When doing keyword research you'll usually start with a broad seed, toss it into a keyword
research tool, go to a keyword ideas report, and then pick a needle from the haystack.
There's nothing wrong with this because it's important to tackle popular keyword phrases.
Now, on the flip side, if everyone is doing keyword research this way then everyone
will be finding the same keywords, ignoring hundreds or maybe even thousands of
perfectly good opportunities.
But there are ways to find untapped keyword opportunities where competition is low, but
search traffic potential is medium to high.
So in this tutorial, I'm going to show you a few advanced keyword research tips to find
untapped keyword opportunities that are worth going after.
Stay tuned.
[music]
Now, the word "untapped" in the context of SEO is kind of a buzzword.
But I want to put some meaning behind the idea of "untapped keywords" because
they do exist.
An untapped keyword is one that's flown under the radar.
It still has search demand but is less competitive than the obvious targets.
Now, there isn't exactly a cookie-cutter way to find these keywords.
And if there was, then these keywords wouldn't be untapped.
Finding golden keyword opportunities is more about identifying patterns and then
using your keyword research skills to follow a rabbit hole which can often lead you to
an opportunity, a detour, and sometimes a dead end.
But you need to follow the rabbit hole to find out.
So let's kick this tutorial off with the easiest tactic and that's to look at your competitors'
low competition topics.
This is by far the easiest place to start because by looking at your competitor's
most trafficked pages, you'll be looking at relevant topics to your niche along with
organic traffic metrics.
And I'll be using Ahrefs Site Explorer to do this.
So to get started, enter one of your organic search competitor's domains.
I'll go with nerdwallet.com.
Next, go to the Top Pages report, which shows you the pages that send the site
the most search traffic.
Next, let's set a Keyword Difficulty filter with a maximum value of something low
like 20, considering the personal finance niche is pretty competitive.
Now, before I apply the filter, it's important to note that the numbers in the data table
will change.
Meaning, once I hit Apply, things like traffic, value, and keywords will all decrease.
And that's because the results will change to reflect the set filters -- in this case, pages
that have keyword rankings with difficulty scores of 20 or less.
Let's hit Apply.
Now, when you skim through this list, you'll want to use some common sense and
compare the URL slugs with the top keyword.
And what you're looking for is to see if the top keyword is the one that the page
is actually targeting, which you can kind of tell from the URL slugs.
For example, this URL is clearly targeting "webull vs robinhood" and that's also the top
keyword so this is potentially a lower-competition topic that gets a decent amount of search traffic.
Now, to see the total global traffic to this page, just click the caret, and you'll see
that it gets a similar amount of monthly search visits when compared to the filtered amount
of search traffic.
But the fun doesn't have to stop here.
After you've gone through your first competitor's Top Pages report, go to the Competing Domains
report to find other competitors with similar keyword rankings.
Then just rinse and repeat as many times as you'd like.
The next method is to identify unique keyword modifiers.
A modifier is an add-on to a base keyword.
For example, if your head term is "credit cards," then modifiers could be "top", "best",
the current year, or any combination.
Now, the type of modifiers we're looking for are ones that would alter the search results.
For example, if you search for "best credit cards" and "best credit cards 2021," the results
would be near identical.
On the other hand, if you compare the search results for "best rap albums 2020" and "best
rap albums 2000," you'll have completely different search results because the modifier changes
the searcher's expectations.
So if we go back to the Top Pages report for Nerdwallet where the KD filter is set to 20,
you'll see that this page is on "colorado first time home buyer programs".
The top keyword seems like the one the page is targeting, and if I click the caret, you'll see
the total global traffic potential isn't far off from the filtered traffic number.
Now, if you use some common sense, then you'll know that the keyword "first time home buyer"
is going to be more competitive than "first time home buyer colorado."
And you'll also know that first time home buyer programs will generally be slightly
different from state to state.
So in this case, we've identified a modifier to a competitive phrase.
Now it's time to follow the rabbit hole.
So I'll go to Google and search for "50 us states copy and paste."
Let's click through to the first result, and click "Copy list to clipboard."
Next, I'm going to format these so that each state is separated by commas instead of new
lines using this tool.
I'll paste in my list of US states, copy the comma separated list and then head on
over to Ahrefs Keywords Explorer.
Let's add our seed "first time home buyer" and run the search.
