How to find low competition keywords a new website can actually rank for
If your site gets impressions in Search Console but almost no clicks, the usual cause is not your titles. It is your keywords: Google is showing your pages on page three for searches that bigger sites own. This guide shows how to find low competition keywords with free tools, using the method we use ourselves, and a real example from our own research in October 2026.
A low competition keyword is a real search where the current top ten is beatable: forum threads, small sites and pages that do not quite answer the question, rather than household brands. To find them: start from what you sell, expand each idea with Google’s autocomplete, “People also ask” and related searches, look at who ranks for each phrase, keep the ones where small sites and forums hold the top ten, check the volume in Google Keyword Planner, and make sure the page you plan matches the kind of page Google already shows.
What “low competition” really means
Keyword tools show a difficulty score, and it is a useful shortcut. But difficulty is not a property of the keyword; it is a description of the pages already ranking for it. A keyword is low competition for you when the pages in the top ten are ones your site could plausibly beat.
That is why the most reliable check is free: search the keyword and look at the results. If they are dominated by brands with years of links and authority, the keyword is out of reach for a young site, whatever its score. If they include forum threads, small blogs and pages that only half answer the question, there is room.
Low competition is relative. A keyword that is out of reach today can be a good target in a year, once your site has earned links and rankings on easier terms. Start small and climb.
The method, step by step
Write down your seeds
List 10 to 30 short phrases that describe what you sell, the problems you solve and the questions customers ask you. Use their words, not your internal jargon.
Expand each seed with Google
Type each seed into Google and note the autocomplete suggestions, then add “for”, “free”, “best”, “how to” and “vs” to see more. On the results page, collect the “People also ask” questions and the related searches at the bottom. A few dozen seeds easily become several hundred candidates.
Remove what does not fit
Delete phrases about jobs, courses, unrelated products and anything your business cannot genuinely answer. Merge phrases that mean the same thing.
Look at who ranks
Search each remaining phrase (in a private window, set to your market) and note who holds the top ten. This is the step that decides most keywords.
Check the volume
Paste the shortlist into Google Keyword Planner to see roughly how often each phrase is searched in your market.
Match each keyword to one page
Group phrases that return mostly the same results, give each group one primary keyword, and decide whether it belongs on an existing page or needs a new one.
How to read who ranks
Score each result in the top ten with a simple rule of thumb:
| You see | What it suggests |
|---|---|
| Reddit, Quora or forum threads | An opening: Google could not find a dedicated page that answers the question well. |
| Small blogs and niche sites | An opening: sites like yours already rank here. |
| Software vendors’ own blogs | Medium: beatable with a better, more specific page. |
| Household brands, marketplaces and big publishers | Hard: they hold their positions on authority you do not have yet. |
| Few titles that use the exact phrase | An opening: nobody has targeted it directly. |
Add up the openings and subtract the hard results. You do not need precision; you need to sort a few hundred phrases into “now”, “later” and “not for us”.
A worked example from our own research
In October 2026 we ran this method for Conterity itself: 105 seeds, about 3,500 suggestions from Google, and 462 phrases kept and checked against Google’s US results. Two of them show the difference clearly.
| Keyword | Monthly US searches (Keyword Planner) | Who held the top ten | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
| ai marketing tools | 1K – 10K | Large software brands and big publishers, including Zapier, HubSpot and Coursera, plus a few vendor lists | Later: high volume, but held by authority a new site does not have |
| reddit marketing tools | 100 – 1K | Four Reddit threads and several small, specialist tool sites; no household brands | Now: real demand and a beatable top ten |
The bigger keyword looks more attractive in a spreadsheet. For a site with no rankings yet, the smaller one is the better use of an article: it can reach page one, and page one is where the clicks are. Across the whole list, most of the keywords we could win had 10 to 1,000 searches a month. That is normal for a new site: you win many small keywords first, and together they add up.
Checking search volume for free
Google Keyword Planner is free inside a Google Ads account, and you do not need to run ads to use it. Choose “Get search volume and forecasts”, paste your list, and set the location and language to your market. Without ad spend it shows ranges, such as 10 – 100 or 100 – 1K, rather than exact numbers. Ranges are enough for prioritising.
- Check the location. If your account defaults to another country, the volumes describe that country, not your market.
- Questions may come back empty. Planner often returns nothing for phrases written as questions. Treat those as sub-questions to answer inside a page rather than as page targets.
- Close variants are merged. Planner groups singular and plural forms, so two phrases can show the same figure. Count it once.
Matching search intent
A low competition keyword is only useful if your page is the kind of page the searcher wants. Look at the format of the top results before you plan:
- If the top results are lists and comparisons, a product page will not rank; write a fair comparison.
- If they are tools and product pages, a long article will struggle; build the page that does the job.
- If they are guides, write the clearest, most specific guide, and add what only you know from doing the work.
- If the results are about something else entirely (a different meaning of the word, or people looking for a job), drop the keyword, however good the numbers look.
Common mistakes
- Chasing volume first. A keyword with ten times the searches is worth nothing if you rank on page four for it.
- One page per phrase. Variants of the same search belong on one page; separate pages compete with each other.
- Trusting a score without looking. Always look at the actual results before you commit an article.
- Publishing fast on a new domain. Dozens of pages a week on a site with no links tends to leave many of them discovered but not indexed. Fewer, better pages, plus a few links from other sites, move faster.
If you would rather not do this by hand, Conterity’s topical map generator runs the same research for your site, checks difficulty before planning, and the SEO content generator writes the articles in order.
Frequently asked questions
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