TL;DR
Low competition keywords are search queries where the current top-ranking pages are weak enough for your site to realistically rank. They are not defined by a single tool metric. The real test combines keyword difficulty scores, manual SERP inspection, search intent match, click potential, and business value. This guide explains how to identify, validate, and target low competition keywords to build organic traffic, especially for newer or smaller sites.
What Are Low Competition Keywords?
Low competition keywords are search queries where fewer strong pages compete for the top organic rankings, giving your site a realistic chance to rank with focused, helpful content. They often have lower keyword difficulty scores, lower search volume, or more specific intent. But the real test is whether the current SERP looks beatable.
A low competition keyword is not just a keyword with a low number in an SEO tool. It is a query where the current search results leave room for a better, more focused page.
For example, “SEO services” is brutally competitive. But “affordable SEO services for small businesses in Boston” is far more specific, targets a narrow audience, and typically faces weaker competition on page one.
The distinction matters because many beginners filter by keyword difficulty, see a low score, and assume they will rank. That is not how it works. Ahrefs defines low-competition keywords as terms you can rank for without much effort, usually without many links or high domain authority, but adds that KD scores are not foolproof and must be interpreted through your site’s authority, topical relevance, and resources.
The better question is not “Is this keyword easy?” It is “Is this keyword easy for my site, with this content format, in this SERP?”
Explore Rankai’s SEO program to get expert-vetted keywords and consistent content execution every month.
Why Low Competition Keywords Matter for New and Smaller Sites
Big, broad keywords are dominated by high-authority brands. If you run a small ecommerce store, a local services business, or a SaaS startup, competing for head terms like “project management software” or “best running shoes” is not a realistic starting strategy. The sites ranking for those queries have years of authority, thousands of backlinks, and enormous content libraries.
Low competition keywords give smaller sites a way in.
Specific intent converts better. A searcher typing “how to fix indexing issues in Google Search Console” has a clear problem. Someone typing “SEO” could want anything. The more specific query is easier to rank for and easier to answer well.
Many small wins compound. Backlinko’s analysis of 306 million U.S. keywords found that 91.8% are long-tail, with a median search volume of only 10 searches per month. That means most real search demand lives in specific queries that big brands often ignore. Winning 50 or 100 of these pages builds real traffic over time.
Topical authority grows page by page. Each low competition page you publish around a core topic strengthens your site’s relevance for the broader subject. This is how newer sites build topical authority without needing massive backlink profiles.
Practitioners on Reddit’s r/localseo confirm this pattern. In one discussion, commenters shared examples where keywords with 50 to 100 monthly searches drove better leads than broad terms, because the searcher had specific buying intent. One commenter noted that a narrow query like “best healthcare SEO agency in Mississauga” can be more valuable than a broader “SEO agency” query with much higher volume.
Low competition keyword strategy is not about chasing scraps. It is about targeting the parts of demand that large competitors ignore.
Low Competition vs. Low Volume vs. Long-Tail vs. Low KD
These terms get mixed together constantly, and the confusion leads to bad decisions. They describe different things.
| Concept | What it means | What it does not mean |
|---|---|---|
| Low competition keyword | A keyword with a beatable organic SERP | Guaranteed easy ranking |
| Low-volume keyword | Few searches per month (often under 100) | Low value |
| Long-tail keyword | Specific query, usually 3+ words | Always low competition |
| Low-KD keyword | SEO tool estimates low difficulty | Always beatable in practice |
| Google Ads “low competition” | Fewer advertisers competing in the ad auction | Easy organic ranking |
SE Ranking notes that low-competition keywords are commonly assumed to equal long-tail keywords, but short and middle-tail terms can also be reachable in some niches, during certain seasons, or around emerging trends.
The most dangerous confusion is the last row. Google Keyword Planner’s “Competition” column tells you how competitive the ad auction is. It has nothing to do with organic ranking difficulty. Google’s own documentation defines it as the number of advertisers showing on each keyword relative to all keywords across Google.
Warning: Do not use Google Keyword Planner “Competition” as an SEO difficulty score. It measures advertiser competition for paid search, not how hard it is to rank organically.
Beginners make this mistake all the time. A keyword showing “Low” competition in Google Keyword Planner can have an extremely competitive organic SERP. These are separate worlds.
What Keyword Difficulty Scores Can and Cannot Tell You
Most SEO tools assign keywords a difficulty score from 0 to 100. The scores help, but they are the starting point, not the verdict.
