posts, product pages, and important website pages
⚡️Dig up lower-competition terms that make sense for a newer or smaller site
📈 Peek at the pages already ranking BEFORE you commit to a keyword
📝Keep your keyword ideas organized in lists as you plan content
👀 Spy on a competitor’s organic keywords and top-ranking pages
Who Keysearch is Probably NOT Gonna Work for…
I won’t sit here and tell you it’s perfect for everyone, because I’m not a liar lolol — Keysearch prob ISN’T the move if:
- You’re an SEO agency managing a ton of client accounts and you need the deepest data possible (that’s where a heavier tool like Semrush is 🤤)
- You want a super polished, pretty interface (Keysearch is functional buuuut not gorgeous lol)
- You want a tool that does the thinking FOR you (no tool does that, but especially not a budget one)
For everyone else? I think you’re gonna like it.
Keysearch Pricing + the Discount Code
Keysearch is one of the more affordable real SEO tools out there, which is exactly why it’s ALWAYS my budget-friendly recommendation.
Free 7-Day Trial:
There’s a 7-day free trial, so you can poke around and try it out.
The Keysearch team gave me a coupon code ONLY for my audience: use MARIAHMAGAZINE for 30% off a paid plan (it’s case sensitive, so type it exactly!)
Note: plans & pricing can shift, so double-check the current options on their site before committing.
Keysearch has 2 paid plans, Starter and Pro.
Pro gets you more keyword searches per day, more tracked keywords, and more site audit pages.
But since both plans give you access to allllll the tools and the biggest difference between the plans is capacity.
Most small business owners doing their own SEO will find that the Starter plan is plenty.
Seriously.
Start there, and if you ever max out your daily searches on the regular, you’ll KNOW it’s time to upgrade.
Heads up: the free trial asks for a credit card up front, and you’ll answer a few quick market research questions before you pick your plan. Toggle to a monthly plan to apply the MARIAHMAGAZINE code (it’s case sensitive, so type it exactly).
Set a phone reminder for day 6 if you’re the forgetful type, no shame, I do the same when testing things out lol
Lil’ budget tip: Keysearch is month to month, so you’re never locked in. If money’s tight, grab the free trial, keep it for one paid month, batch a big ole’ round of keyword research for your next several months of content, save everything to your lists (or your SEO Keyword Planner), and cancel if you need to.
You can always come back for another round whenever.
Keysearch Pros & Cons According to an SEO Pro
What I Love About Keysearch (Pros)
The price. This is the whole reason it’s my budget recommendation. You’re getting real search volume, competition scores, SERP analysis, and competitor data for a fraction of what the agency-level tools charge (Semrush, Moz, Ahrefs, etc).
The color-coding. Competition scores are green, yellow, red, AND they literally just tell you: easy, moderate. We LOVEEEE not having to read in between the lines lol.
Everything’s included on both plans. You’re never locked out of a tool bc you’re on the cheaper plan. The plans just differ in capacity.
It’s learnable in an afternoon. The dashboard looks busy at first, but once you know which 4 metrics to watch (volume, competition, trends, page one results), you’re good to go.
What’s Kinda Meh (Cons)
- The interface is functional, buuuut not gorgeous. If pretty dashboards matter to you, adjust your expectations lol.
- The “top competitors” feature is skippable. It mostly surfaces massive sites you shouldn’t be comparing yourself to anyway.
- Signing up is a little clunky. Credit card up front for the free trial, some market research questions, and you gotta toggle to ‘monthly’ in order to use my discount code. Two minutes of mild annoyance, but then it’s smooth sailing.
Why Am I Recommending Keysearch?
If you’ve been in my world at all, you KNOW I’m a Semrush girlie.
It’s THE tool I use DAILY because I’m an SEO consultant, and I do SEO literally for a living. I have clients, and students, and projects so I live in keyword data 15+ hours a week, and I need the deepest data set I can get for client work. That’s why I pay the big Semrush bill.
But when my students, my Search Club SEO membership humans, or literally anyone doing their own SEO asks me what tool to get? I say Keysearch every time.
Because most of the time, you don’t need what I need.
You need enough data to make confident decisions about YOUR content, at a price that doesn’t make you flip out over your SEO bill.
Recommending Semrush to a solo business owner just starting to dabble in SEO is like recommending a commercial espresso machine to someone who drinks one coffee a day…
YES, of COURSE it’s powerful, but you’re paying for capacity you won’t use right now (and now there’s no room left on your kitchen counter lolol).
