How to Find Low-Competition Keywords for SEO

In this article, you’ll learn what low-competition keywords are, why they matter for both new and established websites, and how to find them step by step. You’ll also learn why keyword difficulty scores don’t tell the whole story, how to validate whether a keyword is truly easy to rank for, and how to use AI search data to uncover low-competition opportunities your competitors haven’t found yet.

What Are Low-Competition Keywords?

Low-competition keywords are search queries you can realistically rank for without a massive backlink profile or sky-high domain authority. The top-ranking pages for these keywords tend to have few referring domains, and the sites that rank for them aren’t exclusively household-name brands.

That doesn’t mean low-competition keywords are low-value. Many of them carry strong commercial intent, attract highly targeted traffic, and convert well precisely because fewer companies are fighting over them.

Here’s the simplest way to think about it: if a keyword has a low difficulty score in your keyword research tool and the SERP isn’t locked up by major brands, it’s probably low-competition.

Why Low-Competition Keywords Matter (Even for Established Sites)

Most SEO advice frames low-competition keywords as a beginner strategy. That’s only half true.

Yes, if your site is new, targeting low-competition keywords is the fastest way to start generating organic traffic. You won’t need dozens of backlinks or months of waiting. A well-structured, genuinely useful page can start ranking within weeks.

But established sites benefit too. Targeting low-competition keywords helps you build topical authority across your niche. Each page you publish on a related subtopic strengthens the relevance signals Google associates with your entire domain. Over time, this compounds. The site that covers 50 subtopics in a niche will outrank the site that only covers 5—even on the harder keywords.

There’s also a practical resource argument. Every content team has limited bandwidth. Spending three months chasing a keyword with a difficulty score of 85 and then failing to crack page one is a poor use of time. Targeting ten low-competition keywords in that same window and ranking for eight of them builds traffic, builds authority, and builds momentum.

How to Find Low-Competition Keywords (Step by Step)

Here’s a five-step process to find low-competition keywords that are worth targeting. Each step narrows your list and improves the quality of what’s left.

Step 1: Start with Seed Topics Your Audience Cares About

Before you open any tool, think about what your target audience is actually searching for. Write down broad topics—not exact phrases—that relate to your product, service, or content area.

For example, if you run a project management software company, your seed topics might be:

• project management

• task tracking

• team collaboration

• workflow automation

• Gantt chart

If you sell outdoor gear, they might be:

• hiking boots

• camping tent

• backpacking gear

• trail running

• sleeping bag

Don’t overthink this. You’re not trying to guess exact keywords. You’re generating starting points that a keyword tool will expand into thousands of ideas.

One thing worth considering at this stage: business potential. Not every topic is equally valuable to your business. A keyword like “free project management templates” might have high volume but low business potential if you sell enterprise software. Meanwhile, “project management software for construction teams” might have lower volume but attract exactly the buyers you want.

Aim for 5–10 seed topics, and lean toward the ones most closely tied to what you sell.

Pro tip: Google Autocomplete is an underrated way to generate seed ideas. Start typing your broad topic and watch what Google suggests. These suggestions reflect what real people actually search for. You can also scroll to the bottom of any Google results page and check the “Related searches” section for more ideas.

Step 2: Expand Your Seeds with a Keyword Research Tool

Now take your seed topics and plug them into a keyword research tool. You need a tool that shows search volume, keyword difficulty, and ideally some SERP-level data.

There are several options:

• Free options: Analyze AI’s Keyword Generator, Google Keyword Planner, and Analyze AI’s Keyword Difficulty Checker are all useful starting points. Google Keyword Planner is designed for advertisers, so its “competition” metric reflects paid search competition, not organic. Keep that in mind.

• Paid options: Tools like Ahrefs, Semrush, and Moz offer deeper keyword data, SERP analysis, and more advanced filtering. Ahrefs’ Keywords Explorer and its Phrase Match report are especially useful for this workflow.

In most keyword tools, you’ll use a “Phrase match” or “Related keywords” report. This takes your seed topics and returns keyword ideas that include one or more of your seed words, along with monthly search volumes and difficulty scores.

From just five seed topics, you can generate tens of thousands of keyword ideas. The next step is to narrow them down.

Step 3: Filter for Low Keyword Difficulty

Every major keyword research tool includes a difficulty score. In Ahrefs, it’s called Keyword Difficulty (KD). In Semrush, it’s called Keyword Difficulty too. In Moz, it’s Difficulty. The names are similar, but the formulas behind them are different—which is something we’ll dig into later.

For now, set a filter to show only keywords with a low difficulty score. If you’re using Ahrefs, filter for KD between 0 and 10. If you’re using another tool, start with their equivalent of “easy” or “low.”