How tools calculate it varies. Ahrefs’ keyword difficulty score is based primarily on the backlink profiles of the top-ranking pages, specifically how many websites link to each result. Semrush’s KD% factors in referring domains, dofollow/nofollow ratios, authority scores, and SERP-related qualities. Because they measure different things, the same keyword can show KD 15 in one tool and KD 35 in another.
Semrush’s difficulty bands look like this:
| KD% range | Label |
|---|---|
| 0 to 14 | Very easy |
| 15 to 29 | Easy |
| 30 to 49 | Possible |
| 50 to 69 | Difficult |
| 70 to 84 | Hard |
| 85 to 100 | Very hard |
These are useful as a first filter. If you are running a new site, filtering for KD under 20 or 30 is a reasonable way to build a shortlist. But the shortlist is not the final decision.
Think of keyword difficulty the way you think of a weather forecast. It helps you plan, but you still look outside before leaving the house. KD helps you build the shortlist. The SERP decides what you publish.
Practitioners on LinkedIn increasingly treat KD as noise unless validated by SERP inspection. One ecommerce SEO practitioner wrote that a 40-search-per-month keyword with no real competition can outperform a 10,000-per-month keyword you cannot reach. The replies reinforced the point: volume without accessibility is vanity.
A keyword you can rank #3 for is almost always more valuable than a high-volume keyword where you will sit on page three.
How to Tell If a Keyword Is Truly Low Competition
This is the most important skill in low competition keyword research, and it is where most guides fall short. They say “check the SERP” but do not explain what to actually look for. Here is a concrete process.
Step 1: Search the keyword manually
Open an incognito browser window and search the exact query. If local intent matters, set your location accordingly. You can also use an SEO tool’s SERP overview, but nothing replaces seeing what Google actually shows.
Step 2: Identify the dominant search intent
What type of content fills the top results? Blog guides, product pages, tools, videos, listicles, local results, forum threads? Understanding search intent is critical because if the SERP wants a free tool and you publish a blog post, you will probably lose regardless of KD.
Ahrefs gives a useful example here. Their landing page for “backlink checker” underperformed until they matched the SERP’s dominant intent by creating an actual free tool. The content format mattered more than the difficulty score.
Step 3: Look for weak results on page one
This is where the opportunity lives. You are looking for cracks, what some practitioners call the “SERP cliff”: the point where result quality drops off.
Signals of a weak SERP:
- Reddit threads or forum posts ranking in the top 5
- Outdated content (published 2+ years ago with no updates)
- Pages with generic titles that do not include the exact query
- Thin glossary definitions or short FAQ answers
- Results that answer a broader topic instead of the specific query
- No original examples, data, or screenshots
- Small niche blogs with low domain authority
- Visibly poor formatting or missing structure
Multiple practitioners on Reddit’s r/digital_marketing said they trust these signals more than KD scores. One commenter specifically noted that medium-difficulty keywords can still be winnable if page one is weak, and that they stopped relying on KD too heavily.
If page one has Reddit threads, forums, outdated posts, and small niche blogs, the keyword may be easier than the KD score suggests.
Step 4: Check authority and backlinks
Domain authority matters, but page-level authority matters more. A page on a DR 90 site with zero internal links and two backlinks is weaker than it looks. Check whether the top results have strong page-level backlink profiles or whether they are ranking mostly on domain strength alone.
Step 5: Evaluate click potential
A keyword can be easy to rank for and still not worth targeting if users never click through. SERP features like featured snippets, AI Overviews, local packs, and image carousels can all push organic results down the page.
This is increasingly important. Pew’s 2025 browsing analysis found that click rates dropped roughly 50% when an AI summary appeared, going from 15% to 8%. A low difficulty keyword with an AI Overview dominating the top of the page may still be worth targeting for brand visibility, but adjust your traffic expectations downward.
Step 6: Score business value
The final filter. Could this traffic actually help your business?
Score it simply:
- 3 = strong commercial fit: Searcher is close to a buying decision
- 2 = mid-funnel fit: Searcher is evaluating solutions
- 1 = educational fit: Searcher is learning, but you can build awareness
- 0 = irrelevant: No path to your product or service
A transactional keyword with low competition and high buying intent is the best possible find, even if volume is small. A keyword scoring zero on business relevance is not worth the effort even if the SERP is wide open.
How to Find Low Competition Keywords
Knowing what makes a keyword winnable is step one. Finding candidates is step two. Here are seven practical methods.
1. Start with customer problems, not random keywords
The best seed keywords come from your customers. What do they ask in sales calls? What support tickets keep appearing? What problems does your product solve? Start there, then use tools to expand.
