You can use google's keyword tool to research the search volume of keywords:
https://adwords.google.com/o/KeywordTool
You can use Open Site Explorer to check the backlinks of a competitor's website:
http://http://www.opensiteexplorer.org/ (You are limited to checking 5 sites a day)
Some free software you can use for research is: Traffic Travis, Serp Attacks, and Market Samurai. Market Samurai pulls info from bing, but I like to use it to generate long tail keywords.