If you have ever published a blog post and watched it sit on page seven of Google for months, the problem usually isn’t your writing. It’s your keyword choice. Most beginners chase the same broad, high-volume terms that huge, authoritative websites have already dominated for years. The smarter path — especially for new or small websites — is to build your traffic around low competition keywords instead.
Low competition keywords are the quiet workhorses of SEO. They don’t always bring in massive search volume, but they bring in something more valuable early on: rankings you can actually achieve. In this guide, you’ll learn exactly what low competition keywords are, why they matter, and a complete step-by-step process for finding them — using both free and paid tools, plus manual SERP analysis techniques that most guides skip.
What Are Low Competition Keywords?
Low competition keywords are search terms that are easier to rank for because fewer strong websites are actively targeting them. This doesn’t necessarily mean the keyword has low search volume — it means the current top-ranking pages have weak content, thin backlink profiles, low domain authority, or outdated information that a well-optimized page could realistically outrank.
Understanding this distinction matters. Many people assume low competition keywords are simply keywords with a low “Keyword Difficulty” (KD) score inside a tool like Ahrefs or SEMrush. That’s part of the picture, but it’s not the whole story. A keyword can show a low KD score and still be genuinely hard to rank for if the search intent behind it favors big brands, video content, or product listings. True low competition keywords require you to look past the score and actually study the search results page.
Why Low Competition Keywords Matter So Much
If you’re running a new website, a small business blog, or a niche affiliate site, targeting low competition keywords isn’t optional — it’s survival. Here’s why:
1. Faster rankings build momentum. When you rank for low competition keywords, even with modest traffic, you start generating the early signals (clicks, dwell time, backlinks) that Google uses to trust your site more broadly.
2. They compound over time. A site built on dozens of low competition keywords, each ranking in positions 1–5, often outperforms a site with one or two ambitious articles buried on page three.
3. They’re realistic for low domain authority. New sites simply don’t have the backlink profile to compete with established publishers for broad, high-volume terms. Low competition keywords level the playing field.
4. They convert well. Long-tail, low competition keywords often reflect more specific search intent, which usually means visitors are further along in their decision-making process — a huge advantage for lead generation and sales.
If you’re running local service pages, this same logic applies directly to location-based searches. Our guide on keyword research for local businesses walks through how to apply the low competition keyword approach specifically to city and neighborhood-level search terms.
The Metrics That Actually Define Low Competition Keywords
Before you start hunting, you need to know what you’re measuring. Relying on a single Keyword Difficulty number is one of the most common mistakes in keyword research. Instead, evaluate low competition keywords across these five signals together.
1. Keyword Difficulty (KD) Score
Most tools score keywords from 0–100 based on the backlink strength of currently ranking pages. As a rough starting point, anything under 20–30 is generally considered a low competition keyword, but this varies by niche and by the tool you’re using, since each platform calculates it differently.
2. Domain Authority / Domain Rating of Ranking Pages
Open the top 10 results for your target term. If several of them come from small blogs, forums, or low-authority sites rather than major publishers, that’s a strong signal of weak competition worth pursuing.
3. Content Quality of Current Top Rankers
This is the step most people skip. Click into the top five results. Are the articles thin, outdated, poorly formatted, or missing obvious subtopics? If so, you’ve likely found a term where a better-researched, better-structured piece of content can realistically outrank the competition.
4. Search Intent Match
A keyword might look easy on paper but be dominated by video results, shopping ads, or “People Also Ask” boxes that push organic listings down. Always check whether the SERP format actually favors a standard blog post or article before committing.
5. Backlink Gap
Use a backlink checker to see how many referring domains point to the top-ranking pages. If the top result only has a handful of backlinks — or none at all — you’ve found one of those rare, high-value opportunities that can be won with solid on-page optimization alone.
Understanding Search Intent Before You Search
Every query on Google falls into one of four broad intent categories: informational, navigational, commercial, and transactional. This matters more than most beginners realize, because the easiest terms to rank for are rarely the ones with transactional intent — those are exactly the queries big brands and e-commerce giants fight hardest for.
Informational queries (“how does X work,” “what causes Y”) tend to have the weakest competition, since they attract a huge volume of forum posts, outdated blog entries, and half-answered questions rather than dedicated, well-funded landing pages. This is where a large share of genuinely low competition keywords tend to cluster.
