KW Finder Review- An Honest, Thorough Look at This Keyword Planner (and How to Get REAL Value From it)

Welcome to my KW Finder review.

If you’ve researched this tool even just a little before, then my analysis will be a breath of fresh air.

I promise.

When the review isn’t salesy…

No,

I won’t tell you-you need to buy it right now or the sky will collapse on your shoulders.

No,

you won’t read here that you absolutely, definitely without a shadow of a doubt, need, MUST opt for at least a basic KW Finder subscription (though expensive is better – of course).

Or your business is doomed and there’s nothing you can possibly do to prevent its demise.

No…

Instead, I’ll be real with you

While KW Finder by Mangools is a true boon of a tool and you’ll see it in action real soon, in my review I want to focus on things like:

• Is the free version of KW Finder any good?
• How do you use it to profit a maximum for free?
• Can you combine KW Finder with other free keyword tools?
• How to decide whether and which premium module you really need?

Are you excited to learn more?

I know you are – so let’s proceed…

This post may contain affiliate links, which means, at no additional cost to you, I may receive a commission if you click a link and purchase something that I have recommended.  For more information visit my disclosure page.

Quick Navigation – Table of Contents

• The Right Way to Find Keywords
• KW Finder Analysis – Features, Pros – Cons, and how to do Effective Keyword Research
  • 1. How Hard Will it be to Rank
  • 2. To Long Tail or Not – That’s the Question
  • What I Like About KW Finder Data
  • A Word About Filtering Keywords
  • 3. Who Are Your Competitors Exactly?
  • What I Like About this SERP Overview
  • How to Supercharge Your Keyword Research (Autocomplete and Questions)
  • Using KW Finder to its Fullest i.e. Writing an Article that Ranks
• (Bonus) – Subscription to Mangools is a four in one deal
  •  1. Serp Analyzer – Analyze THIS! 🙂
  • What I like
  • 2. Link Miner – Digging for Gold
  • What I like
  • 3. Site Profiler
• SERP Watcher
• What Does KW Finder Cost? Pricing Plans, Discounts, Everything
• Conclusion – KW Finder, is it the right choice for YOU?

The Right Way to Find Keywords (It’s Not What You Think)

The right way is one backed with hard and cold data.

Yes, you probably could just think of a phrase and start your “research”, but it pays in spades to be just a bit thoughtful and find keywords you actually know for sure your target audience is using right now.

Just doing that will put you one step ahead of most other marketers.

Here’s how:

Enter Keyworddit.

What is it?

It’s a free keyword tool that mines keywords and topics from Reddit.

And I’m sure you know that Reddit is current news, for it’s not called “the front page of the internet” without reason.

So let’s assume you’re really into tea. Green, Black, Oolong, no matter. You love them all and true joy feels your body as soon as that special scent touches your nostrils.

And it doesn’t hurt that tea is proven to stave off the three hardest and toughest foes to human health.

I won’t tell you what they are because I want to keep this review lighthearted, but I’m sure you can guess (their names begin with C, H, D).

Enough about that!

So we’ll travel to keyworddit.com and chose our subreddit (https://www.reddit.com/r/tea/). The tool will extract great keywords from that subreddit and show you the monthly search volume for the US.

Note – Our chosen keyword is “Japanese green tea”.

Why?

Well, it has nothing to do with the fact that it’s popular, and long tail, ripe for the taking…

The real reason is that I once tried Japanese green tea… and it was wonderful:)

You may also like: Keyword Research To Improve Organic Traffic

KW Finder Analysis – Features, Pros – Cons, and how to do Effective Keyword Research

I mentioned at the start my review of KW Finder will be vastly different from the others you find online.

To further corroborate, I’ll do something “drastic”.

I’m going to put myself in your shoes.

I’ll assume you’re a newbie who just wants to dip your toes into proper keyword research. Someone who’s eager to learn, and willing to act on what they learned, but who’s hesitant to invest right away.

In other words – you wonder whether the free version of KW Finder is any good.

And that’s what you’ll learn next.

I will open a brand new free account and do keyword research for “Japanese green tea”

Let’s see what comes up:)

Step 1- Opening the Account

I need to go and open my free account.

As you can see below, it’s really straightforward.