So when I say Keysearch is worth it, I’m saying this as a recommendation for a budget-friendly SEO tool for YOU (the solo business owner looking to DIY their SEO).
Okay, now let’s actually get INTO the tool…
A Quick Tour Inside Keysearch (What to Actually Use)
I walk through every single click in the video above, so I’m not gonna make you read a click-by-click here. Instead, here’s the tour version: what each tool does, what to actually pay attention to, and what you can ignore.
The Keyword Research Tool (the main event)
Type in a broad keyword related to your offer (“affirmation cards,” “bookkeeping services,” “how to start a podcast”), set the country to wherever YOUR audience actually searches, select “related keywords,” and hit search.
Reading the data is where people tend to freeze, so here’s what you’re looking at:
- Search volume is how many people search that phrase per month in your chosen country. High volume doesn’t automatically = good keyword tho. A lower-volume phrase that closely matches your offer is often WAY more valuable, bc those searchers are usually closer to buying.
- Competition is color-coded AND labeled (easy, moderate). The higher the number, the harder it’ll be to rank. We usually don’t wanna chase the super competitive ones.
- Search trends show you 12 months of data, which is great for seasonal content and planning your calendar.
- SERP analysis shows you who’s already on page one for that keyword. This is my favorite panel, bc it answers the real question: can I realistically rank for this?
While you’re in the SERP analysis, peek at the domain authority scores on page one.
If your site’s sitting at a DA of 15 and every single result is an 80+ powerhouse, that keyword’s probably a skip for right now.
BUT if you spot a couple results in the 20s or 30s? YESSSS, DO IT.
DA is a third-party estimate, so hold it loosely and use it as a fast gut-check.
Bonus tip: use those same page one results to check search intent, aka WHY someone’s typing that keyword in.
Mostly blog posts and articles? That’s an informational keyword, perfect for a blog post.
Mostly product and service pages? That keyword wants a sales-y page, so give it one.
If the intent doesn’t match the type of page you’re planning, pick a different keyword.
(The CPC and PPC columns are Google Ads data. Since you’re probably doing organic SEO, you can ignore ’em.)
One thing to remember with ANY keyword tool, including the expensive ones: nobody has access to Google’s actual data.
Volume and difficulty scores are educated estimates pulled from smaller data sets. They’re solid for making decisions, just know they’re directional, and your own Google Search Console data always wins.
Related Keywords + Filters (where it gets good)
Every search spits back a big list of related keyword ideas. My “affirmation cards” search pulled 699 of them. That’s a LOT, and no, you do not need all 699 (do not stress out!).
Use filters to keep your sanity: words to include or exclude, volume ranges, competition caps. A couple filters later, I was down to 93 keywords that actually made sense for the business.
So start broad, filter ruthlessly, and keep the ones that fit best.
Save your keepers into lists inside the tool so you’re never doing the same research twice. If you want your keywords organized by page with an actual strategy attached, that’s exactly what my SEO Keyword Planner is built for.
Deep Dive & Quick Difficulty
- Deep Dive breaks one keyword into categories: questions (blog post & FAQ gold), purchase intent, comparisons, local searches, and long-tail. The long-tail tab is where 5+ word phrases are super specific, and the people typing them are usually further along and more likely to convert.
- Quick Difficulty lets you paste in up to 50 keywords and get difficulty scores for all of ’em in one go. Great for gut-checking a brainstorm list without wasting your time.
- The Content Assistant compares your draft to what’s already ranking on page one and suggests related words to weave in. Use it like a checklist for covering the topic thoroughly, and use your common sense too. Squeezing every suggested keyword into your post makes it read like a robot wrote it, and both humans and Google can see right through you.
YouTube Research
If you make YouTube content (or wanna start), don’t skip this feature.
It works like the regular keyword research tool but pulls YouTube-specific data, which matters bc people search differently on YouTube then they do on Google.
I use YouTube SEO data for my own channel, and it’s a big reason my videos keep bringing new people into my world long after I hit publish.
Explorer (competitor & self check-ups)
This one runs off URLs instead of keywords.
Pop in your own domain first to see what SEO juice you’ve already got, then peek at competitors to see what keywords their sites are showing up for. You’ll get domain strength, backlinks, organic keywords, traffic overviews.
It’s all third-party data, so take it with a grain of salt and always trust your own Google Search Console numbers over any tool’s estimates.
SEO Audit
This scans your site for technical SEO issues.