The top-ranking LinkedIn article for this topic makes the same point. The author stopped chasing high-volume keywords and started with reader needs first, then used tools to find low-KD variations.
2. Use keyword tools to expand and filter
Tools like Ahrefs, Semrush, Ubersuggest, SE Ranking, or KeySearch help you turn seed topics into hundreds of keyword variations. Filter by KD (start under 20 to 30 for newer sites) and review the results.
Semrush recommends starting with competitor rankings, filtering by volume and KD, and using Keyword Gap analysis to find terms competitors rank for but you do not. But remember: tools create the shortlist. The SERP decides what you publish.
For teams without time for ongoing research, Rankai’s SEO tools can help streamline keyword discovery and validation.
3. Mine competitors’ weaker pages
Look for competitors ranking in positions 4 through 20 with mediocre pages. If a competitor ranks #8 with a thin, outdated post, you can likely beat it with a more thorough, current piece. This is one of the fastest ways to build a keyword shortlist with real opportunity behind it.
4. Use Google Autocomplete, People Also Ask, and related searches
Type your seed keyword into Google and watch the suggestions. Check Google related searches at the bottom of the results page. Expand People Also Ask boxes. These surface real queries in natural language that keyword databases sometimes miss.
Google says 15% of daily searches are entirely new, which means tools cannot capture everything. Autocomplete and PAA help fill those gaps.
5. Mine Reddit, Quora, forums, and YouTube comments
Communities reveal how real people phrase their problems. A question that appears repeatedly on Reddit may not show significant volume in keyword tools, but it represents genuine demand. The top-ranking LinkedIn article for this topic specifically emphasizes communities as sources for phrasing that tools miss.
6. Check Google Search Console
If your site is already live, Search Console shows queries where you have impressions but low clicks or positions 5 through 20. These are often easier wins because Google already associates your site with those topics. Improving an existing page or creating a dedicated one can push you into higher positions faster.
7. Look for emerging topics
New trends, technologies, regulations, and product categories create temporary windows where no site has established authority. Being early to an emerging topic is one of the most reliable ways to find low competition SEO keywords with real growth potential.
Finding low competition keywords once is useful. Finding them every month, publishing content, fixing technical issues, and rewriting pages that stall is where SEO compounds. Rankai handles that workflow for SMBs, startups, ecommerce sites, and local businesses.
Examples of Low Competition Keywords
Abstract advice only goes so far. Here is what low competition keyword targeting looks like across different niches.
| Broad keyword (hard) | Low competition variation (more winnable) | Why it works |
|---|---|---|
| SEO services | affordable SEO services for small businesses in Boston | Location + audience + commercial intent narrows the field |
| keyword research | how to find low competition keywords for a new blog | Specific audience and problem |
| Shopify SEO | Shopify SEO checklist for small stores | Platform + audience + task format |
| dentist marketing | local SEO keywords for dentists in Austin | Industry + location + intent |
| AI SEO | AI SEO tools for small business content teams | Emerging topic + audience specificity |
| technical SEO | how to fix indexing issues in Google Search Console | Clear problem-solving intent |
Notice the pattern. Each variation adds specificity through audience, location, platform, or task. That specificity is what makes SERPs less competitive.
A LinkedIn practitioner shared that a page targeting a keyword with only 20 monthly searches eventually drove 250+ monthly visits and significant bottom-of-funnel traffic. Tools often undercount niche demand because they cannot track every query variation people use.
One Reddit user in r/SEO reinforced this point. They noted that focusing on sales and leads rather than “massive traffic” changed their results entirely. Low-volume, high-intent keywords produced more business value than broad terms they could never rank for.
Common Mistakes with Low Competition Keywords
1. Treating Google Keyword Planner competition as SEO difficulty
Already covered above, but it bears repeating because the mistake is so widespread. “Low” in Keyword Planner means few advertisers. It says nothing about organic ranking difficulty.
2. Trusting KD without opening the SERP
A keyword with KD 10 can still have a SERP dominated by DR 80+ household-name sites. One Reddit user in r/SEO described finding keywords with 5,000 monthly searches and KD 10 to 20 that were functionally impossible for a beginner because every top result was a major brand. Always inspect.
3. Using total Google result count as a competition metric
Some older guides suggest checking how many total results Google returns for a query. This is meaningless. Competition is about the strength of the top results, not whether Google has indexed 100,000 or 100 million matching pages. Practitioners on Reddit specifically call this out as a bad practice.
4. Targeting easy keywords with no business value
Low competition and high value are not the same thing. A keyword with KD 0 about an obscure academic concept will not generate leads or sales. Every keyword you target should connect to your business somehow, even if loosely through topical authority building.
