Free Keyword Research for Bloggers: Find Easy Long-Tail Keywords

Free keyword research for bloggers needs no paid tool. Google already shows you what people search for: in the search box (autocomplete), in the “People also ask” box and in “Related searches” at the bottom of the page. Your job is to collect those phrases, check by hand whether the pages ranking for them are weak, and group them into topics. For a new site, the best targets are long-tail keywords: specific phrases with a clear question behind them, where today’s results answer that question poorly.

Below is the whole method, step by step, for a blog, niche site or affiliate site. At the end, you will see how to do it faster in Affpilot and turn the list into published articles.

Key takeaways

• Free keyword research for bloggers starts with Google itself: autocomplete, People Also Ask and Related searches.
• Match every keyword to a search intent first. The intent decides the article type.
• Judge difficulty by reading page one of the results, not by trusting a single score.
• Competitor sitemaps show every topic a site has published, for free.
• One intent, one article — not five posts for five wordings of one question.
• Start a new site with about 30 keywords in a few tight topics.

What “low-competition, long-tail keywords” means

A keyword is the phrase a person types into Google. A long-tail keyword is a longer, more specific phrase. “Air fryer” is short and broad. “Can I put parchment paper in an air fryer” is long-tail: it has one clear question, and one page can answer it completely.

Low competition means the pages already ranking for that phrase are weak. Maybe they are old, thin, off-topic or written for a different question. That gap is your chance.

Long-tail keywords have fewer searches each. That is fine: a new blog wins by answering many specific questions well, then grows into bigger terms.

Step 1: Understand search intent before anything else

Search intent is the reason behind a search. Before you save any keyword, ask: “What does this person want to see when they click?”

Intent type	What the searcher wants	Example keyword	Best article shape
Informational (how-to)	Steps to follow	how to descale a kettle with vinegar	Step-by-step guide
Informational (question)	A short, direct answer	is it safe to leave a slow cooker on overnight	Answer first, then detail
Problem / fix	Something is broken	dishwasher not draining after cycle	Causes, checks, fixes
Commercial (comparison)	Help choosing between two options	ninja vs cosori air fryer	Side-by-side comparison
Commercial (buying)	A shortlist of products	best budget blender for smoothies	Roundup with a comparison table
Navigational	A specific website or brand page	amazon associates login	Skip it — they want another site

Two rules follow. Skip navigational keywords — the searcher wants someone else’s site. And let the intent pick the format: if the top results are all product lists, a how-to essay will not fit, however good it is.

For affiliate sites, a healthy mix is mostly informational posts (trust and traffic) plus comparison and buying posts on the same topics (commissions).

Step 2: Collect keyword ideas from Google for free

Open Google in a private or incognito window, so your own search history does not shape the suggestions. Then use these three free sources.

Google autocomplete

Type your topic slowly. Every suggestion is a phrase real people search. To get more:

• Add question words before your topic: how, what, why, when, can, is, does, should. “Can you … air fryer” opens a different list than “how to … air fryer”.
• Add letters after your topic: “air fryer a”, “air fryer b”, and so on. This is often called the alphabet method.
• Add intent words after your topic: vs, for, without, not working, best, tips.

Write every useful phrase into a spreadsheet or a plain text file, one per line.

People Also Ask

Search one of your phrases and find the “People also ask” box. Open a question and Google often loads more below. These make great FAQ sections, and many are good articles on their own.

Related searches

At the bottom of the results page, “Related searches” shows nearby phrases — good for side topics you had not thought of.

Other free places worth a look

• YouTube’s search box and forum or Reddit threads show the exact words people use when they are stuck.
• Google Search Console is free once your site is live and shows the searches your pages already appear for.

Step 3: Judge keyword difficulty by reading the results page

Paid tools give you a “difficulty” number. You can judge better for free: search the keyword and read the top results honestly.