Just your name, password, and email. It took me 20s, but I’m a slowpoke.

See if you can beat me:)

Step 2- Let’s search for our keyword

I’ll take the popular keyword I got from Reddit and plug it into KW Finder

Settings:

• • • Suggestions – I want KW Finder to suggest related long-tail phrases of my seed keyword
    • Keyword – “Japanese green tea”
    • Location – Anywhere
    • Language – English – this keeps it relevant to your site and your English-speaking audience

The results are in.

Now let’s break this supposed mess into something you’ll be able to use and grow your business.

I promise you a fun, instructive ride:)

1. How Hard Will it be to Rank (Overview)

• • 1. Keyword Difficulty – Visual representation of how hard it’ll be to hit the first page of Google (green is great, ours is orange but only just outside the green:))
    2. Monthly search volume – How many people search month over month
    3. Interest over time – They pull this data from Google Trends – very cool as it tells you right away whether the keyword is a rising star; or a fading flower.

2. To Long Tail or Not – That’s the Question

The previous info was just for the keyword “Japanese green tea”. The next data set applies to all related keywords KW Finder found.

• • 1. Trend – Is the keyword becoming more popular, or not?
    2. Search Volume – This is just an estimate, as they have no way to know for sure. (the number is usually several times higher)
    3. CPC (Cost Per Click) – If you decide to place an ad, how much will it cost you?
    4. PPC (Pay Per Click) competition – More people bidding means the keyword is lucrative (something to think about when researching keywords)
    5. Keyword Difficulty  – Are your opponents’ heavyweight champions? Or weaklings you can easily uproot?
    6. Add to List – Not all keywords are going to be gold. Select the ones that are (and make a list); ditch the rest.
    7. Export – Download that list as an excel file
    8. Keywords Filter – More about excluding keywords below.

What I Like About KW Finder Data

I really dig the interface of KW Finder. Everything is intuitive and easy to understand. Even if you’re an embodiment of noobness.

Ah, search volume = X; Got it;

The keyword is trending UP 🙂 – Excellent!

Keyword Difficulty:

• • • green= good
    • red= STOP
    • and orange = ?

You know your traffic lights, do you?

A Word About Filtering Keywords

Not all keywords are created equal. Some will be too hard to even try to rank for. Some will be easy pickings, but you still shouldn’t target them.

Why?

If a keyword phrase includes the words “free” or “cheap” it’s best to avoid – you don’t want to waste time attracting tire kickers.

Also, if a keyword is one or two words long, you know it’s a head term and better to be left alone. You can never rank for it with a new website. And you should never try to rank for them.

Again – why?

It’s a secret.

It’s something where most newbie marketers go wrong, and as a result – they go nowhere.

It’s because broad or head keywords have notorious competition, and at the same time, they have no buyer intent behind them.

It means you could spend a lot of money and worse, time, trying to get a number #1 ranking for a term that would bring you exactly $0.

No,

Let not-for-profit Wikipedia gobble up those and you focus on getting the juicy long tails. And then the long tails of the long tails 🙂

Bottom line

The longer a keyword-the better, 4 or 5 words is perfect.

Take a look at this chart. Notice how the conversion potential rises as the number of words rises?

image source

The good folks at Mangools know this, and that’s why KW Finder lets you filter your keywords and leave only the best ones.

Here’s how I set the parameters to find the perfect ones to target.

And then I’m left only with keywords that

• • • are low in competition
    • have decent search volume
    • Are long tail enough (they have strong commercial intent behind them)

Take a look:

via GIPHY

3. Who Are Your Competitors Exactly? And How to Beat Them to a Pulp with More Precise Keyword Targeting?

• • 1. Domain Authority (Moz) – Overall link strength of the domain
    2. Page Authority  (Moz) – Page strength, based on links
    3. Citation Flow (Majestic) – How influential is the page based on the number of links
    4. Trust Flow (Majestic) – How trusted are those sites (by Google)
    5. Links – Total number of links hitting the page (you also get the exact number of referring domains, which is much more important)
    6. Facebook likes – this is self-explanatory
    7. Link Profile strength – The metric unique to KW Finder. They calculate it internally based on link data from Moz and Majestic.
    8. Estimated Visits – How many people land on the page, respective of their SERP position (number #1 gets the most clicks)
    9. Analyze SERP – More on this below

What I Like About this SERP Overview

It’s great that KW Finder focuses so much on link metrics.