This single filter will cut your keyword list dramatically. From 167,000 ideas, you might be left with 15,000. That’s still a lot. To narrow further, add a minimum search volume filter. Setting a floor of 100 or 200 monthly searches removes the ultra-low-volume terms that won’t move the needle.

You can also use Analyze AI’s free Keyword Difficulty Checker to quickly check the difficulty of any keyword without signing up for a paid tool. Enter your keyword, and it returns a difficulty score along with the top-ranking pages and their metrics. It’s useful for spot-checking individual keywords before you commit to writing content.

You can also use the SERP Checker to see who currently ranks in the top 10 for your keyword. This gives you a quick read on whether the SERP is dominated by high-authority sites or if there’s room for a smaller player to compete.

Step 4: Match Keywords to Search Intent

A keyword can have a low difficulty score and still be a bad target—if it doesn’t match the type of content you can create. This is where search intent comes in.

Search intent is the reason behind a search query. It falls into four broad categories:

You can often identify intent from the keyword itself. Words like “how,” “what,” “why,” and “guide” signal informational intent. Words like “best,” “top,” “review,” and “vs” signal commercial investigation. Words like “buy,” “pricing,” “discount,” and “coupon” signal transactional intent.

In most keyword tools, you can use an “Include” filter to surface keywords matching a specific intent. For example, to find low-competition informational keywords, filter for keywords that contain words like “how to,” “what is,” or “guide”—and combine that with your KD filter.

For blog content, informational and commercial investigation keywords are your sweet spot. They give you room to create detailed, valuable content and naturally integrate your product.

A warning about navigational keywords: Some keywords look low-competition by their KD score but are actually navigational. The classic example is a keyword like “best buy coffee makers.” Despite the word “best,” this is a navigational query—people want results from Best Buy, the electronics retailer. You’ll never outrank the brand itself for these. Always glance at the SERP before targeting a keyword. If one brand owns every position on page one, move on.

Step 5: Validate the SERP Manually

This is the step most people skip, and it’s the most important one.

Keyword difficulty scores are estimates. They’re useful for filtering, but they can’t account for everything that affects ranking difficulty. Before committing to a keyword, open the actual SERP and assess what you’re up against.

Here’s what to look for:

Who’s ranking? Are the top results from massive brands with domain ratings above 80? Or are there smaller, niche sites ranking in the top 5? If you see sites with authority similar to yours ranking well, that’s a strong signal the keyword is genuinely low-competition.

How many backlinks do the top pages have? Check the number of referring domains pointing to each top-ranking page. If the top pages have fewer than 10–20 referring domains each, you can probably compete without a massive link-building campaign.

What’s the content quality like? Click through to the top-ranking pages. Are they thin, outdated, or poorly written? If the current top results are 500-word fluff pieces from 2019, you can almost certainly outrank them with a thorough, up-to-date guide. This is one of the most reliable signals of true low competition that no difficulty score can measure.

Does the SERP match your content type? If every top result is a product page and you’re planning to write a blog post, you’ll struggle. The SERP tells you what Google thinks searchers want. Align with it.

Use Analyze AI’s free Website Authority Checker to quickly check the domain authority of competing sites. And use the Keyword Rank Checker to see exactly where specific pages rank for your target keyword.

Why Keyword Difficulty Scores Aren’t the Full Picture

By now, you’ve filtered your keyword list by difficulty and manually validated the SERP. But it’s worth understanding why you shouldn’t rely on difficulty scores alone.

The short answer: every tool uses a different formula, and none of them can capture every ranking factor Google uses.

Ahrefs calculates Keyword Difficulty based on the average number of referring domains pointing to the top 10 results. That means a high KD score in Ahrefs tells you the top-ranking pages have lots of backlinks, and a low KD score tells you they don’t.

Semrush uses a different formula that also factors in brand authority and content features. Moz has its own approach. This is why the same keyword can show a KD of 5 in one tool and 35 in another.

None of these tools is wrong. They’re just measuring different things. The takeaway: treat keyword difficulty as a starting filter, not a final answer. Always validate with manual SERP analysis.

What KD Scores Miss: Brand Authority and SERP Dominance

Some keywords with a KD of 1 or 2 are still extremely hard to rank for—because the SERP is dominated by massive brands.

Take a keyword like “black sandals.” KD tools might rate it as very easy because the top-ranking pages don’t have many backlinks. But look at who’s ranking: Nordstrom, Zappos, Nike, Target. Every result on page one comes from a site with a domain rating above 75.

This isn’t a backlink problem. It’s a brand equity problem. Google surfaces the stores where people actually want to shop, and no amount of SEO can overcome that if you’re a small retailer.

Ranking difficulty is relative. If you’re Target, “black sandals” is low-competition. If you’re a small shoe brand, it’s nearly impossible. Always factor in your own authority relative to the sites currently ranking.

