What’s everyone using for finding low-competition keywords these days?

worldofsmm · Tuesday at 11:16 PM

I feel like the usual keyword tools are becoming less useful for smaller sites.

Whenever I put a keyword into the big tools, I either get huge search volume keywords that are impossible to compete for, or tiny keywords with basically no real business value.

I’m more interested in finding those boring long-tail keywords that might only get 20–200 searches a month but actually have buying intent.

I’ve been trying to find them through Google suggestions, competitor pages, Reddit, forums, and “people also ask” results, but it takes forever.

Is there a better process you guys use?

Especially interested in methods that don’t depend completely on Ahrefs/SEMrush data.

Even a simple workflow would help. I’m trying to build a repeatable keyword research process instead of just staring at keyword tools for hours.

FistFullOfCash · Tuesday at 11:41 PM

I had 2 keyword tools, I think one shutdown. With AI chatbots now giving volume and suggestions, even AHREFs seems less relevant. Off topic though I have heard of people even targeting those zero volume keywords because supposedly they contain some volume under 100 in reality with some tools.

Auto suggestions are helpful. Ask the Public is still good for blanket approach to ideas.

jenny71 · Wednesday at 12:33 AM

Reddit is great for this. Look for repeated questions and buying problems, then turn the exact language people use into keywords and validate them in Google.

Ghost Merchant · Wednesday at 5:15 AM

tbh the easiest workflow for this is targeting "versus" and "alternative" keywords. if you type a known brand or product in your niche followed by "vs" and a space, google autocomplete will spit out exactly what people are trying to compare. in my experience these almost always have high buying intent even if the big tools say they get zero volume. if you want to speed up the process, you can use free autocomplete scrapers to bulk extract those suggestions so you aren't doing it one by one. then you just look for the ones where reddit or old forums are ranking in the top 3. if a forum is ranking high, it usually means a dedicated post can beat it pretty easily.

AgnaWestfph5i · Wednesday at 6:07 AM

I've had better luck treating keyword tools as a validation step, not the source of ideas. I usually start with a real problem, collect the exact phrases people use in Reddit/forums/reviews, then group them by intent and check the SERP itself — especially whether small sites are already ranking and whether the results are actually commercial. The funny thing is that some of my best keywords looked almost worthless in Ahrefs because the volume was tiny, but the visitors were much closer to buying. Do you also check the actual SERP before deciding a keyword is too competitive?

PURSUIT MEDIA · Wednesday at 10:04 AM

I usually usually scout Reddit and forums for key words people are searching for and use that against the SERP. The result is that i have an idea how sites perform with that.

tonbetan · Wednesday at 10:27 AM

worldofsmm said:
I feel like the usual keyword tools are becoming less useful for smaller sites.

Whenever I put a keyword into the big tools, I either get huge search volume keywords that are impossible to compete for, or tiny keywords with basically no real business value.

I’m more interested in finding those boring long-tail keywords that might only get 20–200 searches a month but actually have buying intent.

I’ve been trying to find them through Google suggestions, competitor pages, Reddit, forums, and “people also ask” results, but it takes forever.

Is there a better process you guys use?

Especially interested in methods that don’t depend completely on Ahrefs/SEMrush data.

Even a simple workflow would help. I’m trying to build a repeatable keyword research process instead of just staring at keyword tools for hours.

For smaller sites, I'd begin with those of the competitors who are getting traffic. Then, I'll extract the information from their headings, search terms, PAA, and forums for long-tail keywords. Afterward, I would group these words based on their intent and choose those that are closer to solving a problem/purchase.

What’s everyone using for finding low-competition keywords these days?

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