Signs a keyword is open for a new site	Signs it is hard right now
Forum threads, Reddit or Quora answers rank on page one	Every result is a big, well-known brand or publisher
Results answer a slightly different question	Every result targets the exact phrase in its title
Pages are old or clearly out of date	Pages are recent, deep and well organised
Thin pages that skip the actual answer	Results include rich features from strong sites (videos, tools, shopping)
Small blogs, similar in size to yours, already rank	Only one kind of page ranks, and you cannot make it better

For every keyword, ask: Can I write the most helpful page here (not longer — more useful)? Do small sites rank? Does the intent match what I plan to write? Then mark it “go”, “later” or “skip”. Keep the “later” ones; they become targets once your site has some history.

Step 4: Read competitor sitemaps

A sitemap is a file where a website lists its pages for search engines. Most blogs have one, and anyone can open it. Try:

• example.com/sitemap.xml
• example.com/sitemap_index.xml
• example.com/wp-sitemap.xml (common on WordPress sites)

The page addresses (URLs) usually contain the post titles, like /how-to-clean-a-kettle/. In a few minutes you can see every topic a competitor has covered.

How to use this well:

• Pick competitors your own size. A small site that ranks in your niche is a better guide than a giant brand.
• Look for clusters. Many posts on one sub-topic usually means it brings them visitors.
• Find the gaps. Topics they never covered, or covered thinly, are your openings.
• Never copy. Use their topics as ideas, check intent and difficulty yourself, and write something better.

Step 5: Group your keywords into topics

Your list is now long and messy, and many phrases mean the same thing: “how to clean an air fryer basket” and “air fryer basket cleaning” want the same page. Group them:

1. Same intent, different words → one article. Use the clearest phrase as the main keyword. Use the others naturally in headings and the FAQ.
2. Same topic, different intents → separate articles that link to each other. “How to clean an air fryer” (how-to), “air fryer smoking” (problem) and “best air fryer liners” (buying) are three posts in one cluster.
3. Give each cluster a main guide. One broad, helpful article that links to every smaller post in the group.

This is often called content pillars or topic clusters — see our guide on what content pillars are.

Step 6: Pick the first 30 keywords for a new site

Thirty is a practical first target: enough to show Google what your site is about, small enough to finish. Here is a simple plan.

1. Choose 3 topic clusters you understand and that have buying potential later.
2. Pick about 10 keywords per cluster from your “go” list.
3. Start with answer-type content: how-to guides, questions and problem fixes. They are usually easier to rank for and build trust.
4. Add a few comparison and buying posts per cluster once the helpful posts exist, and link them together.
5. Write one main guide per cluster and link the smaller posts to it.
6. Publish on a steady schedule rather than all on one day, and keep a list of what is next.

Each post should be as long as the answer needs and no longer — more in our post on how long blog posts should be for SEO.

Common keyword research mistakes

• Chasing broad keywords on day one. “Coffee” or “laptops” will not rank on a new site. Long-tail first.
• Ignoring intent. A how-to essay for a keyword where Google shows only product lists.
• One post per wording. Near-identical posts compete with each other. Group them.
• Random topics with no clusters. Unrelated posts tell Google little about what your site covers.
• Writing a topic you already covered. Check your own posts first.
• Research that never ends. A keyword list helps nobody until the articles are published. This is where many new bloggers get stuck.

How to do this faster in Affpilot: from keyword list to published articles

Affpilot is an AI writing tool for bloggers and affiliate sites. It does not replace your judgment on intent and difficulty, but it removes the copying, pasting and writing between “I have a list” and “the posts are live”. Try it with 10,000 free words when you sign up — no card needed.

Find keywords: Google’s suggestions, inside the write page

On the write pages (for example Write Info Article → Magic Writer, Short Info Article, and Amazon Writers → Top-10 Review List), there is a Find keywords button under the keyword box. It is free and takes nothing from your words.

1. Click Find keywords and stay on the From a word tab.
2. Type your topic, for example “air fryer”, and press Search.
3. Affpilot asks Google’s own search suggestions with many question and intent shapes (how to, why, can I, vs, best, not working and more) and brings back up to 300 ideas.
4. The ideas arrive grouped by intent: How to, Problems to fix, Questions, Comparisons, Buying and Other topics. Each group shows which Affpilot writer suits it, such as Short Info Article for questions or Top-10 Review List for buying keywords.
5. Tick the keywords you want and press Add to the box. They land in the keyword box, one per line, with repeats removed.

