How to Check a Keyword's Search Volume for Free

Whether anyone searches for what you sell is a question you can answer in minutes, because several sources publish a phrase's monthly search volume at no cost. A tailor in Accra wondering if brides look for kente wedding gowns can check search volume for free before she spends an evening writing the page. The figure she gets is an estimate of how many times people type the phrase into Google in an average month, in one country, rounded and averaged across the year. It will never tell her everything, but it separates the phrases customers really use from the ones that exist only in an owner's head. Each source has its own strengths and blind spots, from dedicated checkers to Google's own suggestions and the reports in Search Console. The clearest picture comes from combining two or three of them and reading every figure with a little scepticism. Do that each time you plan a new page and your writing hours go to subjects people genuinely look for.

This article is part of our complete guide: Keyword Difficulty.

Start with a checker that shows the number directly

The quickest route is our free keyword difficulty checker, which shows a phrase's monthly searches, how hard it is to reach the first page and the related searches people type, for any of 40 countries. Type the phrase the way a customer would type it, choose the country where your customers live, and read the monthly figure first. Then read down the related searches, because they often reveal a better wording or a more specific need than the one you started with. The tailor might type "kente wedding dress" and find related phrases about kente styles for engagement ceremonies, which points to a second page worth writing. Each check takes seconds, so test every phrase on your list rather than only the two you feel surest about. The phrases you were least confident about sometimes turn out to be the ones people use most.

The country setting matters more than most owners expect, because the same need is described in different words in different places. A pharmacy owner in Nairobi may find more people searching for a chemist than for a pharmacy, since that is the word many Kenyans use in everyday speech. Spelling varies too, so a jeweller in Mumbai should test both jewellery and jewelry, because both appear in searches made in India. Set the country to where your customers are, which is not always where you are. A safari guide based in Arusha who sells mostly to travellers from Britain and the United States should check his phrases for those two countries, not for Tanzania. Getting this one setting right can change your whole list.

Free clues from Google itself

Google's own search box is a source of evidence in its own right, even though it never shows a number. Start typing a phrase and the suggestions that drop down are searches other people make often enough for Google to offer them. Use a private browser window so your own history does not colour the suggestions, and try adding a single letter after your phrase to see a fresh set. Run the search and you will usually find a box of questions people also ask, and a list of related searches at the bottom of the page. None of these come with figures, but every one of them is a phrase real people type. Use them to confirm that a wording exists and to find variations, then take the promising ones back to the checker for a number.

Google Trends adds a different kind of information: how interest in a phrase changes over time. It does not show search counts, only a relative line on a scale where the busiest point in your chosen period scores 100 and everything else is measured against it. That makes it ideal for comparing two wordings side by side and for spotting seasons. A school uniform supplier in Johannesburg would see interest climb towards January, when the South African school year starts, and could plan pages and adverts for the weeks before that rise. You can narrow Trends to a country and often to a region within it. It needs a fair amount of searching before it shows anything, so very specific or local phrases often come back empty, which is a sign of low volume rather than none.

The third Google source is Keyword Planner, which sits inside Google Ads. You will need to set up a Google Ads account to reach it, although you do not have to run an advert to use the planner. Type in a few phrases or the address of a similar business and it returns a list of related searches with figures for each. If your account is not spending money on adverts, those figures often appear as broad ranges rather than exact numbers. A range still tells you the order of size, which is frequently all you need to choose between a phrase searched a handful of times and one searched by thousands. The planner also lets you set a location as small as a city, which helps local businesses see their own patch.

Your own figures in Search Console

Once your site is live and verified in Google Search Console, you gain a source that no estimate can match: real figures from Google about your own pages. The Performance report lists the searches your pages appeared for, how many times they appeared, how many people clicked and your average position. Those appearances are called impressions, and for a phrase where you sit on the first page they come close to showing how often that phrase was searched by the people Google showed you to. It is not a full count, because you only score an impression when your page is shown. It is, however, measured rather than estimated, which makes it the most trustworthy number you will see. It only covers phrases your site already appears for, so it complements the other sources rather than replacing them.