Navigational queries (searches for a specific brand or website) aren’t worth targeting unless it’s your own brand name.
Commercial investigation queries (“best X for Y,” “X vs Y”) sit in the middle. Competition varies widely by niche, so these require careful SERP review before committing.
Transactional queries (“buy X,” “X near me”) usually carry the strongest competition because they’re closest to a sale, but local and highly specific versions of these searches can still be surprisingly winnable, especially for small service businesses.
Sorting your keyword list by intent before you even check difficulty scores will save you hours of wasted research, because it lets you focus your manual review on the categories most likely to contain a genuine opportunity.
Step-by-Step: How to Find Low Competition Keywords
Here’s the exact process to follow, from broad idea to a finished list of low competition keywords ready for content creation.
Step 1: Start With Broad Seed Topics
Begin with 5–10 broad topics related to your niche. If you run a plumbing business, your seeds might be “drain cleaning,” “water heater repair,” or “leak detection.” These seeds aren’t keywords you’ll target directly — they’re starting points for uncovering low competition keywords buried underneath them.
Step 2: Expand Into Long-Tail Variations
Long-tail keywords — phrases with four or more words — are where most low competition keywords live. They carry less search volume individually, but there are far more of them, and they’re dramatically easier to rank for. Instead of targeting “drain cleaning,” you might target “how to clean a slow kitchen drain naturally,” which is a much stronger candidate for a low competition keyword.
Tools that help with this expansion include:
- Google Autocomplete (type your seed and see what Google suggests)
- The “People Also Ask” boxes on the search results page
- The “Related Searches” section at the bottom of Google
- AnswerThePublic or similar question-based keyword generators
Step 3: Run Your List Through a Keyword Research Tool
Once you have a long list of long-tail variations, run them through a keyword tool to pull search volume, CPC, and a difficulty score. Popular options include:
- Ahrefs Keywords Explorer — detailed KD scores and click metrics
- SEMrush Keyword Magic Tool — great for filtering by keyword difficulty
- Ubersuggest — a budget-friendly option with a usable difficulty score
- Google Keyword Planner — free, though its “competition” metric reflects ad competition, not organic difficulty
- Google Search Console — shows you keywords you’re already ranking for on page two or three, which are often the easiest low competition keywords to push into the top 10
Filter your list for terms with a low KD score first, but don’t stop there — this is only your shortlist for manual review.
Step 4: Manually Analyze the SERP for Each Candidate
This is the step that separates people who consistently uncover strong opportunities from people who guess and get frustrated. For every keyword that passes the tool-based filter, search it manually and ask:
- Are the top 5 results genuinely helpful, well-structured, and comprehensive?
- Do any of the ranking pages have obvious gaps — missing FAQs, outdated stats, no images, no internal structure?
- Are big brands or high-authority domains occupying most of page one?
- Is the content format (blog post, video, product page) something you can realistically match?
If most of your answers point to weak competition, you’ve confirmed a genuine low competition keyword rather than a false positive from a tool’s algorithm.
Step 5: Check Search Intent Alignment
Even strong low competition keywords are worthless if you can’t match what searchers actually want. If someone searching your term is clearly looking to buy a product, but you’re planning an informational blog post, you’ll struggle to rank no matter how weak the competition looks.
Step 6: Prioritize by Relevance and Business Value
Not every low competition keyword deserves a full article. Rank your final shortlist by how closely each term aligns with your products, services, or expertise, and how likely it is to bring in visitors who convert — not just visitors who bounce.
Step 7: Build Topic Clusters Around Your Winners
Rather than publishing isolated posts, group related easy-to-rank terms into clusters around a central “pillar” page. This structure signals topical authority to Google and lets you interlink supporting articles naturally, which strengthens rankings across the entire cluster.
Free vs Paid Tools for Finding Low Competition Keywords
You don’t need an expensive subscription to start finding low competition keywords, though paid tools do speed up the process considerably.
Free options:
- Google Search Console (best for finding “almost ranking” opportunities)
- Google Trends (validates whether interest is rising or falling)
- Google Autocomplete and “People Also Ask”
- Ubersuggest’s limited free searches
Paid options:
- Ahrefs (industry standard for KD scoring and backlink gap analysis)
- SEMrush (strong for competitive and content-gap research)
- Moz Keyword Explorer (uses a “Priority Score” that blends volume and difficulty)
- KWFinder (built specifically around surfacing these opportunities with visual SERP breakdowns)
Whichever tool you use, remember that the software is only a filter — the manual SERP review in Step 4 above is what actually confirms whether you’ve found true low competition keywords or just keywords with an artificially low score.
