Are you struggling to rank for keywords and don’t show up in the SERPs (search engine ranking positions) for relevant blog topics and keywords?
This is a problem many people encounter when they start creating blog content. Conversely, if your content did appear in the SERPs, you would likely generate more clicks, web traffic, and leads, whether email sign-ups, purchases, or other conversions.
Have you tried low competition keywords?
These keywords are a breath of fresh air, much easier to rank for, and, when done correctly, can generate meaningful traffic results for your website. This article will show you how to find low competition keywords using a mix of keyword research tools and unconventional methods.
What you will learn
- What low competition keywords are and why you should target them
- How to find low competition keywords
- How to evaluate keywords to get the most out of your content strategy
What are low competition keywords?
Low competition keywords are keywords that are easier to rank for for new websites and small businesses. They have a low keyword difficulty (KD) and often less search volume than more competitive keywords.
But this means fewer people use them in their content strategy so there’s less competition.
For example, the below image shows several keywords that are relatively easy to rank for and contain low competition.
Why are low difficulty keywords important?
Low difficulty keywords, although the traffic potential is often lower, are very beneficial to drive relevant traffic, especially for beginners, such as those with new websites or small businesses.
The lower search volume often means your competitors are less likely to target these keywords in their content. This is what makes these keywords lucrative—there’s less competition.
Websites with a higher domain authority (this is determined by the number of backlinks to their website) can rank for more difficult keywords more easily.
This is why if you’ve ever tried to rank for a high volume, difficult to rank for keyword, you didn’t appear on the first page—you’re competing against websites with much higher domain authority.
It's important to look at a holistic picture to choose the best keyword for your individual website.
7 ways to find low competition keywords
Okay, now that you know what low competition keywords are, it’s time to find the low-hanging fruit to help you start ranking in the search engines for relevant keywords with business potential.
1. Use a keyword research tool
You can use numerous keyword research tools to discover low competition keywords, including Surfer's keyword research tool for topical maps.
Enter a relevant keyword or phrase, and the tool generates numerous keyword clusters for various blog topics.
The tool displays the overall difficulty of your main keyword and the difficulty of all keywords in a given cluster.
When choosing a keyword, look for a low keyword difficulty and a low-to-medium monthly search volume. These are typically the easiest keywords to target (I cover this in more detail later in this article with real examples).
2. Analyze Google’s SERP features
Google has several useful SERP (search engine ranking positions) features to help you find relevant low competition keywords.
In particular, Google Autocomplete can help you find long-tail keyword suggestions, which often contain less competition than other keywords.
Search a relevant keyword or phrase in Google to find low competition keywords using Autocomplete. For instance, I can use the keyword, “long run distance.”
When I search this keyword in Google, it suggests other keywords and topics. These are keywords and queries that other people are actively searching for.
Take note of all relevant keywords—these can either form an article or be included in a topic cluster to help you drive more traffic to a particular article.
You can also use the “People also ask” section, found on the first page of Google. The questions shown are also queries people are searching for and contain potential keyphrases to add to your keyword research.
When you click on a question from this section, it shows more relevant questions related to the question you clicked.
This can be useful for finding more keywords and possible low competition topics.
Finally, scroll down to the bottom of the search results and find related searches. Again, this may include low competition keywords and topics to add to your topical map.
When doing keyword research, you will likely go down a rabbit hole. That’s okay!
This will help you identify low competition keywords.
3. Target emerging topics
Often, emerging topics are a low competition keyword gold mine.
This is because emerging topics do not have existing competition, and nobody is established on the topic. AI and space travel are examples of emerging topics.
It's a good idea to prioritize these keywords while the verdict is still out on who the subject authority is. This way, you can earn these vacant spots in the eyes of search engines.
New details are appearing on both topics, which were previously not covered because they did not exist.
Despite this, it can be more difficult to find keywords on emerging topics as very few keyword and competitor data are available.
Instead, it’s more a case of finding emerging topics rather than finding the “right” keywords to include in your content.
To find new keywords, look at common themes trending on Reddit and X. LinkedIn is also a good source because you'll find that all influencers are posting about the same ideas.
For wider research, use content research tools like Google Trends.
4. Cover trending content
Writing trending content and topics is an excellent way to drive traffic to your website.
It can help you land on Google News or Discover.
For example, the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift just revealed the route for this year’s event. Cycling News wrote an article about it, which is featured on Google News.
In this example, people who are interested in cycling are likely to be shown this content.
The article will also be available for people in “Google Discover,” which pushes relevant content to people based on their interests.
5. Use TikTok’s “Others Searched For” tab
TikTok’s “Others Searched For” tab is a hidden gem for finding low competition keywords.
Many people forget that social media apps are also search engines—they can be very useful for finding keywords (as long as you don’t end up doom-scrolling).
To start:
- Search a relevant term or keyword in the TikTok search bar
- Scroll down to the “Others Searched For” tab
- Select relevant keywords
You can repeat this process with the keywords you discovered using the “Others Searched For” method to find even more keywords.
This keyword research method is similar to the “People also search for” section on Google.
However, discovering keywords this way usually contains lower competition as the data is directly from TikTok’s data and is typically not targeted by other creators.
Once you have a list of possible search terms, enter these into a keyword tool like Keyword Surfer to verify their search volumes (i.e., make sure they have enough volume and a low enough keyword difficulty to generate meaningful results).
See the image below for an example using the desktop version of TikTok.
6. Use Forums and Niche Communities
Forums and niche community sites, such as Reddit and Quora, are useful for finding valuable questions and trending topics in a given niche.
For example, let’s say you're in the running niche.
You can find relevant subreddits, such as “r/running” or “r/firstmarathon.”