Set the date range to the last three months, add a country filter if you serve more than one, and sort the queries by impressions. Look for phrases you never deliberately targeted that still show a healthy number of impressions with few clicks. A phone repair shop in Kampala might discover that a particular screen replacement phrase appears often, even though its site only mentions screens in passing. That is a strong signal to write a proper page for it, or to improve the title of the page already showing. Search Console also shows which phrases are growing, because you can compare one period with another. Checking it once a month gives you a free, steadily improving view of what your customers type.

Reading the figures without fooling yourself

Every volume figure is an average, and averages hide shape. A phrase about Christmas hampers might show a respectable monthly number that is really one huge month and eleven quiet ones. Before you plan around a figure, look at the same phrase in Trends to see whether its demand is steady or seasonal. Remember too that figures are rounded and estimated, so two sources will rarely agree exactly. Compare phrases within one source rather than mixing numbers from different places. What matters is which phrase is bigger and by roughly how much, not whether a figure is precisely right.

Small numbers are normal for small businesses, and they are not a reason to give up on a phrase. A search for a particular service in a particular neighbourhood may only happen a few dozen times a month, but almost everyone typing it is a potential customer. Several related phrases with small numbers often add up to a meaningful amount of interest, and one good page can catch all of them. When a source shows zero or no data, it often means too few searches to report reliably, not that nobody ever searches. Treat those phrases as unproven rather than dead, and let Search Console tell you the truth once your page has been live for a while. Many owners find their most valuable phrases in exactly this quiet corner.

Finally, remember that volume is demand, not visitors and not sales. Even a page in the top position only collects a share of the clicks, and the people searching may want something different from what you offer. Before you commit to a phrase, search it and look at the kinds of pages Google shows, because they reveal what Google believes the searcher wants. If the results are shops and service pages, the searchers are likely buyers, and if they are guides and videos, the searchers are likely learning. How hard the phrase will be to rank for is a separate question, and it deserves its own look before you write. Volume is the starting point of the decision, never the whole of it.

A simple routine to check search volume for free

Put the sources together and you have a routine that takes about twenty minutes for a list of a dozen phrases. Begin by gathering phrases from real customers rather than from your own head: the questions in your inbox, the words people use on the phone and the way they describe their problem in messages on WhatsApp or Facebook. Write down ten to fifteen of them exactly as customers say them. Run each one through the checker for the right country and note its monthly searches and the most useful related searches. Add any related phrases that describe a service you offer. By the end of this step, your short list will usually have grown and changed shape.

Next, take your strongest candidates to Google itself. Type each one into the search box and note which wordings the suggestions favour, then compare the top two or three wordings in Trends to check their timing and relative size. Search each finalist and glance at the first page to see what kind of pages appear. Record what you find in a simple spreadsheet with columns for the phrase, its monthly searches, its season, the type of results and the page you plan to write. That record will be your guide for the next few months of writing. It also gives you something to compare against later.

Two or three months after a page goes live, open Search Console and compare its impressions with the estimate you started from. Sometimes the real figures are higher, often for phrases you had not expected, and sometimes they are lower. Either way you learn how far to trust each source for your trade and your area, and your future estimates improve. The checker you used at the start is one of our AI SEO Tools, which also include a website SEO checker, a domain name finder and planners for your online and social media marketing. Each of them can be used without paying, and they work well alongside the Google sources described here. Together they give a small business owner the same basic evidence a marketing agency would gather.

So there is no need to pay simply to learn whether people search for what you sell. Use a checker for the figure, use Google's suggestions and Trends for wording and timing, and use Search Console for the truth about your own pages once they are live. Read every number as an estimate, compare within one source, and value small, specific phrases that come from buyers. The tailor in Accra can now write her kente page knowing which words brides use and when they start looking. You can do the same for your own trade this week, starting with the phrases your customers have already said to you. Then write the page, and let the real figures that follow show you what to write next.