Last year I published hundreds of articles with the deliberate intention of getting better at ranking for low competition keywords that would bring traffic into my sites.
After all, as a blogger/content publisher if you’re not constantly trying to improve and drive more organic traffic, why are you bothering, right?
By applying some common sense and actually testing things, I started to see some good success towards the end of the year.
Certainly more than I’d ever seen following the advice from popular internet marketers or relying on keyword difficulty scores from keyword tools.
I was publishing across a few different sites testing out different types of content, different niches, various on-page things, and between Jun-Dec I grew my overall organic traffic from around 50k/mo to 100k/mo.
Needless to say, I was happy with that as more traffic equals more income. Especially as I monetize primarily with ads.
On the first of this year, I started a brand new site to test this keyword strat on new domain. I’ve been documenting my progress here on this blog and on Reddit (You can see my latest update month 4 update here.)
Basically, I’ve grown the organic traffic from 0-50k/mo with zero backlinks or promotion. That’s 81k pageviews to-date.
Just by using super low-competition, laser-focused keyword research and writing loads of content.
In this post, Iām going to share exactly how I do keyword research. As well as why I donāt use some of the other KW research techniques internet marketers preach.
If you want more traffic, I can’t see any reason why you wouldn’t do this too!
Contents
Is There a Best Way to Do Keyword Research?
Iāve tried just about every KW research method out there. If I thought there was a better way to do it for what I need, Iād be doing it. Trust me.
Itās important to remember, however, that there are different types of keywords that require different methods.
The method I use is designed to find low competition keywords that typically have low volume, and are almost always informational.
Why?
- Because I know I can rank on page 1 for these keywords within hours of writing the article
- I donāt need to build or buy backlinks to rank for the keywords, and
- I donāt need to use any paid keyword tools
So, if youāre willing to publish a lot of content and want to rank for low comp keywords that do not require backlinks, read on:
How I Find Loads of Longtail Keywords (for Free)
OK, first of all, there are two Chrome extensions I use;
They both do similar things, but I have both installed to capture a larger number of keywords.
For the purpose of these examples, Iām going to pretend I have a site about rabbits. Which isnāt a bad idea as theyāre a popular pet around the world, and there will be loads of good keywords I bet – so if you needed a niche idea, why not start a site about rabbits?!
Anyway, to start finding keywords I would start to type something into the Google search bar and see what comes up.
Thinking about rabbits and the needs of their owners, you could try anything like:
- āCan rabbits eatā
- āWhat do rabbitsā
- āWhy do rabbitsā
Youāll notice I donāt use āseed keywordsā. Instead, I try to think of sentences that could have a number of different endings.
I like the āCan rabbits eatā one because they are going to be dozens of possible foods owners are interested in knowing if they can feed their fluffy friends.
When I typed that keyword in, WMS Everywhere added some 50ish keywords to the side of the Google results with their estimated monthly search volume.
Hereās a screenshot of what you should expect to see:
Those top results are going to be super-competitive though. What weāre interested in are the lower search volume ones as theyāre much more likely to be low competition.
In my experience, almost all of those will be easy to rank for. Ignore the 0 volume keywords for now, although sometimes they can bring in traffic as Iāll explain later.
Letās start by opening up tabs for those 4 keywords with 10 searches per month.
Why It’s Worth Targeting Low Search Volume Keywords
I want to talk about low volume keywords for a minute.
Most people ignore keywords with low search volume because they donāt think itās worth their time. You probably have before too, right?
Well, thatās good for people like me (and now you), and here are a few reasons why:
When you rank well for a keyword youāll capture traffic from other keywords so your articleās estimated search volume will be a lot higher
Even a trickle of traffic will add up over time and turn profitable from ads
Ranking well for more posts increases your organic presence and increases your chance of attracting backlinks and other opportunities
Every post adds to the topical relevance of your site/content and strengthens your other posts
Itās just good to practice to rank well for stuff, I canāt think of any downsides. Especially if youāre writing the content yourself.
To give you an example of just how much traffic low volume keywords can bring in, below is a screenshot from my Search Console for the last 28 days.