Where to Look for Hidden Low Competition Keywords
Beyond the standard tools, a few underused sources consistently surface excellent low competition keywords:
Competitor content gaps. Use a content-gap tool to see which keywords your competitors rank for that you don’t. Cross-reference this list against difficulty scores to spot terms they’ve accidentally left weakly optimized.
Your own Search Console data. Filter for queries where your site ranks between positions 8 and 20. These are often near-miss low competition keywords — a bit of on-page optimization and a stronger internal linking structure (see our guide to on-page SEO) can push them onto page one.
Forums and community questions. Reddit threads, Quora questions, and niche forums reveal the exact phrasing real people use — phrasing that’s often too specific for big publishers to bother targeting, making it fertile ground for easy wins.
Question-based searches. Adding “how,” “why,” “best way to,” or “vs” to your seed keywords frequently uncovers low competition keywords with strong informational intent and lower commercial competition.
Local and industry-specific modifiers. Adding a city name, an industry term, or a specific use case narrows a broad keyword into a far more winnable low competition keyword. This is exactly the tactic covered in our local SEO guide for small businesses.
How to Optimize Content Around Low Competition Keywords
Finding low competition keywords is only half the job. You still need to build content that actually earns the ranking. A few best practices:
Match search intent precisely. Structure your page exactly the way top-performing content for that term is structured — same intent, better execution.
Cover the topic more completely than competitors. Since you already reviewed the weaknesses of ranking pages in Step 4, fill those exact gaps: missing sections, outdated data, unanswered sub-questions.
Use the keyword naturally, not mechanically. Work your target low competition keywords into the title, the first 100 words, a subheading or two, and the meta description — but always prioritize readability over repetition.
Strengthen technical fundamentals. Even the best content targeting an easy term can underperform if your site loads slowly or has crawl issues. Review our technical SEO checklist to rule out these hidden blockers.
Build a light internal linking structure. Link your new page to and from related articles on your site. This distributes authority and helps Google understand how the page fits into your broader topic cluster.
Earn a handful of quality backlinks. Even pages targeting easy-to-rank phrases benefit from a few relevant links. Our guides on link building and link building techniques cover outreach methods that work well for smaller sites.
Track performance in Search Console. After publishing, monitor impressions and average position for your target terms using Google Search Console, and adjust the content if it stalls outside the top 10.
A Simple Difficulty Scoring Reference
Since every tool calculates its difficulty score a little differently, it helps to have a rough mental benchmark you can apply across platforms, regardless of which one you’re using:
| KD Score Range | General Interpretation | Typical Site Readiness |
|---|---|---|
| 0–14 | Very easy to rank | Brand-new sites with almost no backlinks |
| 15–29 | Easy to moderate | Sites with a handful of published pages |
| 30–49 | Moderate | Sites with some established authority |
| 50–69 | Competitive | Sites with a solid backlink profile |
| 70–100 | Highly competitive | Established, authoritative domains |
Use this table as a starting filter, not a final answer. A term scoring 25 in one tool might behave more like a 40 once you account for the SERP features and ranking-page quality discussed earlier. Treat every number as a hypothesis to confirm, not a guarantee.
Building a Keyword Tracking System
Once you’ve assembled a working list, don’t let it sit in a spreadsheet untouched. Set up a simple tracking system with these columns: target phrase, monthly search volume, KD score, current ranking position (if any), publish date, and last-reviewed date. Revisit this sheet every 60–90 days.
This habit does two things. First, it shows you which pages are climbing toward page one and might benefit from a quick refresh — adding a missing section, updating a statistic, or acquiring one more relevant backlink. Second, it flags pages that have stalled, which often means the initial competition assessment was too optimistic or a new competitor has since entered the SERP. Treating your keyword list as a living document, rather than a one-time research project, is what separates sites that keep growing from sites that plateau after the first few wins.
Common Mistakes When Targeting Low Competition Keywords
Even experienced marketers fall into these traps when hunting for these terms:
1. Trusting the KD score blindly. A low score doesn’t guarantee a term is actually easy to rank for — always verify manually.