What KD Scores Miss: Backlink Quality

Keyword difficulty scores count the quantity of backlinks pointing to top-ranking pages, but they don’t assess quality. And quality matters far more than quantity.

Consider two pages, each targeting a keyword with the same KD score. One page has 14 referring domains, but 94% of those links are followed, from relevant, authoritative sites, with descriptive anchor text. The other page has 92 referring domains, but 96% of those links are nofollowed, from low-authority coupon sites, with naked URL anchors.

Despite having six times fewer links, the first page is much harder to outrank. Its links carry real weight. The second page’s links are mostly worthless from a ranking perspective.

This is why you should always click into the backlink profiles of top-ranking pages before deciding a keyword is easy. A handful of high-quality links from relevant sites is harder to beat than a mountain of junk links.

What KD Scores Miss: Content Quality and E-E-A-T

Google’s ranking algorithm weighs content quality heavily, and its E-E-A-T framework (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness) means that superficially “low-competition” keywords can still be tough if the existing content is genuinely excellent.

Conversely, if you spot a low-KD keyword where the top results are thin, outdated, or clearly AI-generated filler, that’s a real opportunity. A page backed by original research, expert insight, and first-hand experience can leapfrog established competitors—even if they have more links.

How to Find Low-Competition Keywords from Competitor Research

You don’t have to start from scratch. If your competitors are ranking for keywords, they’ve already done keyword research for you. All you need to do is reverse-engineer which of their keywords are low-competition.

Here’s how to do it in Ahrefs (most SEO tools have a similar workflow):

1. Enter a competitor’s domain into Site Explorer.

2. Go to the Organic keywords report.

3. Filter for keywords with a low KD score (0–10).

4. Sort by traffic to find the most valuable ones.

This gives you a list of low-competition keywords your competitor already ranks for—and that you can target too. Pay attention to the estimated traffic each keyword sends to their page. If a low-KD keyword drives 500+ monthly visits to a competitor’s page, it’s worth prioritizing.

You can also use Analyze AI’s free Website Traffic Checker to estimate how much traffic a competitor’s site gets overall, which helps you decide which competitors are worth reverse-engineering in the first place.

For a more systematic approach to finding competitor keyword gaps, read our guide on SEO competitor analysis.

How to Find Low-Competition Opportunities in AI Search

Everything above covers traditional SEO keyword research. But search is expanding beyond Google’s ten blue links. AI answer engines like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Gemini, and Microsoft Copilot are now a meaningful source of traffic—and they create an entirely new category of low-competition opportunities.

Here’s why: AI search is still new enough that most companies aren’t optimizing for it. The brands dominating Google SERPs don’t necessarily dominate AI answers. This creates gaps you can exploit, especially if you’re a smaller brand.

The concept is the same as traditional keyword research: find the queries where competition is low and the payoff is high. The difference is that in AI search, “competition” means which brands AI models mention in their responses, and “ranking” means being cited as a source or recommended as a solution.

Analyze AI is built specifically for this. It tracks how AI engines answer questions in your industry, which brands they mention, and which sources they cite. Here’s how to use it to find low-competition AI search opportunities.

Use the Prompts Dashboard to Track AI Visibility

Start by adding the prompts (queries) your audience is likely asking AI tools. These are often the same as your SEO keywords, phrased as natural questions. For example, instead of “best project management software,” people ask ChatGPT “What are the best project management tools for remote teams?”

In Analyze AI’s Prompts dashboard, you can track these prompts and see your visibility, sentiment, and position across all major AI models.

The platform also suggests prompts you may not have thought of. These suggestions are based on your industry and competitive landscape—essentially, they surface the AI-search equivalent of low-competition keywords.

When you find prompts where your brand isn’t appearing but your competitors are, you’ve found a gap. The AI-search equivalent of a low-competition keyword is a prompt where few or no strong competitors appear, or where the current answers are generic and unsupported by citations.

Find Competitor Gaps in AI Answers

In traditional SEO, you check who’s ranking for a keyword. In AI search, you check who’s getting mentioned and cited. Analyze AI’s Competitors dashboard shows you exactly which brands AI models mention across your tracked prompts, and how many times each competitor gets mentioned.

If a competitor has 70 mentions across AI answers and you have zero, that tells you where to focus. But the real opportunity is the reverse: prompts where your competitors are absent. Those are the low-competition AI search opportunities, and they’re where you should invest first.

The platform also suggests competitors you haven’t tracked yet—brands that are frequently mentioned in AI answers in your space. This helps you spot emerging threats and identify the full competitive landscape.

Identify Landing Pages That Attract AI Traffic

One of the most actionable ways to find low-competition opportunities in AI search is to look at which of your pages already receive AI traffic—and which don’t.