These are for the posts, not the individual keywords. But Iāve added the estimated search volume for the keyword I targeted, just looking at how much more traffic is coming in over the estimated amount:
As you can see, anything from zero to 260/mo can bring in thousands of impressions and clicks!
If you like the look of a keyword and know you can write up a good article for it, just do it.
How I Determine If They Are Low Competition
There are two parts to this; finding keywords, and identifying if they are what I call ālow competitionā.
Letās go back to the 4 keywords I told you to open up in new tabs earlier from our list;
- āCan rabbits eat mangetoutā
- āCan rabbits eat swedeā
- āCan rabbits eat rocketā
- āCan rabbits eat courgetteā
Open up the first one – Can rabbits eat mangetout – in an incognito browser tab so itās not geo-tracking you;
This is what I see:
Basically, Iām looking for two main things when evaluating the difficulty of a keyword:
- āLow qualityā results, such as forums, Quora, and other user-generated content
- A lack of SEO-optimized posts with the keyword as the URL and title
Looking at the first page of the SERPs for this keyword it meets both criteria. I see an archived forum post ranking well, and no posts targeting this exact keyword.
This is exactly the type of keyword I would write up if I had a site about rabbits. And, Iām 99% sure Iād rank on the first page, Iām almost certain you’d capture the snippet too as the current snippet isn’t optimized.
Why am I so confident?
Iāve seen and done this hundreds of times. This is literally a zero competition keyword with some real search volume.
Letās look at the next one; Can rabbits eat swede?
This is another good example because it actually has some competition, but is still weak.
There are 4 posts that are targeting the keyword, although one of those posts is a forum.
I took a look at the sites targeting the keyword, I wonāt go into the details here as I donāt want to call anyone out – but they all had bad on-page SEO and lacked overall relevance.
Iād write this one up and outrank them for sure. The snippet is up for grabs too as it doesn’t feature all the keywords.
This is all I did to grow my case study site to 50k pageviews a month in 5 months. I just went up lists of keywords like these knocking out articles, thatās all there is to it.
Why I Don’t Use the KGR Keyword Method
The Keyword Golden Ratio method is one I see a lot of people using. Iāve published hundreds of articles using KGR, and didnāt see the kind of results I did using my method.
Why?
Well, first of all, if youāre new to keyword research you might not know this, but the KGR method uses the āallintitle:ā advanced Google search command.
The guy who invented KGR saw that using allintitle was trending at the time for keyword research. So, he basically added a redundant calculation to it so he could market it as his own strategy and sell his course or whatever else he was promoting.
The problem is that the calculation makes no sense at all. Either a keyword is low competition or itās not. You donāt need to divide it by the search volume, I proved above that volume doesnāt matter.
Additionally, allintitle is a fine metric. But it still doensāt tell you the whole story, you need to look at the results.
Why I Don’t Use the Income School Keyword Method
To my understanding Income School preach using Google autosuggest to find keyword ideas and writing those up.
Thatās fine, itās not too different from what I do. But why not use a Chrome extension to generate a long list and filter out the zero volume keywords first so you can go after the higher volume ones?
That makes more sense to me.
Wrapping Up
This does only kind of scratch the surface of how I do all of my keyword research. It is the core fundamentals of what I do though.
Just by following these few steps Iāve outlined you can find dozens of easy to rank for keywords in just 30 minutes or so, I do.
Browsing blogging forums and Reddit I see endless people posting about not getting any traffic after months of blogging and it always makes me sad.
You can get traffic using this method in any niche, on any age site, any domain authority, because there are always keywords no one else has targeted.
Let me know how you get on if you decide to follow this strat. Good luck, and happy keyword hunting!
Hey phil. Just saw this.
This is a great resource. Thanks for writing it. You don’t know how many people you’re helping. All the best for your future.
Thanks, I hope so!
Hi Phil. Thanks for sharing this helpful method! Basically I am doing the same process: target low volume, long-tail keywords and manually check the SERPS to see if I can beat them. However, I do use Google Keyword Planner to generate keywords idea and volumes instead of Chrome extensions. How do you feel about GKP ?
