Is there a free Reddit keyword research tool?

Reddit's built-in search is free but shallow. Google's site:reddit.com operator is free and deeper. For founders who want one-click keyword expansion plus intent scoring, Gorilla runs a free first search and charges $0.99 for follow-up runs. That's still cheaper than any paid tool in the category.

How do I do Reddit SEO research?

Reddit SEO research means finding the threads that already rank on Google for your keywords, then understanding why. Search 'your keyword reddit' on Google, open the top 5 threads, and note the title patterns, the upvoted comments, and the subreddits hosting them. Those patterns tell you what Google rewards on Reddit, which is also a decent proxy for what humans want to read.

How does Reddit's search work?

Reddit's search is keyword-matched, not semantic. It looks at exact words in titles and bodies, then ranks by relevance, recency or upvotes depending on your sort. It misses synonyms and related phrasings, which is why Google's site:reddit.com often beats it for research. Gorilla works around that limitation by generating 20+ phrasings of the same intent and running them in parallel.

What keywords should I target on Reddit?

Target intent-loaded phrases, not topic words. 'Project management' is a topic. 'Looking for a project management tool that doesn't suck' is intent. The second one finds buyers. Gorilla scores every match against a list of intent phrases so the highest-ranked posts are the ones with active demand, not just topic relevance.

Reddit keyword research

Reddit keyword research for solo founders.

Q: How to do Reddit keyword research?

Start with the phrase your buyer would type when frustrated. Run it on Reddit's own search and on Google with site:reddit.com. Sort by Top and All Time to surface evergreen demand. Open the threads, harvest the recurring nouns and verbs, then expand each phrase with intent modifiers like 'looking for', 'tired of', 'alternative to', 'wish there was'. The keywords that show up across multiple subreddits are the ones worth targeting.

Reddit keyword research is how you find the exact phrasing your buyers use when they're complaining at 11pm. Get the phrasing right and you find the threads, the subreddits and the people. Get it wrong and you get topic noise. Here's the free way to do it, and how Gorilla automates the whole thing.

What is Reddit keyword research?

Reddit keyword research is the practice of finding the words and phrases your audience uses on Reddit when they describe problems, ask for tools, or compare alternatives. It's keyword research with a twist. Google keyword research surfaces what people search for. Reddit keyword research surfaces what people say when they're frustrated, asking peers, or recommending a fix. The output is different, and so is the use. You're not optimizing for a search engine. You're hunting for the language that signals real demand inside a community. The good keywords aren't generic topic words like "project management" or "AI writing tool." The good ones carry intent. "Tired of," "looking for," "alternative to," "wish there was a tool that." Those phrases find buyers, not browsers. Reddit is unusually rich for this because the format rewards long, raw, first-person posts. People say what they want in their own words, then strangers reply with brand names. That's a goldmine if you know how to mine it.

How to do Reddit keyword research without paid tools

You don't need a $99/month subscription to do this well. You need a browser and an hour. Here's the workflow.

1. Start with a seed phrase. Pick the exact thing your buyer would type when frustrated. Not "CRM software." Try "HubSpot too expensive" or "simple CRM for solo founders." The closer to natural speech, the better.

2. Run it through Google with site:reddit.com. Type site:reddit.com "looking for a CRM" and you get every Reddit thread where someone asked that exact thing. Google's index of Reddit is deeper than Reddit's own search. Sort by date if you want fresh demand. Drop the date filter for evergreen keywords.

3. Sort by Top, All Time inside Reddit. Once you find a relevant subreddit, switch to its search tab, type your seed phrase, and sort by Top. The posts that ranked over years are the ones with the cleanest language. Read the titles. Steal the wording.

4. Scrape the sidebars and wikis. Most active subreddits keep a sidebar with recommended tools, FAQs, and pinned megathreads. r/SaaS, r/Entrepreneur, r/marketing all have these. The sidebar is a curated list of keywords your audience already trusts.

5. Expand each seed with intent modifiers. Take "CRM" and run it through these patterns: "looking for a CRM," "tired of [competitor]," "alternative to [competitor]," "wish there was a CRM that," "best CRM for [niche]." Each pattern catches a different buyer mood. You'll end up with 15 to 25 variants per seed.

6. Track which variants return the most posts. Open a spreadsheet. Log each keyword, the subreddits it surfaces, and the rough post count. The keywords with high post counts across multiple subs are your money phrases. Those are what you target with content, outreach or ads.

How Gorilla automates this

The manual workflow above takes an hour per idea. Gorilla collapses it to about ninety seconds. Paste your idea in plain English. Gorilla uses AI to expand it into 20+ keyword variants pre-loaded with intent modifiers, then runs each variant across Reddit, X, TikTok and YouTube in parallel. Every match gets an intent score from 0 to 100. The high scorers go to the top. The topic-only matches get filtered out.

The wedge is that Gorilla doesn't just stop at Reddit. Reddit is the loudest signal, but your buyers also vent on X, ask creators on TikTok, and watch comparison videos on YouTube. Multi-platform keyword research used to mean four separate tools and a lot of tab switching. Gorilla runs the same expanded keyword set across all four platforms in a single pass. That's the unlock for solo founders who don't have time to learn four research workflows.

You can also see what other people built with their runs on find users by niche. Plug your idea in and the output is a ranked list of posts, not a list of keywords. The keywords are the means. The posts are the ends.

Live example: 7 keyword variants Gorilla generates

Seed idea: a tool for solo founders to find first users.

"how do I find my first users". wide net, hits r/SaaS, r/Entrepreneur, r/SideProject. Lots of advice threads.
"looking for a tool to find early users". direct buying intent. Fewer matches, much higher conversion.
"tired of cold outreach for first users". pain-driven. Surfaces frustration posts where people are open to alternatives.
"alternative to GummySearch". competitor displacement. Tiny volume, high intent.
"wish there was a tool that finds Reddit leads automatically". feature request language. Ideal for product validation.
"best way to find first 100 users for a SaaS". long-tail and evergreen. Strong for SEO and outreach.
"how to validate a SaaS idea on Reddit". adjacent intent. Catches buyers earlier in the funnel.

Each one finds a slightly different buyer. The point isn't to pick one. The point is to run all seven, then let intent scoring tell you which ones are firing this week.

Tools comparison

Reddit's own search. Free, fast, but keyword-matched and shallow. Misses synonyms. Good for a first pass inside a known subreddit.

Google site:reddit.com. Free and deeper than Reddit's index. Best free option for one-off research. Slow if you need to run many keywords.

GummySearch. Paid, $29 to $79 per month. Solid for power users who live in Reddit. Built around saved searches and alerts. See Gorilla vs GummySearch for the breakdown.

RedReach. Paid, focused on outreach more than research. See Gorilla vs RedReach.

Gorilla. First run free, $0.99 per run after that. Multi-platform by default. Built for solo founders who want a ranked list of posts, not a keyword spreadsheet.

Run Gorilla on your idea and get 20+ Reddit keyword variants scored by intent.

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