What is Keyword Search Volume? + 5 Free Test Tools

Revealing keyword search volume helps you find keywords that have the potential to drive search visibility and traffic to your site.

Today, we’re going to show you how to use free tools to get search volumes for the keywords people are searching for on Google and YouTube. You will also learn how to find the best keywords for your site.

What is Keyword Search Volume?

Keyword search volume is a metric that estimates how many people are searching for a specific keyword on search engines (such as Google or YouTube).

For example, the monthly volume for the keyword “what is the keyword search volume” is 40 searches per month in the UK and 410 searches per month globally.

You can get search volume for a keyword using some tools (we’ll highlight some tools soon).

And since more people search using AI platforms like ChatGPT and Gemini, other tools have AI volume estimates for search topics.

AI volume is different from normal search volume. And this article focuses on the search volume of keywords on search engines like Google and YouTube.

Why is it Important to Measure Search Volume?

Analyzing search volume is important because it helps you see how many people you can reach with your paid ads and organic content if you’re targeting relevant keywords.

But search volume alone doesn’t tell you the full picture of whether a word is worth targeting. That’s why most tools show volume alongside metrics like keyword difficulty (the difficulty of each keyword) and search intent (the reason people search for a particular keyword).

5 Free Tools to Check Google Keyword Search Volumes

You can check Google keyword search volume with any of the free tools below.

Semrush Keyword Overview

Semrush’s Keyword Overview tool shows search volume for a keyword entered as well as keyword difficulty, search intent, cost per click (CPC), and more.

To use Keyword Overview, enter the keyword you want to search for, select your country, and click “Check the keyword.” You can make up to five requests per day.

You will see the average number of monthly searches for your keyword and other data needed to guide your content strategy.

A useful feature of Keyword Overview is the “SERP Analysis” section that shows the top-ranking pages and each Page Authority—a metric that calculates page quality and SEO strength.

Knowing a site’s Authority Score helps you understand how likely your site is to rank on search engine results pages (SERPs).

Upgrading to the Semrush SEO Toolkit paid plan gives you higher search limits. Plus additional information like personal metrics and potential traffic estimates to help you prioritize keywords.

SE You are on the level

SE Ranking’s free keyword tool provides search volume, keyword difficulty, and CPC data for five keywords per day.

I like how SE Ranking also highlights “Related Keywords” and “Questions” to help you identify more relevant keywords to include in your content.

Searchvolume.io

Searchvolume.io allows you to enter up to 800 keywords at once to get monthly search volumes for all of them.

Searchvolume.io does not provide additional information such as CPC or difficulty metrics, but being able to load 800 keywords at a time makes it useful for quickly validating a keyword list.

SpyFu

SpyFu’s keyword tool shows you monthly search rates and paid ad metrics—such as the related keywords that advertisers are using in their campaigns.

A free SpyFu account gets you unlimited daily keyword searches with limited data.

I like how SpyFu’s keyword tool provides users with an “Average Clicks” metric. Knowing the traffic strength of a keyword can help prioritize content creation around keywords that are likely to drive traffic.

Google Keyword Planner

Google Keyword Planner is an official Google keyword research tool that you can use with a free Google Ads account (you don’t need to run campaigns to use the tool).

You can upload up to 10,000 keywords to Google’s “Get volumes and forecasts” feature to check metrics like average monthly searches, changes in search volume, and levels of competition for paid ads.

Users who aren’t running campaigns will see a volume range like “1K-10K,” and those who are running campaigns with enough ad spend will see more accurate search volumes, making Keyword Planner more useful for users using Google ads.

One unique feature of Keyword Planner is the “Three Month Change” column. This column shows which keywords are growing or declining to help you find growing keywords to use and decline ones you might want to avoid.

How to check YouTube keyword search volumes

You can check YouTube keyword search volumes using specific tools that focus on the usernames that enter YouTube.

YouTube search volumes can differ from Google search volumes—a keyword with 375,100 Google searches may only have 6,700 YouTube searches. This means that without YouTube-specific data, you can target keywords for your videos that have a different search volume than expected.

Here are some of the best YouTube keyword tools to get search volume:

• YouTube keyword statistics ($10/month): This YouTube-specific tool shows search rates, competition rates, and related keywords. It also displays links to popular videos in your article.
• TubeBuddy (starts at $15/month): TubeBuddy’s Keyword Explorer provides data such as search volumes, trends, average video views on first page videos, and keyword scores based on your channel to help you determine how hard it will be to display certain terms.
• vidIQ video ($19/month): vidIQ displays metrics such as YouTube search volumes, related keywords, trends, and frequently searched queries

How to Choose Keywords

You can choose keywords to target by measuring volume against factors such as competition, intent, and your site’s current authority to identify realistic opportunities.

• Measure volume competitively. A keyword with high search volume and difficulty requires significant link building and content investment to rank. A keyword with low search volume and difficulty will be easier to rank for strong content.
• Consider low volume keywords. Targeting multiple low volume keywords will often bring in more traffic than competing with a high volume keyword where you rank on page 2.
• Consider the search objective (search goal).Aligning your content with keyword search intent improves your chances of ranking and driving traffic to your site. When you run ads, you’ll usually want to target keywords for purchase intent
• Prioritize keywords that are increasing over those that are declining. Check trend data in your keyword tool or Google Trends. A keyword that’s slowly getting monthly searches shows growing interest—create content now before the competition increases. A keyword in a downward trend may not justify new content unless you can easily capture residual demand.
• Identify any significant changes in keyword volume. Some searches are related to seasonal events such as holiday-specific keywords (a plan to have seasonal content ready before demand spikes). Some keywords may lose volume over time due to AI, so appearing on them may be better for product awareness than traffic.

Monitor Your Keyword Rankings

Monitoring your keyword rankings for the terms you choose to target shows whether your SEO and PPC strategies are working

Use Semrush’s Position Tracking tool to review your paid and unpaid Google positions for your target keywords. You can also track your visibility in ChatGPT and Google’s AI Mode.

Then, adjust and adjust your strategy based on your performance.