Because links are still the number 1 ranking signal for Google and you need to know what you’re up against before writing a single word.

So bonus points to KW Finder.

The other huge benefit is that they form their metrics by taking data not from one, but from two great SEO software companies, namely Moz and Majestic.

On the one hand, there’s Moz with their recently updated and superior link index.

On the other, there’s Majestic, with their signature trust flow, the metric that resembles the most how Google counts links.

Link Building is no longer just a numbers game but also a game of trust and true “authority”. How trustworthy are the sites linking to a page? That’s super important to know and KW Finder (through Majestic) delivers this on a silver platter.

That’s more bonus points for them and a huge advantage over other keyword tools and planners.

How to Supercharge Your Keyword Research (Autocomplete and Questions)

Before I tell you about the 3 awesome bonuses you get with KW Finder, I want to show you how to dig for keywords in 2 other ways.

They are:

• • • Google autocomplete
    • questions

Autocomplete feature scrapes Google search Autocomplete, (akin to Ubbersuggest) and delivers to you keyword suggestions based on what people type in Google.

This is pure awesomeness because out of the myriad of keywords Google search gets every day, their autocomplete feature shows only the most popular and consistent.

That’s supreme keyword validation right there.

Questions. This feature takes your target keyword and prepends and appends common question words to it (what, who, why, where, which, whose, how, is)

So you end up with what the people want to know about (an example of this below).

Wonderful!

Using KW Finder to its Fullest i.e. Writing an Article that Ranks in Google and Bing

You have two ways of using the awesome keywords KW Finder gave you.

First, you can use them as topics and write a bunch of articles, each article targets one keyword.

Or, and this is what I recommend, you can write one awesome article that targets one major topic/keyword, and a bunch of other keywords as subtopics. This article will also include all keywords KW Finder found for you.

Allow me to explain.

Since all keywords are basically problems and questions that your readers want answering, what you’d do is take all the questions and long tails KW Finder spits out and turns them into subtopics of your article.

Here’s a proposed article outline (no need to thank me – steal it).

Note– H1, H2 and H3 are heading tags – if you’re confused go here)

• • • (H1) Title – Japanese Green tea- everything you ever wanted to know (and more)
    • Intro (H2) – What is Japanese Green tea? Is it healthy?
    • (H2) -What are the different types of green tea?
    • (H3) – number #1  Japanese tea
    • (H3) – number #2 Japanese tea
    • (H3) – number #3 Japanese tea
    • (H2) – How to prepare Japanese tea so it’s both healthy, AND tasty
    • (H3) – preparation method #1
    • (H3) – preparation method #2
    • (H3) – preparation method #3
    • (H3) – the best method is the one that works the best for you
    • (H2) – Bonus – How to drink Japanese tea if:
    • (H3) – you are overweight
    • (H3) – you have diabetes
    • (H3) – you have high cholesterol
    • (H2) – Conclusion – Japanese green tea (everything you want to know and more – delivered)
    • Post Scriptum – Get up, brew some tea, then come back and share and leave a comment.

This would be a monster article that would cover the whole world of Japanese tea and would naturally include a slew of long tails KW Finder gave you.

This works for you very well because, and this is a secret few know about – one mention in verbatim is all you need.

Gone are the days of keyword stuffing, and also, with the introduction of Google Hummingbird, Google now connects words better so it’s possible to rank for keywords not once mentioned on the page.

And thanks to KW Finder – you can!

(Bonus) – Subscription to Mangools is a four in one deal

Yes, you read that right. When you get your free subscription to KW finder, you also get access to three awesome tools:

• • 1. SERP Checker
    2. Link Miner
    3. Url Profiler

You can access them by clicking on the three dots that come after competing sites metric. Here’s an image to explain it better:

Let’s break them down, shall we?

 1. Serp Analyzer – Analyze THIS! 🙂

Actually, it’s SERP Checker. But I wanted to make a (clever) joke. If you watched the movie – you got it;

If not – move on.

