Using a simple online keyword tool may not be enough to find profitable, low competition keywords for your website.
Keyword research is a complex process that can seem quite confusing to a business owner.
In this article, we will break down the process of finding profitable, low competition keywords for your business website.
How to Find Profitable Keywords With Low Competition
1. Grab the Low-hanging Fruit from Google
A simple Google search can give you plenty of keyword ideas, as long as you know where to look.
Search suggestions
When you type a query into Google, it gives you a list of suggested search terms.
These suggestions are the most frequent search terms used in relation to your topic.
You can type in your keyword, plus any letter of the alphabet, to get a list of search suggestions that start with that letter.
You can also use a tool like Ubersuggest to generate a list of suggested keywords in seconds.
Related search terms
When you search for something and scroll down to the bottom of the page, you will see a list of related search terms.
You can use this list as another starting point for finding more profitable keywords with low competition.
Other tools from Google
You can use Google’s Webmaster tools and Google Analytics to see what search terms people are already using to find your site.
Google Trends can help you find profitable seasonal keywords, which can have relatively low competition.
You can also take advantage of Google Correlate, which will analyze real-world trends to reveal keywords that correlate with yours during any given time period.
2. Check Questions & Answers Websites
Many users type their questions directly into Google.
For example, someone might search for “how to start a blog” or “how to do keyword research”.
Questions and answers websites like Quora or Yahoo Answers are a great place to find more keyword ideas like this.
You can also use a tool like AnswerThePublic to find more questions related to your target keyword.
3. Do Competitor Research
Your competitors can act as a source of valuable SEO knowledge.
To find out which keywords your competitors’ websites rank for, simply put their website links into a tool like Ahrefs or SEMrush.
These are paid tools, but both have trial versions you can use if you are not ready to invest in a monthly subscription.
Both tools will let you see your competitor’s keywords and export the list for your own use.
Finding Low Competition Keywords
1. What is Keyword Competition?
Keyword competition measures how difficult it will be to rank for a particular keyword.
The most popular and most profitable keywords can be really difficult to rank for, especially if your website is still new.
To improve your SEO, focus on profitable, low competition keywords.
2. How to Determine Keyword Competitiveness
You can check out your competitor’s websites and estimate keyword competitiveness based on the following factors:
Relevancy
It is possible for an irrelevant, or a partially relevant, page to rank for your keyword if it has inherited the root domain authority, or is using your target keyword unintentionally.
Check your competitor’s website. Is the keyword included in their page title? Is it present in their description, URL, and headings?
If any of the results on the first page of Google are not using these basic on-page SEO techniques, they are not deliberately optimizing their pages for your keyword.
Your chances of outranking them are great!
Page authority
See how many of the results on the first page of Google have a Page Authority (PA) of less than 30.
You can figure out the PA of a particular website using a tool like Page Authority Checker.
If a website’s PA is higher than 40, it will be very difficult for you to compete with them for this keyword.
Backlinks
Search engines see backlinks from authority websites as endorsements of your website.
The more authoritative a linking page is, the more SEO juice the link carries (and the harder it is going to be to compete with that website).
The total number of referring domains matters more than the total number of backlinks.
However, the quality of links is more important than quantity.
The backlinks you want to look at are DoFollow backlinks because they send some of the linking page’s SEO juice to the destination website.
If you can find a competitor with less than 30 DoFollow backlinks, you have a good chance of outranking them for that keyword.
Site age
Google treats older domains as more trustworthy. The older the domain, the harder it is going to be to compete with.
If you find new sites (less than a year old) ranking for your keyword, it means that your site also has a chance to do the same.
Weak sites
If any of the following sites appear on the first page of Google for your keyword, you are in luck:
- Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ profiles
- Forums and Q&A websites
- File download sites
- Web 2.0 sites (Squidoo, Hubpages, etc.)
- Article directories (eZine, Article Base, etc.)
They are known as weak sites, and you have a great chance of outranking them.
How Handmade SEO Can Help
Finding profitable, low competition keywords is not easy.
Here at Handmade SEO, we carefully research the most profitable, low competition keywords in your niche to make sure your content rises to the number one spot in Google search results in no time.
To help you get started with finding profitable keywords, our Digital Marketing Assessment includes a free SEO audit.