Hey, I used to use it a long time ago I think it basically does the same thing. Wouldn’t surprise me if these tools pull from their data. However you can get the keywords, it’s all good.
This is super helpful for someone like me who is about to launch my blog. I see too much content regarding using ahrefs and semrush (way out of my budget) or simply just using Google autocorrect which is never clear enough.
Thank you for the tips!
Yeah, those keyword tools pay good affiliate commissions, people will push you to use them at every chance.
This is really a great article. Thanks for sharing it.
I have been having trouble with my site getting traffic from google. However, not knowingly I bought hosting without SSL, how much do you think that may affect? I will try your method if it works for me I will forever thankful.
Hard to say how much no SSL will affect your SEO – but my advice is to get your site onto HTTPS asap. Don’t leave it up to chance, it’s needed.
Hi Phil
Great work with your site and this article! Super informative.
I have one question, though, concerning the KGR and how it’s different from your strategy.
Both of you are focused on low competition keywords. The allintitle is an advanced and fast way to filter out other results that aren’t focusing on the exact keyword you searched for. Right?
So, if you minus the KGR calculation part ( I think the calculations are pointless) what else do you have against the KGR strategy?
Kind regards and stay safe.
Hi Christine
I don’t have anything against allintitle, I use that metric myself sometimes. It’s just not as accurate or as reliable as looking at the results, so if you’re going to look at the SERPs anyway you don’t always need to use it.
For example, if you look at all the keywords a very new site ranks for, like mine say, lots of the keywords that site ranks well for will not have a low allintitle. It’s just one of the many ways to slice it really.
Amazing article which is well suited for new websites. But what about backlinks and domain authority.
Do new sites rank for such keyworks?
Yes, this is what I did to grow a new site to 50k/mo pageviews with no backlinks at all. I do not intend to ever build links to that site.
Hi,
Nice, informative article! Newbie question here… What do you mean by “A lack of SEO-optimized posts with the keyword as the URL and title”?
Thanks
Hey,
Well, the better optimized a post is for SEO the better it will (should) rank. So, look for posts that are ranking but don’t have the exact keyword in the title, aren’t in-depth, don’t answer the query well, bad images, not broken up in headers – all the things you’re going to do right – so you know you should outrank them.
If you’re experienced ranking content you tend to just get a feel for how good and well-optimized an article is, you know? Believe it or not, a lot of sites publish content without understanding SEO, but they still rank for some stuff.
I know it’s out of the topic but Would you mind telling me that how you got that Contents tab on your blog? Which plugin did you use?
Hey, I think you’re talking about the table of contents, the plugin is Table of Contents Plus
Nice write up,
This is really helpful for me.
I just want to know how did you structure your posts.
Did you create 2 posts separately for “Can rabbits eat mangetout” and “Can rabbits eat swede”?
or only one post for both of these keywords?
low competition longtail keywords are quite similar, Is it better to make a long content rather than making too many short content for each keyword?
I prefer making more short posts. If you have two similar keywords, look at the results. It Google sees them as the same thing and ranks all the same posts for each result, then you only need on post. If the search intent is different for each, write both.
Hi mate! It’s good write-up. I’ve a question for you. Recently I read an article in Ahref where the author mentioned about two different types of ranking for Long term KW’s. One category of KW’s will rank in google as Stand-alone but the other category of KW’s will be grouped under Parent topic. How can we know (without ahref) whether it comes under 1st or 2nd category?
I’m not sure exactly what they mean, I had a quick look and didn’t see anything.
This is where it has been mentioned. They named such keywords as Topical KW’s.
https://ahrefs.com/blog/long-tail-keywords/
Let me know if you can tell me how to target those Topical long tail kw’s?
Thanks in advance.
Those are all fine ways to find keywords, but I wouldn’t use Ahrefs difficulty scores. You still need to look at the results in my opinion and evaluate the competition for yourself.
Hey Phil! Unknowingly I was using method same as your but whenever I try ranking for 0 volume or 10 volume, I usually still rank low. Can I ask why this is happening? It would be great if you will help me.