Even though KW Finder gives you a basic overview of the competition (often quite enough) SERP Checker is a welcome addition. You change search for

Here’s the added data:

• • 1. Keyword Difficulty – Overview of how hard it’ll be to rank
    2. SERP Features Impact – How crowded is the first page of Google (very important – more below)
    3. Number of Results – the total number of competing pages – (pretty irrelevant as your focus is on the first page only)
    4. Top Carousel – a carousel of related entities, if there is one
    5. Adwords Top – shows any Adwords Ads
    6. People also ask – Other questions (hint: keywords) people have
    7. Similar Queries – related searches at the bottom of the page

What I like

SERP Checker is a really nifty addition to the KW Finder.

I mean, if you hadn’t access to it, it wouldn’t be the end of the world, but since you do – super.

The crucial feature here is the ability to do a live preview of the way the SERP’s look in the present.

This is important because Google has started to change the way search looks and feels.

Where once there were just 10 blue links, now we have featured snippets,  carousels, people also ask, ads, and again ads, rich snippets, etc.

These added features make ranking number one far less lucrative than it once was, and in some cases, obsolete.

That’s why the SERP overview is so important. It can save you the trouble of creating a keyword-optimized article that ranks but brings you little traffic, and no sales.

2. Link Miner – Digging for Gold Ten Miles Deep

“I dug for gold ten miles deep, so it was much harder for anyone else to…”; “To do that, they’d have to out-dig me, and very few people are willing to do that because…”

If you don’t know where these quotes come from, you need to read more of Steve Pavlina, but first things first.

Here’s what Link Miner can do for you right now:

• • 1. Citation Flow Metric, the courtesy of Majestic – link quality or power still matters
    2. Trust Flow – does Google trust the sites and their links?
    3. Referring IP’s – how many different IP’s are there. More is better because it’s a signal of link diversity.
    4. Referring domains – similar to referring IP’s, except that many domains can share the same IP address
    5. Total backlinks – you can figure out what this means
    6. Link Sources – where do the links predominately come from? In content ones are the strongest, and some sources are spammy.

What I like

Link building is at the heart of any successful SEO campaign and more information is always better than less.

So Link Miner is a welcome, free addition to KW finder.

However…

More information is always better, but you know who has the most information about any site’s link profile? Google!  And they don’t share it with us.

And after them?

It’s not Mangools, it’s Moz and Ahrefs. They’re the industry standard for link research.

And Mangools is far behind.

How far?

Well, their link index is 8 trillion links large. That’s a HUGE number… that pales when compared to 30 trillion of Moz, or 35 trillion of Ahrefs

So there’s no comparison.

Using Link Miner alone is a poor choice for link research.

You will only get a sample of true link profiles for any page and you won’t know how to rank your site, because the number of sites to outreach to will be too small.

Remember – links are crucial for high rankings!

Still, Link Miner is good for beginner link builders and for those strapped for cash – because it’s free.

3. Site Profiler

Ah, Site Profiler.

Yes, you don’t need it.

Really, you don’t.

Distractions, uh? It happens, even to the best tools out there

The idea behind it is that you’d look at the strength of the whole domain and its most important metrics.

• • • How many links it has across the board?
    • What’s the anchor text distribution?
    • What are their traffic numbers?
    • What are their unicorn pages and corresponding donkeys?
    • Their Alexa rank?
    • Their competition?

Again – you don’t need that right now.

For two reasons:

Too much analysis leads to action paralysis. And that’s the worst.

When you over-analyze other websites, you tend to find exactly what you expect – that all sites are stronger than yours and that you have no chance whatsoever.

Instead, it is better to plunge ahead with your awesome keyword-targeted content. Once it’s published, and once it ranks well or poorly, you’ll worry about how to get it to the top.

Trust me it’s the mistake I made earlier and it cost me dearly; a few years of wasted effort, and much worse – constant stress, sleepless nights… and nightmares

Second reason

Just like I promised.

I’m doing this analysis with a free KW Finder account.

With it, you get limited data, at least in Site Profiler. I say that because when I scroll I see that most information is “not provided”.

To be fair, it could also be that Mangools simply doesn’t have that data because like I said, their link data is subpar when compared to their competitors.

