Keyword Research Without Tools: 3 Free Data Sources

Keyword research gets weird fast.

Because the moment you type “free keyword research” into Google, you get 40 tools. Half of them are “limited trials”. The other half are basically a sign up wall where you can see 3 keywords and then it’s like, cool, now pay $79 a month.

And look, I review AI tools and software deals for a living over on ai.mc1.me. I like tools. I really do. But keyword research is one of those things where you can get surprisingly far with zero tools at all, if you know where to look.

This post is that. Just 3 free data sources you already have access to. No subscriptions. No Chrome extensions. No “credits”. No “one free report”.

Also, I’m not going to pretend these replace Ahrefs or Semrush if you’re doing hardcore SEO at scale. They don’t. But for blogging, affiliate content, niche sites, YouTube scripts, landing pages, and even programmatic-ish content planning. This is enough to find real topics people are actively searching for.

We’ll go source by source, and I’ll show you exactly what to pull, how to turn it into keyword ideas, and how to decide which ones are worth writing.

What “keyword research” actually means when you have no tools

Let’s simplify it.

When you strip away the dashboards, keyword research is really just:

Find the exact words people use.
Find the problems behind those words.
Find patterns you can publish around.
Pick battles you can realistically win.

So instead of “give me volume and difficulty scores”, we’re going to ask:

What do people keep asking, repeatedly?
What phrasing do they naturally use?
What comparisons are they making?
What are they stuck on, right before they buy?

That’s the whole game.

Alright. Here are the 3 free sources.

1) Google itself (Autocomplete, People Also Ask, Related Searches)

Yes, I’m starting with the obvious one. Because it still works.

Google is basically a public feed of demand. The best part is it’s not just giving you keywords. It’s giving you language, intent, modifiers, and subtopics.

What to use inside Google (no tools)

You’re going to use four areas:

Autocomplete (the dropdown suggestions)
People Also Ask (PAA)
Related Searches (bottom of the page)
The “refine this search” type chips and bolded terms in snippets

Here’s the workflow.

Step 1: Seed + modifier mining

Pick a seed topic. Since this site is AI tools focused, let’s use something like:

“AI video editor”
“text to speech”
“AI SEO tool”
“lifetime deal” (like the Tidycal lifetime deal)
“AI voice generator”

Now add modifiers that reveal intent:

best
vs
alternative
pricing
free
lifetime deal
worth it
review
how to
for [use case]
for [platform]

So you type:

“AI video editor pricing”
“AI video editor lifetime deal” (considering the Tidycal lifetime deal)
“AI video editor for reels”
“AI video editor vs capcut”

Then you don’t click yet. Just write down the suggestions.

If you want to go faster, use the alphabet trick:

“ai video editor a”
“ai video editor b”
“ai video editor c”

And also the underscore trick:

“ai video editor _” (Google fills the blank with common continuations)

It’s basic. It’s also shockingly productive.

To maximize your productivity with Google searches, consider leveraging its advanced features such as search operators. These can help refine your search results and make them more relevant to your needs.

Step 2: Strip out “topic clusters” from People Also Ask

Click one result, scroll to People Also Ask. Expand 10 to 20 questions.

You’re not just collecting questions. You’re collecting clusters.

Example pattern you’ll often see:

“Is X free?”
“Is X safe?”
“How does X work?”
“What is the best X for beginners?”
“X vs Y”

That’s a cluster. That’s not one article. That’s 5 to 10.

If you’re on WordPress, I like pasting PAA questions straight into a draft as H2s, then rearranging later.

Step 3: Related searches = the “next click” keywords

Scroll to the bottom, grab Related Searches. These are often:

comparisons
alternatives
brand names you forgot existed
slightly different intent angles

A boring example, but it makes the point:

If you search “speech to text AI”, related searches might include “speech to text api”, “speech to text for meetings”, “speech to text for medical”, etc.

Each one is basically a different audience. Which means different affiliate angles and different tool recommendations.

How to decide what to write (without volume)

Use this quick scoring logic:

Commercial intent present? (pricing, review, vs, alternative, lifetime deal)
Specific use case? (for YouTube, for lectures, for podcasts, for iPhone)
Pain point obvious? (not working, accuracy, watermark, limits)
SERP weak? (forums ranking, thin posts, outdated screenshots, non updated pricing)

If you see a query like “toolname lifetime deal worth it” and the first page is old, generic, and not updated. That’s a gift.

And yes, this is basically how I decide what to publish on ai.mc1.me. Updating pricing and limits is half the battle in the AI tools niche because everything changes every five minutes.

2) Reddit (the best free “intent and phrasing” database)

Reddit is messy. Which is why it’s useful.

People don’t go to Reddit to type “best ai video editor for short form content 2026”. They go to Reddit and type:

“I need a tool that removes filler words and adds captions, not CapCut”
“Is there any TTS that doesn’t sound like a robot?”
“I bought this lifetime deal and now it’s paywalled, what happened?”

That is keyword research gold. It’s raw intent and real language, the kind that converts because you can mirror it in your headline and intro.

