Ever since Google introduced its Hummingbird update, many people believe that keyword research is now dead and it is sufficient to write content that is original and relevant instead of trying to please search engine algorithms. The real fact is that while there can be no underestimating the value of good quality content that lends value to the user, ignoring the necessity of keywords and its role in search engine optimization would indeed be foolish. Searchers are still resorting to keywords to address queries and researching the keywords that are being used remains as important as ever for attracting visitors to your site through search engines.
Even though Google’s own tools are delivering less data than before, there are a number of other keyword research tools available that can be used to get an idea of the most appropriate long-tail keywords that are now essential to the search process. Some great keyword research tools that most people are not aware of:
Top Keyword Research Tools You Probably Might’ve Not Heard About.

SERPs Ubersuggest Alternative
One of the easiest ways of getting keyword ideas is to use Google’s autosuggest feature. You need to just type into the Google search box and it automatically suggests keyword phrases that might be relevant to your query based on the actual search terms fed in by users from all over the world. SERPs Ubersuggest Alternative allows you to choose the language of the search as well as the niche for which the keyword suggestion is required such as shopping, images, recipes, etc. In order to add keywords to a list that you are already running you need to just click on the + button. You can even click on the keyword itself to expand it to generate more long-tail keywords. A handy button allows you to copy the running list to a clipboard.
Niche Laboratory
Niche Laboratory is a great tool for extracting keyword ideas from sites that have achieved good ranks for a particular keyword phrase. It grabs the information from the top ranking results of a search engine results page and generates a list of the top keywords and phrases that it discovers in those pages. It also reveals which of the words are more important by displaying a keyword tag cloud. Additionally, it also displays a list of the top 10 websites, along with their titles and Meta tags, images, and niche-related forums.
Merchant Words
Those who are conducting keyword research for e-commerce sites, especially Amazon, will do well to add Merchant Words to their armory of keyword research tools. The tool scans the Amazon site and also obtains Google’s keyword data and then combines the two to provide the estimates for search volumes for each keyword being analyzed. The free search option is fairly limited but is good enough to illustrate how the tool works. Subscriptions start from $39 and you get access to a larger number of keywords as well as a reverse keyword search feature. A paid subscription lets you get access to the top Amazon searches – a full 20 million of real search terms used by Amazon visitors as they go about shopping. These keywords are extremely valuable since their commercial intent is very high. With the tool you can get information on search volumes for specific keywords, so that you can figure out what is popular and what is not.
Conclusion
Despite what many people might be saying, keywords and keyword research remain an integral part of content development and delivery. As an SEO practitioner, you need to be very clear about what you are trying to achieve. Once you have got a fix on that you need to scout around for the most appropriate keyword research tools. With a large number of such keyword research tools available, you need to employ only the ones that you think will deliver the desired results.
Thanks for sharing this list of keyword research tools. These tools were unknown to me. I am knowing it all for the first time. Will try using it for my blog seo.