Hey Karan, if you’re nailing the keywords but not ranking it’s going to be down to your onpage SEO. This might mean the individual page, but it might also mean you need to build up topical authority across your site too. I intend to publish a post this month explaining how I write my content.
Hello Phil,
thanks for these great tips and explaining the simple.
I am currently in the process of creating new websites and can use a lot of this information!
But I have one more question: if you decide on a keyword and write the post (to stay with the example “can rabbits eat hay”), how do you manage to include the keyword naturally in the text and mention it often enough?
This is not that easy with some keywords.
Sometimes you don’t need to include the keyword, at least not that often. Just look at how many times the post ranking #1 used it, probably zero times. You can still weave it via a H2 or an intro like, “So, you’ve got some hay and you’re wondering – can rabbits eat hay? Well, the answer is yes they can as I’ll explain in more detail.”
That’s simply awesome!
That’s a great question. I’ve always wondered how to do this myself. As an extension, I find the whole keyword density thing to be questionable.
Thank you for the insight, this is valuable information for beginners like me!
Awesome content…
I just have to say….wow!
I just used your method in a very competitive nitch (personal finance) where the big sites are ranking for even the 0 traffic words.
I picked a long-tail keyword using your stated methods and wrote an article – 976 words and then went to my Google Search Index and submitted the URL.
Five minutes later – and I mean five minutes – it was ranked on the first page in the 3rd position!
I’ve never had an article on the first page before.
This is so exciting.
I just have to say THANK YOU!
That’s awesome, Beth. I love hearing that, it’s why I write up this stuff!
Thanks for taking the time to share that.
I just started on a dog niche and im trying to use your methode… im currently blogging about specific dog breed ! Do you think it can work for me ? And what do u suggest ?
Hey, yes absolutely. The dog niche is a very good one. Find some competitor sites in your niche, which shouldn’t be too hard, and just add more content focusing on more longtail keywords and it really can’t fail. Good luck!
Wow! Never thought about this! Iām going to start doing this ASAP
Thanks for this! Great post!
Cheers, Joseph!
This is hands down the best keyword research method ever. And the best part is it seems so doable.
One question though, Phil.
Let’s say I were to write an article around the topic – ‘Can Rabbits eat Lettuce’
Aren’t these kinds of questions pretty straight forward. I mean the possible answers can either be: “yes, they can eat lettuce” or “No, they can’t.” Ofcourse adding a little bit of context.
But still it’s hard to imagine writing a 1000 word article around such a simple question.
What do u do in these situations.
I’d really appreciate your insight.
Hi Gautam
It can be difficult sometimes, yes. Which is why I often make it to 800 words, and leave it there without adding any fluff.
As an example, I looked up the keyword you mention, Can Rabbits eat Lettuce?
For this I would build the post as:
Intro/snippet – 100 words
Then some headers made up mostly related KWs taken from Google:
Why is lettuce good for rabbits? – 200 words
What lettuce is bad for rabbits? – 200 words
What other vegetables can rabbits eat – 200 words
What should rabbits not eat? – 200 words
Conclusion – 100 words
That’s what I would do, you’d easily hit 800 words, probably 1k. It’s all highly relevant content too and will help your SEO and to rank for those other questions.
Hey Phil,
a little late to the party, but do you think it would be a good idea to write another article about “What should rabbits not eat” or would it be bad to have 2 articles ranking for the same keyword? Would you rather search for another h2 and write a separate article about the topic “What should rabbits not eat” or would you write both articles the same way or just keep it at that h2 even though it’s a pretty big topic?
Cheers
I write new posts for keywords I’ve covered in H2 if that H2 is not ranking well, if that’s what you’re asking, yes.
I don’t stress as much as some people about ‘keyword cannibalization’ I’ve targeted very similar keywords before, Google typically ranks the best one for me, I don’t see it as a big deal.
Hi Phil.
Got her via Shaun Mars youtube channel. Is there any particular reason you use wms Everywhere over keywords everywhere?
From my limted research i have done so far, I find that wms everywhere will say some keywords have 10 voume monthly searches where as Keywords everywhere will say 0.
Kind regards.