Analyze AI’s AI Traffic Analytics connects to your GA4 data and shows exactly which pages receive visits from AI platforms like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, and Gemini. You can see session counts, engagement rates, bounce rates, and conversions broken down by AI source.

The Landing Pages report goes deeper. It shows which specific pages on your site receive AI-referred traffic, which AI engines send that traffic, and how visitors behave once they arrive.

Look for patterns. If your “ultimate guide” pages get cited by AI models but your product pages don’t, that tells you what content format AI engines prefer. You can then create similar content around new low-competition topics, knowing it’s the kind of content AI engines are likely to reference.

You can even drill into individual AI visitor sessions to see exactly which AI engine referred them, what page they landed on, and what they did next.

Use Citation Data to Find Underserved Topics

Analyze AI’s Sources report reveals which URLs and domains AI models cite most frequently when answering questions in your industry. If you see competitors being cited heavily but your own content is absent, you’ve found a content gap.

More importantly, if you find topics where AI models cite few or no authoritative sources, that’s the AI-search equivalent of a keyword with a KD of 0. The space is wide open. Create the definitive resource on that topic, and you have a strong chance of becoming the source AI engines reference.

Run Ad Hoc Prompt Searches to Spot-Check Opportunities

Not sure whether a particular query is low-competition in AI search? Use Analyze AI’s Ad Hoc Prompt Searches feature. Type in any prompt, pick a region, and instantly see how AI engines respond—including which brands they mention and which sources they cite.

This is the AI-search equivalent of manually checking a SERP. If the AI response is vague, cites weak sources, or doesn’t mention any clear leaders, you’ve found a low-competition AI search opportunity.

Should You Ignore High-Competition Keywords?

Many SEOs stick exclusively to low-competition keywords because they don’t think they can rank for anything else. That’s often true in the short term, but high-competition keywords still have strategic value.

Remember, keyword difficulty scores (in tools like Ahrefs) are based on backlinks. High KD means the top-ranking pages have lots of backlinks. That means high-competition keywords are often excellent topics for link bait—content specifically designed to attract links.

Here’s how to use this:

1. Enter a seed keyword into your keyword tool.

2. Go to the Questions report.

3. Filter for high KD scores (e.g., 50+).

4. Look for topics where the top-ranking pages have hundreds of referring domains.

If you create the best resource on one of those topics and execute a focused outreach campaign, you can earn high-quality backlinks. Those links boost your overall domain authority, which in turn makes it easier to rank for your low-competition targets.

This creates a strategic flywheel. You publish link bait on high-competition topics to earn authority, then use internal links to pass that authority to your pages targeting low-competition keywords. The low-competition pages rank faster because they’re supported by authority from the link bait.

Think of it as the middleman approach: the high-competition content attracts links, and the internal links distribute that authority to the pages that actually drive conversions.

How to Prioritize Your Low-Competition Keyword List

By now, you might have hundreds of low-competition keywords. You can’t target them all at once. Here’s how to prioritize.

Business potential first. Rank each keyword on a scale of 1 to 3 based on how closely it relates to your product or service. A score of 3 means your product is essential to the topic. A score of 1 means it’s tangentially related. Prioritize 3s and 2s.

Search volume second. Among keywords with equal business potential, prioritize higher volume. But don’t dismiss very low-volume keywords entirely—they add up. A hundred pages each getting 50 monthly visits is 5,000 monthly visits.

AI search potential third. Check whether the keyword is also a topic that comes up in AI search. If ChatGPT, Perplexity, or other AI engines answer questions on the topic, you have a chance to get traffic from both channels. Use Analyze AI’s Prompts dashboard or Ad Hoc Prompt Searches to validate this.

Topical clusters fourth. Group related keywords into clusters and plan content around the cluster rather than individual keywords. A cluster of 10 low-competition keywords around “email marketing automation” is more strategically valuable than 10 unrelated keywords—because each page in the cluster strengthens the others through topical relevance and internal linking.

For more on building a keyword strategy that accounts for topical depth, read our SEO content strategy guide.

Final Thoughts

Finding low-competition keywords isn’t just about filtering for low KD scores in a keyword tool. That’s where you start, but it’s not where you stop.

The real work is in validation: checking the SERP, assessing competitor authority, evaluating backlink quality, and understanding search intent. A keyword isn’t truly “low-competition” unless you’ve confirmed that you can realistically rank for it given your site’s current authority, content quality, and link profile.

And as search continues to evolve, low-competition opportunities aren’t limited to Google anymore. AI answer engines represent a new, still-maturing channel where even small brands can earn visibility. The brands that start tracking and optimizing for AI search now will have a head start as AI traffic continues to grow.

SEO isn’t dead. It’s expanding. The fundamentals—quality content, topical authority, and relevant backlinks—still drive results in both traditional search and AI search. Low-competition keywords remain one of the fastest ways to build momentum in both channels.