Where to look on Reddit

You can do this two ways:

Option A: Reddit search (inside Reddit)

Search like:

“best ai voice generator”
“text to speech natural”
“lifetime deal ai tool”
“alternative to jasper”
“writesonic vs”

Then filter by Top (past year) or New (to catch emerging tools).

Option B: Google + site operator (often better)

Use Google:

site:reddit.com "ai video editor" watermark
site:reddit.com "text to speech" "commercial use"
site:reddit.com "lifetime deal" "credits"

This pulls up threads Reddit search sometimes hides.

What to extract (don’t overcomplicate it)

Open a thread and collect three things: the exact phrases people use (especially complaints), the tool names that show up repeatedly, and the constraints they mention.

Common constraints include:

budget
platform (Windows, Mac, iOS)
language support
commercial use rights
voice quality
export limits
API availability

Then turn those into keyword angles.

Here’s a simple translation:

Reddit sentence:
“I need something like ElevenLabs but cheaper and with commercial rights included.”

Keywords you can write:

“ElevenLabs cheaper alternative”
“ElevenLabs commercial rights”
“best text to speech commercial use”
“ElevenLabs vs [tool]”
“text to speech pricing comparison”

And the post basically writes itself because Reddit gave you the outline.

The “comment section trick” (this is the good part)

The original post shows the problem.

The comments show:

what people recommend
what people warn about
what breaks
hidden pricing gotchas

In the AI tools world, this is huge. Because the deal page says one thing, and the comments are like: “yeah until you hit the usage cap” or “support disappeared”.

If you’re writing “is this worth it” style content, Reddit comments hand you your pros and cons section.

Which, again, fits the kind of content we publish over on ai.mc1.me. I care less about perfect SEO scores and more about. Does the tool actually do what it promises, and what are the hidden limits?

Quick way to turn Reddit into a content calendar

Make a simple sheet with columns:

Topic
Exact phrasing (copy paste)
Tool names mentioned
Use case
Common objections
Potential article title

After 30 minutes, you’ll have 20 to 50 very real topics.

No volume metrics needed.

3) YouTube (autocomplete + “real competitor research”)

People forget YouTube is a search engine. A massive one.

And in the AI tools niche especially, YouTube is where people go right before buying. They want to see the UI, hear the voice quality, watch the export, see the watermark, all of it.

So if you can pull keyword ideas from YouTube, you’re basically tapping into high intent queries.

What to use inside YouTube

Autocomplete
“Popular” sorting inside search results
Video titles that repeat
Chapters (timestamps)
Comment questions

Step 1: Use YouTube autocomplete like Google

Type:

“AI voice generator”
“ElevenLabs”
“text to speech”
“AI SEO tool”
“Surfer SEO alternative”
“best AI tools”

Then watch the suggested searches.

YouTube suggestions lean more practical and tutorial based, like:

“how to”
“settings”
“tutorial”
“review”
“vs”
“best for…”
“free”

Those are easy blog posts.

Step 2: Sort by popular, and steal the framing

Search a tool name. Then filter by upload date (this year) and sort by popularity if available, or just scan for high view counts.

Now look at titles that repeat the same promise:

“X Review: Is it worth it?”
“X Tutorial for Beginners”
“X vs Y: Which is better?”
“I tried X for 7 days”
“Top 5 alternatives to X”

When multiple creators independently use similar titles, that’s demand. Not a coincidence.

Also, blog posts can often outrank videos on Google for the same query. So you can borrow the proven framing and publish a written version.

Step 3: Chapters = your outline

Click a video that’s performing well.

If it has chapters like:

pricing
features
voice quality test
alternatives
final verdict

That’s a pre built outline for your blog post.

You can literally mirror it as:

H2: Pricing (and hidden limits)
H2: Best features (with examples)
H2: Quality test (include samples if possible)
H2: Best alternatives
H2: Verdict: who should buy, who should skip

If you’ve read a few posts on ai.mc1.me, you’ll notice that pattern. Pricing breakdowns and “worth it” decisions tend to win because they match what people are actually trying to decide.

Step 4: Comments tell you what to add (so you beat the video)

Look for comments like:

“Does it support commercial use?”
“Can it do Spanish?”
“How many credits is that per month?”
“Does it work on iPhone?”
“Is the lifetime deal still active?”

Those become FAQ sections, and FAQs are basically long tail keywords that tools sometimes miss anyway.

Putting it together: a no tools keyword workflow you can repeat weekly

If you want something simple you can do every Monday, do this:

30 minutes total

1) Google (10 minutes)

Pick 2 seeds
Collect autocomplete + PAA + related searches
Highlight anything with: pricing, review, vs, alternative, worth it, lifetime deal

2) Reddit (10 minutes)

Search the seed + “alternative” or a pain point like “watermark”, “limits”, “commercial use”
Pull 5 recurring phrases and 5 tool names

3) YouTube (10 minutes)

Search the seed
Note autocomplete suggestions
Grab 3 high performing video title formats
Copy 5 comment questions

Output: 10 article ideas that won’t be random

And they’ll naturally align with what converts in the AI tools niche:

comparisons
pricing breakdowns
alternatives
beginner tutorials tied to a tool

Example: one topic turned into 12 keywords (no tools)

Let’s take “AI text to speech” as the seed.