Next, I'll go to the Phrase Match report.
Now, all you have to do is hit the Include box, paste in your comma separated list
of 50 US states, and hit the Any word tab.
So when I hit Apply, it'll show us any keyword that includes the phrase "first time home buyer"
as well as one of the US states.
And now we have at least 50 pages we can create content around where many are low
competition and they're all closely related which could work well from
a site structure perspective.
Alright, the next way to find untapped keywords is to look for uncommon seeds.
As I showed you before, the most common way to do keyword research is to enter a few
broad seeds in a keyword research tool, go to a keyword ideas report, and then
sift through the results.
But because tons of people are doing the exact same thing, everyone will be looking at similar
sets of keywords.
To prove my point, let's say you have a content site on beards.
Now, I want you to take the next 5 seconds to think of seed keywords related to beards.
Ready?
[countdown]
So how many did you come up with?
I came up with three.
"Beard," "beards," and "mustache."
And I'm guessing there's some overlap between your list and mine.
So to separate yourself from others, you need to find seeds that are lesser known
but still popular.
To do that, go to Ahrefs Site Explorer and enter a competitor's domain.
I'll go with beardoholic.com.
Next, go to Version 2 of the Organic Keywords report, which shows you
the site's keyword rankings.
Now, let's set a keyword filter to exclude common seeds.
So I'll hit the Keywords filter and set the rules to "Doesn't contain" "beard" and then I'll set
a second rule to "Doesn't contain" "mustache."
Let's hit Apply.
And now you'll see some great topics like "best stubble trimmer," "goatee styles," and
"mutton chops" to name a few.
Now, we're not looking for keyword ideas here, we're looking for seeds.
So that would be keywords like "stubble," "goatee," "mutton chops," "laser comb," and "monkey tail."
So let's go back to Keywords Explorer and run a new search.
Then we'll hit the Phrase match report.
And as you can see, we have quite a few potential low competition topics, and it
would just be a matter of looking at the SERPs and deciding whether the keywords
are worth targeting.
Alright, the next way is one of my favorite tactics for affiliate sites and that's to
find "vs" and "review" keywords at scale.
For affiliate sites, "vs"- and "review"-type keywords are awesome to rank for because
people who are searching for them are likely very close to making a purchase.
And these keywords tell us that searchers have likely done some research and narrowed
down their purchasing decision to just a couple different products.
Meaning, your content could be the last touch point before they hit the "buy" button.
Now, more likely than not, you won't know all of the brand names for all of the different
types of products in your niche.
But you know who does?
Ecommerce sites.
Most ecommerce search and category pages will have a "brand" facet where they list all or
some of the more popular brands within their store.
So let's say we have a site on baby products.
I'll start by heading over to an ecommerce store like strolleria.com which sells baby strollers.
Next, I'll click on the "Shop brands" menu item, and seeing as they're all listed here,
I'll scrape the list using a Chrome extension called Scraper.
Just right-click on one of the links in Chrome, and hit "Scrape similar."
I'll clean up the list a bit since we don't need the links and then copy it to my clipboard.
Next, let's head on over to Keywords Explorer and paste these brand names, into the search box.
And then let's head on over to the Phrase match report.
Now, since we're looking for "vs" and "review" keywords, I'll hit the Include filter and type in
"vs," and "review" with an asterisk at the end, which will act as a wild card catching
words like "reviews," "reviewing," etc.
Finally, I'll hit the Any word tab and hit Apply.
Now, there's going to be some irrelevant keywords in here because brand names
are often popular words that hold different meanings like Apple, Amazon, and Coach.
In our case, "bob" seems to be producing some unwanted keywords.
So let's hit the Exclude button and add "bob."
And now you'll see some great keywords like, "nuna rava review," "uppababy cruz vs. vista,"
and "britax marathon click tight reviews" - all of which seem to have barely any competition
from a links perspective.
Now, these are just a few keyword research tactics that I've used to find untapped
keyword ideas.
But the one thing I want you to takeaway from this video is that when you're doing keyword
research or any SEO tactic for that matter, your best tool is going to be your ability
to recognize patterns within data.
And some creativity won't hurt.
So go and try these tactics out for your site, try and go beyond what I've taught here, and
if you enjoyed this video, make sure to like, share, and subscribe for more actionable
SEO and marketing tutorials.
I'll see you in the next one.