You don't need to use paid keyword tools or services to conduct proper keyword research
. One of the best-kept secrets to increase website traffic is simply to write about what's popular now. A lot of people make keyword research a lot harder than it is, and that's a shame.
When doing niche keyword research article directories are a great place to start. If you are looking for new niches to get into then simply look at the categories for the article son site. To see which keywords for your potential new niche site are getting searched for a lot, simply type in some of your niche phrases to see which ones get the most views.
Another way to conduct proper and realistic keyword research is to search through YouTube. If you use the search engine that YouTube has and enter in some niche-related keywords, you will see which videos get the most views. So if you intend to use video marketing and submissions as part of your overall strategy, then you need to do your research by using the YouTube engine first.
The third best way to conduct free keyword research is to use Google's keyword tool to gather together a nice list of related keywords. Google's keyword tool is notoriously inaccurate when it comes to reporting actual search volume statistics, which is why it's best use for doing LSI, latent semantic indexing keyword research.
The most accurate and realistic keyword research is done by seeing what is already popular. When you use simple math to figure out how many views an article got, the you know the reality of how many searches a day certain keywords get. The main thing to remember when trying to get traffic to your site is to ask yourself what is popular now, then write about it.