From Google, you might get:

“ai text to speech free”
“ai text to speech commercial use”
“ai text to speech natural voice”
“ai text to speech for youtube”

From Reddit, you might see:

“ElevenLabs is good but expensive”
“I need something for audiobooks”
“What has the least robotic voice?”

From YouTube, you’ll see:

“ElevenLabs review”
“ElevenLabs alternatives”
“how to clone voice elevenlabs”

Now turn that into publishable topics:

Best AI text to speech tools for YouTube (commercial use included)
ElevenLabs pricing explained (credits, limits, what it actually costs)
7 ElevenLabs alternatives that sound natural
Best AI voice generator for audiobooks (what to look for)
AI text to speech free vs paid (what free versions limit)
How to choose a natural sounding AI voice (tests you can run)
Text to speech for faceless YouTube channels (workflow + tools)
AI voice cloning tools comparison (ethics + safety + best picks)
Best multilingual text to speech (languages, accents, export)
AI text to speech API options (for developers, pricing reality)
Common TTS issues (mispronunciation, pacing) and how to fix them
Review style post for whatever tool is trending this month, answering “Is X worth it?”

None of that required a tool. It required attention.

For those looking for more efficiency in their content creation process, consider exploring [Softr Workflows](https://ai.mc1.me/

A small note about AI tools (since this is an AI tools site)

Ironically, AI can help you speed up this process without “keyword tools”.

If you want, you can paste your raw findings (PAA questions, Reddit phrases, YouTube comments) into ChatGPT or Claude and ask it to:

group them into clusters
propose article titles
map them to funnel stages (awareness, comparison, purchase)
generate outlines

Just don’t let it invent keywords out of thin air. Feed it real text you collected.

That’s the sweet spot.

And if you’re into AI tool reviews, lifetime deals, and honest “skip or buy” breakdowns, that’s basically what we do on ai.mc1.me. You’ll probably find something useful there, especially if you’re trying to avoid paying for tools you don’t actually need.

Let’s wrap this up

You don’t need keyword tools to do keyword research.

You need demand signals. And you can pull those for free from:

Google (autocomplete, PAA, related searches)
Reddit (real problems, real phrasing, real objections)
YouTube (high intent searches, proven title framing, comment FAQs)

Do this consistently, even once a week, and you’ll stop guessing what to write. You’ll just… know. Because people are already telling you.

If you want, tell me your niche topic or the tool category you’re writing about (AI video, AI SEO, TTS, etc) and I’ll generate a list of article ideas using only these three sources, same method.

FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions)

What is keyword research without using any paid tools?

Keyword research without paid tools means focusing on finding the exact words people use, understanding the problems behind those words, identifying patterns to publish around, and picking battles you can realistically win. Instead of relying on volume and difficulty scores, you look at what people repeatedly ask, their natural phrasing, comparisons they make, and where they get stuck before buying.

How can I use Google itself for free keyword research?

You can leverage Google’s own features like Autocomplete (the dropdown suggestions), People Also Ask (PAA) questions, Related Searches at the bottom of the page, and the refined search chips and bolded terms in snippets. These provide language, intent, modifiers, and subtopics that reveal real user demand without needing any subscriptions or tools.

What is the best way to generate keyword ideas using Google Autocomplete?

Start with a seed topic relevant to your niche (e.g., ‘AI video editor’), then add intent-revealing modifiers such as ‘best’, ‘vs’, ‘pricing’, ‘free’, or ‘review’. Use tricks like typing your seed plus letters of the alphabet (e.g., ‘AI video editor a’) or an underscore (‘AI video editor _’) to uncover common continuations. Write down these suggestions as potential keywords.

How do People Also Ask (PAA) questions help in keyword research?

PAA questions reveal clusters of related queries users have about a topic. By expanding 10 to 20 PAA questions, you can identify common question patterns like ‘Is X free?’, ‘How does X work?’, or ‘X vs Y’. These clusters help you plan multiple articles or sections addressing different angles within a topic cluster.

What insights do Related Searches at the bottom of Google results provide?

Related Searches often show comparisons, alternatives, brand names you might have missed, and different intent angles. For example, searching ‘speech to text AI’ might return related searches like ‘speech to text API’ or ‘speech to text for medical’. Each represents a unique audience segment and potential affiliate or content opportunities.

Do free keyword research methods replace advanced tools like Ahrefs or Semrush?

No, free methods don’t replace comprehensive SEO tools when doing hardcore SEO at scale. However, for blogging, affiliate content, niche sites, YouTube scripts, landing pages, and programmatic content planning, these free sources are surprisingly effective for finding real topics people actively search for without paying for subscriptions or dealing with trial limits.