IMPORTANT NOTE: do NOT open it and start to melt into your keyboard lol.
Technical SEO gets overwhelming pretty much *immediately*, and not everything a tool flags is actually worth your time to fix.
Use it for awareness, celebrate the green check marks, pick one or two flagged things to dig into, and move tf on.
Turning Your Keysearch Data & Research Into an Actual Plan
Most people make their list but skip keyword mapping entirely, which sucks bc it’s the part that makes all of this work worth it. The goal is to move from a big messy list to keywords assigned to actual pages.
Like, an e-commerce shop sorting keywords into category pages, product pages, and gift-guide blog posts.
Or a service provider sorting them into individual service pages and blog posts that answer the questions clients actually ask.
Same logic applies whether you’re a coach, course creator, or local business.
Using the keywords you found with Keysearch, you can make decisions like:
Product-focused keyword → product or collection page Question-based keyword → blog post Broad brand or category term → homepage or main service pages
And please, don’t try to optimize a bunch of pages for the exact same keyword.
Give each page its own job.
That keeps your site organized for readers AND gives Google/AI bots a clearer idea of what each page is about.
Annnnd don’t spiral about picking the perfect keyword from your list of 93. Your page can (and probably will) show up for way more keywords than you targeted, bc there’s basically infinite ways of phrasing the same thing.
Pick the one that makes the most sense, optimize for it, and move on.
Once you’ve picked a keyword and optimized your page for it? Keysearch’s job is done for now.
Your next data source is Google Search Console, because that’s YOUR first-party data straight from Google.
Keysearch estimates. Use it tool to make the decision, then use Google Search Console to watch how it plays out.
When you’re deciding which keywords make the cut, remember: good keyword research = balancing popularity, difficulty, and relevance. All 3 of them.
- A high-volume keyword that has nothing to do with your offer won’t convert.
- A super relevant keyword with a difficulty score through the roof will keep you waiting on page 5 forever.
- And a low-difficulty keyword nobody’s searching for prob equals no traffic, which sucks.
You’re looking for the keyword that checks all 3 boxes at once.
So, is Keysearch Worth it?
My honest thoughts…
If you’re a business owner doing your own SEO and you want real keyword data without paying for a tool built for agencies, YES. Keysearch is worth it.
Good data + budget-friendly price + a free trial to test it = an easy recommendation from me.
It’s not gonna do the strategy FOR you (no tool will). But it hands you the data you need to make smart decisions about what to publish and why. And for most small business owners, that’s exactly what you need.
Keysearch Review FAQ
Is Keysearch better than Semrush?
Different tools work for different people. Semrush has more data and more features, but it’s pricier and can be overkill if you’re not an SEO pro. Keysearch gives you solid, usable data at a budget-friendly price. For most business owners doing their own SEO, Keysearch is plenty. If you want the full comparison, I break down my top SEO keyword research tools here.
Does Keysearch have a free trial?
Yep, 7 days, so you can give it a spin before you pay anything. (Heads up, it does require a credit card to start the trial.)
Is there a Keysearch discount code?
There is! Use MARIAHMAGAZINE for 30% off a paid plan (case sensitive, so type it exactly).
Do I need Keysearch if I’m brand new to SEO?
Not on day one. You can start your keyword research for free with Google Autocomplete, People Also Ask, and Related Searches (I cover that in my keyword research guide). But once you want actual search volume and competition data to make smarter calls, an SEO tool like Keysearch makes the process a lot easier.
Ready to Give Keysearch a Shot?
Sometimes the best way to figure out if a tool fits your brain is to just get in there and click around. Or watch me click around in the review & tutorial.
So if you’ve been on the fence, grab the free trial for Keysearch, run a search on something you already wanna rank for, and see how it feels. And if you upgrade from the free trial to a paid plan, use code MARIAHMAGAZINE to save 30%.
Wanna go deeper on choosing the right SEO keyword?
Finding keyword ideas using Keysearch is one thing. Choosing the perfect keyword for each page (one that’s the right difficulty, the right intent, and actually has a shot at ranking for your specific site) is a whole other skill.
If you want me to walk you through that in real time, with examples, I cover exactly that in the Perfect SEO Keyword Workshop. You’ll learn my exact process for evaluating and choosing keywords, the most common mistakes I see people make (and why they tank results), and what actually makes a keyword worth going after.
It’s pay-what-you-want, which means you genuinely just choose what feels right. No pressure, no gimmicks. Grab the replay whenever you’re ready.