That’s it for my review of the free version of KW Finder by Mangools.

However, there is one added tool for the paid version of this suite:

SERP Watcher

This is a ranking tracker. Once you have published your posts you can follow their progress in the search engines.

The SERP Watcher tracks the top 100 results, so if your keywords aren’t on the first 10 pages you won’t show up. This is the same as most rank checkers.

Below is the main window of the SERP Watcher and the different columns are self-explanatory.

This gives you more or less all the info you need. Other windows give you more data some of which is a little repetitive:

• • • Dominance index – organic traffic based on the search positions of your tracked keywords, with a maximum score of 100 when all your tracked keywords are #1 in the search engines.
    • Biggest changes – a table that groups the biggest rises and falls in your rankings
    • Estimated visits per month – overall traffic for your domain for all the tracked keywords
    • Keyword position flow – another presentation of search engine position movements
    • Keyword position distribution – a table that gives the number of keyword positions: #1, top 3,  top 10, top 20…

A useful tool that helps to make a very complete product.

Before concluding I want to quickly show you what paid options KWFinder offers, whether you should upgrade and if yes, when?

What Does KW Finder Cost? Pricing Plans, Discounts, Everything

KW Finder offers its free suite of tools to give you a taste, and if you like it, you can choose to purchase it.

They have two models of doing business with you.

• • • You can either choose to pay monthly, month over month as you need it.
    • Or, if you know that you’re in this blogging world long term and that you’ll need to do keyword research daily – you can go yearly. (Yearly subscription gives you a 45% discount).

They also have three different packages, depending on who you are and what your needs are.

Mangools Basic

If you’re a lone blogger, a lone wolf who refuses to work with anyone – then their basic package gives you everything you need, and more. You’ll be able to grow your small affiliate website to be as big as you want it to be.

Click Here to see the Basic Mangools offer.

Price:

• • • Monthly Payment- $49
    • Yearly Payment- $358.80

Mangools Premium

This is perfect for a small team, a nascent agency of up to three people.

Mangools Premium gives you all that the basic version does, but with significant improvements, mainly in the data it shows.

For example, you get 700 keyword suggestions instead of only 200 (free KW Finder-spits out only 50 keywords per search, and you get only five per 24h).

Now you’re thinking “700 keywords, that’s 350% higher than 200, so it must be much, much better, right”?

Well no!

It’s not about how many keywords you have, but what you do with them that counts. Small affiliate sites can prosper with the basic package without ever touching the premium one.

Purchase premium only if your business is growing and expanding

My opinion only…

Price:

• • • Monthly Payment – $69
    • Yearly Payment – $478.80

Click Here to see what’s included in Mangools Premium.

Mangools Agency

Then there’s the agency package. Not much to say here. Everything that Mangools offers, full-blown. The biggest benefit is that you get 10 simultaneous logins. It means that 10 people can log in at once and each can work on their own projects.

If you run an agency and are looking for a reliable keyword tool, with other helpful metrics, then Mangools Agency is the route to take.

Price:

• • • Monthly Payment- $129
    • Yearly Payment- $958.80

Conclusion – KW Finder, is it the right choice for YOU?

I’m asking you, but don’t answer me.

Say it to yourself.

Ask:

“Am I serious about this blogging thing? Do I intend to just play around, or do I want to really make an honest effort, and hold on until success comes? Because I know it won’t fall from the sky, at least not right away.

Am I truly ready to commit”?

If your answer is YES, then I’m free to tell you:

Yes – this keyword toolset by Mangools can become the best investment you’ve made in your life.

It can:

• • • help you find great and easy keywords
    • teach you how to scout out weak competition
    • be your introduction to the wonderful, exciting world of link building and earning
    • help you make your first dollar online

And you know the old saying, well there’re two of those:

The first $ is the hardest;

and,

whoever can earn $1 online, can also earn a million.

One last thing:

I just pushed you to sign up for Mangools, but I strongly advise you to start with the free version we reviewed above.

Remember it’s:

• • • free
    • fast
    • efficient
    • yours to keep
    • and it’s HERE

Or enter a keyword in the box below and see what KWFinder comes up with!

Let us know in the comments below if you have tried KW Finder or is there another keyword tool you recommend.