5. Ignoring search intent
If the SERP wants a comparison table and you publish a generic essay, you will struggle. If it wants a video tutorial and you write 3,000 words, same problem. Match the format Google is already rewarding.
6. Publishing thin AI content at scale
One Reddit user shared results from publishing 50 AI-assisted articles targeting low-KD keywords. After 30 days, 11 reached the top 10, which sounds promising. But the user also reported that generic AI content, hidden competition, and thin pages were major failure points. Google’s helpful content guidance warns against mass-produced content that summarizes others without adding value. AI-assisted content can work, but only when paired with human editing, original examples, and real expertise.
7. Ignoring AI Overviews and SERP features
A low difficulty keyword where an AI Overview answers the query fully may generate rankings without clicks. Factor click potential into your decisions, not just difficulty.
8. Choosing keywords in isolation
One random low-competition page will not move the needle. But 20 to 30 related pages organized into a keyword cluster build topical relevance and compound your authority. Always think in groups, not one-offs.
How to Use Low Competition Keywords in Your SEO Strategy
Finding keywords is half the job. Using them well is the other half.
Map one primary keyword per page. Each page should target a single main query. Secondary keywords and variations support it naturally, but spreading multiple unrelated keywords across one page weakens focus.
Match the content format. If the top results are step-by-step guides, write a step-by-step guide. If they are comparison tables, build a comparison table. Format mismatch is one of the most common reasons pages fail to rank.
Answer the main question fast. Do not bury the answer under three paragraphs of background. Give readers what they came for, then go deeper.
Add original value. Examples, screenshots, checklists, data, and practitioner insights are what separate a useful page from a forgettable one. Low competition content still needs substance. Thin pages around easy keywords are not a durable strategy.
Build internal links. Connect related pages to each other. Internal linking is one of the strongest signals you can control. Every new page should link to and from your existing relevant content.
Monitor and rewrite. If impressions rise but clicks stay low, rewrite the title and meta description. If rankings stall at positions 11 through 20, improve content depth, add internal links, and tighten intent match. If a page gets traffic but no conversions, improve the CTA and business alignment.
This iterative approach is where most SEO efforts fall apart. Publishing is step one. Rewriting underperforming pages until they rank is what produces sustained results.
Rankai’s done-for-you SEO combines AI-assisted research with human SEO review to find winnable topics, publish consistently, and rewrite pages that underperform, all within a flat monthly plan.
FAQ
What is a low competition keyword?
A low competition keyword is a search query where fewer strong pages compete for the top organic results, giving your site a realistic chance to rank with better, more relevant content. The actual competition level depends on SERP strength, your site’s authority, and intent match, not just a tool score.
Are low competition keywords always long-tail?
No. Long-tail keywords are often low competition because they are more specific, but the two concepts are distinct. Short and middle-tail keywords can sometimes be low competition in niche industries, seasonal moments, or emerging topics where no established authority exists.
What keyword difficulty score is considered low?
It depends on the tool and your site’s authority. In Semrush, 0 to 14 is “Very easy” and 15 to 29 is “Easy.” In Ahrefs, many practitioners start with KD 0 to 10 for new sites. Any KD score should be validated with a manual SERP review because tools calculate difficulty differently.
Does low search volume mean a keyword is not worth targeting?
Not at all. Backlinko’s research found the median keyword search volume was only 10 monthly searches. Low-volume keywords with strong intent can drive better leads than high-volume terms you cannot rank for. The question is whether the searcher’s intent aligns with your business.
Is Google Keyword Planner competition useful for SEO?
Not as a measure of organic ranking difficulty. Google Keyword Planner competition reflects how many advertisers bid on a keyword in paid search. It tells you nothing about how hard it is to rank in organic results.
Can a new website rank for low competition keywords?
Yes, if the keyword is relevant, the SERP has visible weak spots, the page matches intent, and the content is genuinely helpful. No tool score guarantees ranking, but new sites consistently win specific, underserved queries when they commit to quality.
How many low competition keywords should I target?
Start with a cluster of related keywords rather than isolated pages. A small site might begin with 10 to 20 tightly related pages around one core topic, then expand based on Search Console data and conversions. Building in clusters is far more effective than publishing scattered one-off posts.
How long does it take to rank for low competition keywords?
There is no guaranteed timeline. Low competition keywords tend to rank faster than competitive terms, but indexing speed, site authority, content quality, technical SEO health, and internal linking all influence timing. Some pages rank in weeks. Others take months of iteration and improvement.