Hi Ali, I used Keywords Everywhere a long time ago, it’s fine to use. I use these tools for the keywords more than the volume, I’ve checked some keywords across various KW tools and seen them all give a different search volume estimate and they all tend to be very inaccurate.
I started using WMS because it was listing more keywords than Keywords Everywhere, I think that was the reason.
Many thanks for your reply. Do you look at the DA you are competing against?
For example if you find a keyword you like, do you check the DA and PA of the pages that are in the SERP?
Many thanks in advance for your time.
Kind regards
Hi Ali
I don’t check DA no, mainly because my MOZ plugin hasn’t been working! It’s only really a valid metric for sites that are targeting the same keyword as you want to – but if you’re finding those low-comp keywords there aren’t many sites targeting them anyway.
Hi Phil.
Thank you for your reply. My thinking is the reason why high DA website come up is because no one is really targeting that particular keyword.
How many words do you shoot on avarge per article ?
Many thanks for your time dude. You are real help.
My average word count across all my articles is 830 words.
Thank you for your lates reply Phil.
Here is a big question that bugs my mind. How are you able to write that many articles?
Are you an expert in that niche so you know everything from your head what you are about to write or?
In my head.. even If I am semi-introduced with the topic I need to spend some time on research and then I need a fair amount of time to write down 1000 words or so.
Please, give me some example or anything so I can wrap my head around š
I’m not an expert in the niche, but there are two reasons why I’m able to write these articles fast:
1 – They aren’t the most technical keywords I’m targeting, so there is a lot of room for writing my own thoughts and opinions.
2 – After writing thousands of articles over the last 6 or so years, I’ve probably become pretty quick.
Thank you so much for this killer blog!
I started bloging two months ago and I will be using your methods to find keywords, but the problem is : when I add WMS everywhere to my chrome browser the suggestions are not relevant and most of the time one or two keywords, at first I thought my niche just doesn’t have that much keywords which doesn’t make sense, so I typed your example “can rabbits eat” and I didn’t get the same suggestions, just a few random queries, does this have to do with locations? If yes can a vpn solve this ? Any alternative to wms in this case?
Sorry for taking your time but this is frustrating me and i feel stuck.
Cool, I’m happy to hear you’re building a site – I hope it goes well.
That’s an interesting question, maybe it is to do with your location, that makes a bit of sense.
I’ve never had an issue with WMS though, so hard to say. You could try the SurferSEO Chrome extension before a VPS, see if that one returns some good results. I use it too sometimes.
I solved this right after I posted my comment here haha…
so for everyone reading this and having trouble with WMS everywhere, just log out with your Gmail account, then restart the chrome browser, go to settings at the bottom left of the home page, and change the location of the search results to the US, things will work just fine with wms extension after this.
thanks again Phil for this case study, I’ll be waiting for your updates
Awesome, I know others have had this problem – thanks for sharing, Sarra!
Hey Phil,
How can you figure out that the page targeting the keyword has bad on page SEO? I generally look at whether the keyword is in the URL, meta, H1, and in the first 100-200 words in the post. Is there anything else to look out for?
Bumped on to your site from reddit š
I kind of just look at the overall page and ask myself if this is targeting that specific keyword and answering all the associated suggestions Google is suggesting. It’s not an exact science, but it works well.
You’re right that those things help SEO. But for me, SEO is also about delivering a super relevant piece of content centered around the keyword. I think that’s why my shorter pages often rank better than articles twice the length – I incorporate more relevant topics and keywords.
Hi Phil,
a question on your strategy. Do you see your new posts ranking higher after couple of days/weeks? Or is it more like you write it and right after the first crawl the article is directly in the top 10?
Thanks
Jan
Hi Jan
I haven’t done a really close study into this, but what I’m pretty sure is happening is that my posts index immediately in the top 10 and typically stay there or crawl a little higher. It’s the other keywords within the posts that take long to climb, so suddenly I notice a post is bringing in a lot more traffic, but the main KW hasn’t moved, if that makes sense.
Can you please start a YouTube channel? Or do you only plan to blog for now.
No plans to do so, I can’t keep up with all the stuff I’m doing right now without learning about video editing and such like. š
Don’t worry about video editing. I’ll do it for you. But plz just start.