Affpilot deliberately shows no search volume numbers. Exact volumes are not given away for free, and a made-up number would be worse than none. Use Step 3 of this guide to judge each keyword.

From a competitor: their sitemap as your idea list

On the From a competitor tab, type a competitor’s address, like example.com. Affpilot reads one file, their sitemap, and turns their post titles into keyword ideas, grouped the same way. It does not download their pages and respects robots.txt.

”Hide what I already wrote”

If you pick one of your connected websites on the write page, Affpilot compares every idea with your own published posts. Keywords your site already covers are marked already written, with a link to that post, and the Hide what I already wrote box (on by default) keeps them out of your way. This is the gap check from Step 4, done for your own site.

Bulk writing: one keyword per line, one article each

Each line in the box becomes its own article — up to 1,000 keywords in one order. Repeats are removed, and if you ordered the same keyword in the last 24 hours, Affpilot warns you before you pay twice. On the same page you choose:

• Title: “AI generated SEO title” or “Keep my keyword as title”.
• Language, length, pictures and FAQ.
• Publishing: connect your WordPress site (or Blogger), then publish now, save as a draft, or schedule posts spread out over time.

On publishing, Affpilot adds internal links to your older posts and FAQ schema for Google automatically. More in our bulk blog post generator guide.

The SEO check panel on every article

Every finished article has an SEO check panel with a score out of 100. It checks title length, meta description, the keyword near the start, the keyword in a heading, length, sections, paragraph length, sentence length, links, pictures, and FAQ and schema. Each line says what to change in plain words, and the worst problems are listed first.

If you switched something off on purpose (for example, no pictures), the panel marks it “not judged” instead of punishing you for it. Fix what it flags, add your own experience where it helps the reader, then publish. Helpful, edited content that matches search intent is what wins.

Manual method vs Affpilot

Task	Free manual method	In Affpilot
Collect ideas	Type into Google, copy suggestions	Find keywords → From a word
Group by intent	Sort a spreadsheet by hand	Grouped automatically, with a writer suggestion
Competitor topics	Open their sitemap, read URLs	Find keywords → From a competitor
Skip topics you covered	Search your own site one by one	”Already written” marks from your connected site
Judge difficulty	Read the results page	Still you — read the results page
Write and publish	Write each post yourself	One article per keyword, publish or schedule to WordPress

FAQ

Can I do keyword research for free?

Yes. Google autocomplete, People Also Ask, Related searches, competitor sitemaps and Google Search Console are all free. What free methods do not give you is exact search volume, so you rely more on reading the results page.

How do I find low-competition keywords for free?

Collect long-tail phrases from Google’s suggestions, then search each one and read page one. Forum threads, old or thin pages, or small blogs ranking mean the keyword is likely open. If every result is a big brand with a strong page on that exact phrase, save it for later.

Are long-tail keywords good for new blogs?

Yes. Each has one clear question, so one helpful page can answer it fully. A new site rarely ranks for broad terms early, but it can win many specific searches and grow from there.

How many keywords should a new blog start with?

A practical start is about 30 keywords over three topic clusters. That shows clearly what your site covers and is small enough to finish on a steady schedule.

Do I need search volume to choose keywords?

It helps, but it is not required. A real Google suggestion shows that people search the phrase. For a new site, intent and competition matter more: a keyword you cannot rank for brings no visitors at any volume.

Does Affpilot’s keyword finder cost words?

No. Find keywords uses Google’s public search suggestions and competitor sitemaps, and it takes nothing from your words. You only use words when you write articles.

Conclusion: research is only half the job

Free keyword research for bloggers is a simple loop: collect real phrases from Google, match each to its intent, read the results page to judge difficulty, check competitor sitemaps, and group everything into clear topics. Start with about 30 long-tail keywords in a few clusters, and publish steadily.

What stops most new sites is turning the list into articles. Affpilot finds keyword ideas on the write page, groups them by intent, hides what you already wrote, and turns every line into an article you can check, edit and publish or schedule to WordPress.

Start free with 10,000 words — no card needed, run your first keyword search, and write your first posts today. When you are ready for more, see the plans and prices.