You can then browse posts on the subreddits to find topics to cover. You can filter by “hot” or “new” to potentially discover trending topics, which you can write about to potentially be featured on Google News or Discover.
You can also perform a custom Google search using search modifiers to find relevant questions. Search modifiers include terms such as:
- How
- What
- Where
- When
To perform a custom Google search, use the term, site: “site name” / “keyword”.
For example, if we use the subreddit “r/firstmarathon,” a custom search would be like this. You can use the above search modifiers to find more questions and topics.
Repeat the same steps above for other relevant sub-topics and similar sites, such as Quora.
You can use your results as keywords and topic ideas. You can also enter these into your favorite keyword research tool for more details on keyword difficulty and monthly search volumes.
However, sometimes, these tools will not show data for these keywords or topics.
Don’t let that discourage you! If anything, that means there will be even less competition for these keywords and topic ideas.
7. Research your organic competitors
You can also use your favorite keyword research tool to research your organic competitors and discover low competition keywords.
Typically, this involves entering your competitor’s URL into a keyword research tool and filtering to find low difficulty keywords.
Tools like Surfer also allow you to sort and categorize keyword data using filters such as search volume, website authority, and keyword difficulty.
Often, you can discover low-hanging fruit opportunities where your competitors rank for keywords without necessarily targeting them. This may indicate low competition and be useful for finding low-hanging fruit.
If you don’t know your competitors, you can enter a URL into Surfer and see who is ranking for similar keywords—there’s a good chance these are your competitors (minus big publications, such as Forbes or the Harvard Business Review, for example).
Researching your competitors is an excellent way to develop your broader SEO strategy.
How to evaluate low competition keywords
Once you’ve completed the above steps, you hopefully have an initial keyword list of potential low competition keywords.
However, you should evaluate your keywords before using them to help you get the most out of your content strategy (i.e., not wasting resources targeting the wrong keywords).
Therefore, I explain three criteria for evaluating and selecting the best low competition keywords below.
1. Keyword difficulty
The best way to see whether a keyword is worth targeting is the difficulty of ranking the given keyword. Low competition keywords mostly include a low keyword difficulty (KD)—for a tool such as Surfer, anything below 20 or 30 is generally considered low competition.
You can target keywords towards the higher end of the difficulty indicator. However, these will be more difficult to rank for, especially if you’re a small business or are just starting with your website.
2. Search volume
Low difficulty keywords indicate low competition.
If there are no monthly search volumes for your keywords, they may be a waste of resources to target.
Often, KD monthly search volumes of less than 1,000 are low enough that fewer websites and publications will target them, but high enough to generate traffic, especially when combined with other, similar keywords.
It’s also worth noting that the estimated traffic from various keywords is often higher than expected. Why?
This is because the keywords are low competition and have not yet been crawled sufficiently. Likewise, you will also rank for relevant keywords without necessarily targeting them, often generating more traffic to your article or webpage.
The image below shows the estimated monthly search volume for several keywords generated using the Surfer, which generates primary and secondary keywords to include in your article.
Once you find keywords with traffic potential, it’s a good idea to use a tool such as Google Trends to ensure the chosen keywords have consistent interest over time rather than being seasonal.
To show a very basic example, Christmas gifts are seasonal—they are popular for a couple of months of the year and irrelevant for the remaining ten months.
See the graph below for an illustrative example.
Your keyword should have consistent interest throughout the year (unless you’re specifically creating Christmas or holiday content, which is another story entirely).
3. SERP Analysis
Finally, there’s SERP Analysis—where you get your hands dirty and physically analyze the top results to gauge competitiveness.
Search your chosen keywords on Google, and look for:
- Poor quality content
- Low domain authority
- Outdated information
- A poor page experience
You should also analyze the search intent of your primary keywords to ensure they match the intended search intent (this is the “why” behind the search).
If SERP analysis is skipped, you can miss out on easy to rank for keywords or may target the wrong search intent, which is a waste of resources.
3 examples of low difficulty keywords
I’ve selected various keywords from multiple niches using Surfer to further show you how to identify low difficulty keywords.
1. Poker cash games
The keyword difficulty is located at the top right and scores a keyword difficulty of 7. This is relatively easy to rank for but contains enough total traffic (787) to justify targeting in your content.
2. Events for small businesses
The keyword difficulty for the above keyword is 27.
This is towards the higher end of the recommended bracket for low competition (less than 20 to 30) but is still doable. Again, the total traffic and monthly search volumes are high enough to justify writing.
3. Webinars for small businesses
Finally, we have an example where the keyword difficulty for the chosen keyword is 30.
This is within the upper limit of what I consider a low-difficulty keyword. Despite this, the keyword difficulty for some of the secondary keywords is as high as 36 and 41.
The total traffic and monthly search volumes are also much lower, so I’d avoid choosing this keyword unless it makes up part of a content cluster and you have the resources to dedicate to it.
Key takeaways
- Low competition keywords are typically easier to rank for but contain lower search volumes
- You can target several low competition keywords to generate meaningful traffic
- Low difficulty keywords are great for small businesses and new websites
- Use a keyword research tool to discover new keywords (you may need to filter accordingly)
- Use Google’s SERP features to verify search intent and find new keyword ideas
- Target emerging content (if relevant)—there is less competition, so content is easier to rank
- Cover trending content for a chance of featuring in Google News or Discover
- Use TikTok’s “Other’s searched for” tab to discover untapped low competition keywords
- Use a custom Google search with Reddit and Quora to discover popular topics and low difficulty keywords
- Run a competitor analysis and discover who ranks for similar keywords
- Evaluate your keywords based on difficulty, search volume, and SERP analysis
- Choose keywords with a keyword difficulty of less than 30 and a low-medium search volume