Thanks
It would probably sound strange to you, but I just found out about you from the collaboration you did with Shaun Marrs on YouTube. I came to your blog and looked up your keyword research method, and was surprised to find that you’re doing the same thing that I thought only I came up with š
I now know that this method works! Thanks for sharing this post, Phil.
Please keep on sharing more techniques in the future as well in case you develop a more advanced and solid method that works better.
I think I saw Carl Broadbent using this method as well. Maybe he learned it from this post of yours and I learned from him.
This is probably how it went, you’re the original owner of this idea. Thanks for sharing, Phil, I love it!
Hey Umar, Yeah I’m sure plenty of people are doing something similar, because it works. I just really wanted to try and share it so more people can get a slice of traffic and hopefully make some $$ cause I didn’t see too many people talking about this kind of low comp stuff.
I had a question. Do you think if I make a general pet site and use this technique to write about all the pets I want in different categories, would this site rank just like any other niche site?
Or will it require more time, because I’m targeting multiple animals?
This is the format of my site URL: domain.com/cats/do-cats-eat-meat/
It will work yes, I see these sites all the time when looking in the search results. I do think it will take longer to rank for specific stuff than a site built around one specific breed of dog or cat, for example. But it works for sure. If you do go broad, I would concentrate on one animal at a time for at least 50 posts before moving on to the next category.
Yes, I was thinking of doing the same. Write about 50 posts or more or less on one animal type and then move on to the next.
Thanks again, please keep on sharing these nuggets!
That hit me straight in the head – good work phil
Hey Phil,
What do you think of 0 search volume keywords? You had briefly mentioned it, but didn’t really go into too much detail. When do you think they are worth going for?
All the best!
Looking forward to your next post!
Hi Dave
I’ve had success with them. I haven’t really put together a good summary showing how much traffic I’ve gotten from them, I should do that really. You do have to be careful to pick a good topical KW, but those zero volume keywords can hold some serious traffic for sure.
Hey Phil,
Do you often find that there are no snippets for your chosen keyword phrase? I’m coming across this more and more with low competition keywords. What do you think, prime targets for content?
Cheers!
I do see it sometimes, and it means it’s ripe for taking for sure, yep!
Hey man. Thank you so much for sharing this. It definitely will help a lot of us rank higher. I just want to ask you about what other keywords searching methods that you use ? I remember you said that this is just a small percent of your process. Thanks again. You have provided us with a great service.
Hi Omar, this is pretty much the core of what I do. When I say there is more to it, I just really mean that it takes time and practice to get better at finding keywords that are going to bring in traffic.
When I talk about this with friends I find I can talk about it for an hour easily, just going over the small nuances involved with deciding which keyword I think will do well. Best advice is to keep writing up articles, and you’ll see what I mean.
Hi Phil,
How long does it take for you to rank for a zero competition keyword you have found that way and when do you usually reach the first page/top 3?
I just recently started implementing this strategy and I was wondering how long I should wait until I know if I did it right.
Thanks for the nice article and best of luck to you
Hi, in the first few months of a site it takes a while, weeks sometimes. Once your site is established, almost all the articles I write rank on page one as soon as I post and inspect them.
Google switched off inspecting the other day. It took two days for the last article I wrote to take the snippet. There are some weird indexing issues at the moment with Google for sure though. Some posts aren’t ranking as well as I’d expect.
Thank you for the response!
I actually was beginning to worry as I didnt succeed in even getting to page one, but my own site is only one month old so I guess I should wait a little bit and be patient
Hey Phil,
Just a little advice if you don’t mind. I got slammed by the May Update and never recovered. My traffic was climbing to over 1200 per day, no I get maybe 250-300
per day.
However, I had decided to double down and have been putting up content religiously, even have decided to go after low comp, low volume keywords, which brought me to your Case Study.
Nothing seems to be moving the needle, even updating keywords improving the content that I used to rank for from GSC. I’m a bit frustrated, I have over 200 posts and around 600k words published. It’s been the focus of my life for the last year, year and a half.