2. Ignoring search volume entirely. Some of these terms have essentially zero search volume. Balance difficulty against realistic traffic potential.
3. Picking keywords with no business relevance. Ranking for an easy term that has nothing to do with your product or service wastes effort. Relevance should always outweigh raw ease when selecting a target phrase.
4. Publishing thin content anyway. Ironically, many people find a genuinely winnable term and then publish rushed, shallow articles — handing the opportunity right back to competitors.
5. Forgetting to update over time. Competition shifts. A phrase that was easy to rank for six months ago may attract new competitors today, so periodic re-checking matters.
6. Neglecting internal linking. Isolated pages rarely perform as well as pages woven into a well-linked cluster of related content.
7. Stopping at one keyword per page. A single well-optimized article can often absorb several closely related, easy-to-rank phrases at once, so don’t waste separate pages on near-duplicate terms.
A Practical Example
Imagine you run a small site about home coffee brewing. “Coffee” is impossible to rank for — it’s dominated by massive publishers. But after running seed expansion and SERP analysis, you find “best water temperature for pour over coffee at high altitude” ranks with forum posts and a single thin blog post in the top five. Search volume is modest, but the intent is crystal clear, and the top competitors are weak. That’s a textbook low competition keyword: specific, winnable, and directly relevant to your niche. Publish a genuinely thorough, well-structured article targeting it, support it with a few internal links from related brewing guides, and you have a realistic shot at page one within weeks rather than months.
This same pattern — narrow the topic, check the SERP, exploit the content gap — is exactly how successful small sites accumulate dozens of these opportunities that add up to substantial organic traffic over time. For a broader refresher on how search engines evaluate pages in the first place, the guide on what is SEO is a useful primer, and their technical SEO checklist pairs well with the on-page work described above.
Notice what made this example work: the searcher’s problem was narrow and specific, the existing answers online were incomplete, and the site owner was willing to write a genuinely thorough response instead of a quick 300-word summary. That combination — specificity, a real content gap, and a commitment to doing the topic justice — repeats itself across almost every niche, from home improvement to software tutorials to local services. The tools simply help you find the candidates faster; the manual judgment is what turns a candidate into an actual ranking.
It’s also worth noting how this single win can snowball. Once that pour-over coffee article starts ranking and pulling in steady visitors, it becomes a natural hub for internal links to other brewing guides, gear reviews, or troubleshooting posts on the same site. Each new article strengthens the last, and within a few months a handful of scattered wins can turn into a genuinely authoritative cluster on a specific sub-topic — exactly the kind of foundation that makes it easier to compete for slightly harder terms down the road.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many low competition keywords should a new website target first? Start with 10–20 well-researched low competition keywords rather than one or two. This spreads risk and builds topical breadth faster.
Do low competition keywords always have low search volume? Not always, but frequently. The best of these terms balance a reasonable amount of search volume with genuinely weak SERP competition.
How long does it take to rank for a low competition keyword? It varies, but many low competition keywords can rank within 4–12 weeks on a site with reasonable technical health and at least some existing authority.
Can I find low competition keywords without paid tools? Yes. Google Search Console, Autocomplete, and manual SERP review can uncover strong opportunities entirely free — it just takes more manual effort.
Should I ignore high-competition keywords completely? No. Use low competition keywords to build initial traffic and authority, then gradually target more competitive terms as your site’s domain strength grows.
Is it better to target one term per page or several at once? A single well-structured page can usually rank for one primary phrase plus several closely related variations, as long as the content thoroughly answers the underlying question. Splitting near-duplicate terms across separate thin pages tends to dilute authority rather than build it, so consolidate wherever the search intent genuinely overlaps.
Final Thoughts
Building an SEO strategy around low competition keywords isn’t a shortcut — it’s simply a smarter sequence. Instead of competing head-on with established sites for the biggest, hardest terms, you build momentum with achievable rankings first, then use that accumulated authority to go after more competitive territory later. The process described here — seed expansion, tool-based filtering, and manual SERP verification — will consistently surface low competition keywords that a focused content strategy can actually win. Combine it with solid on-page optimization, a sensible internal linking structure, and a handful of quality backlinks, and low competition keywords become one of the most reliable growth levers available to any small or growing website. For a wider view of how this fits into a full growth plan, see our complete SEO strategy guide.