Question, should I continue, start another site or both?
Btw, heard you on Shaun Marrs YouTube interview. Good job!
Thanks!
Best regards!
Hey, thanks Dave.
It’s hard to say. I had a site that took a small hit from the May update, and I recovered the traffic by adding some new posts. It shouldn’t be a site-wide algo hit, so you should always be able to rank more content if you’re picking the right KWs.
I’d always try and recover. It might mean you have to change direction with your content a little, but that doesn’t matter. But, if nothing is ranking at all for months now, I’d be a bit concerned of course.
Look at what topics are ranking well, pick some super low comp keywords within that topic and see if those rank, that’s my advice.
Thanks Phil!
Will do!
Do you have a method to find low competition commercial keywords as well? Or do you only focus on informational keywords.
I do some commercial KWs yes, I’m trying to do more of them as well now. Not always for affiliate commissions, but because they pay higher ad EPMVs too.
I still take an informative approach though. I don’t write “Best weed killer for thistles”, I would write “What kills thistles”, or “how to kill thistles”, then add the product in. Easier to rank for. I make maybe $400 a month via Amazon across my sites using this approach.
Yes, that’s how I’d approach this as well from now on. Because ranking for commercial keywords is very hard, especially when you’re not focusing on building backlinks.
And finding low competition commercial keywords is also very hard š Because I couldn’t find even 5 keywords of this sort in my previous blog.
Then I thought I’d just focus on informative keywords and monetize through ads, and place affiliate links here and there where it makes sense.
Yes, I agree.
That said, I’m testing some higher RPM KWs over the next couple of weeks. Will post a write up with the results if it works out. š
Hey Phil!
A bit of a theoretical question here: Do you feel you can build a site in any niche through low competition keywords in even the highest competitive niches using your method?
Thanks!
Can’t wait for your latest update!
I do Dave, yes. It might take longer or be more difficult, but I think it’s possible. I have a friend building a site right now in the medical niche as he’s a med student, and he’s seeing consistent traffic after just two months by targeting low comp keywords.
Hey Phil,
Shaun Marrs just did a video on the impact that YouTube widgets in Search Results are having on his sites. What’s your take?
I agree with what he said. I used to build affiliate sites, I didn’t like competing with black hat sites, needing more links all the time, having commissions cut, google updates… two years ago I switched to building sites for ad revenue, and I’ve been happy with the results.
In two years I now have 3 sites on Ezoic and 1 on Mediavine. The best part; my only expenses have been hosting and Ezoic Premium.
This was a legit post! Thank you so much, Phil! I like income school too! You and income school are almost similar you just use an easy way to get those low comp topics! Thanks for the motivation man
Any tips for when to start writing articles for buying intent topics? And how to rank them? š
Thanks Praful, pure buyer intent articles are usually competitive.
I put affiliate links into articles when it’s a solution. Like, instead of “Best stair gates for dogs”, I’d look at something like , “How to stop dog from going upstairs” and recommend a gate as a solution, you know?
I don’t do many of these, but I make a few hundred $ a month from Amazon on all my sites. Otherwise, you have to invest in links, which sucks.
Thanks friend.. This is a good way of researching keywords.
I didn’t thought that this 0 volume can bring so much visitors until I saw lot of people talking about it… now I will consider it as a good keyword.
I think a lot of people just want to target high search volume but they will stay there for so long time without seing big results.
best way is to target these small keywords and build your foundation first then target higher search volume keywords.
I am using it now in my website… trying to do any article with these instructions that u gave us.
Does this method work on general niche site, Lets say I have a pet site and have category such as rabbits, cats , dogs, hamsters and guinea pigs, and follow your Keyword method for each category will this method work or only niche specific site is required.
Hi Anil, low comp keywords work on any site, any niche etc. It might take longer to build up relevancy and trust for each category, but you don’t have to look hard to find sites with the kinds of categories you’re talking about doing well.
Hi Phil,
Are you basically saying here that you can compete with bigger sites with high domain authority and links by simply targeting the keywords they are targeting or optimizing their SEO for these low competition keywords? I see quite a few high authority, highly linked posts ranking for some low volume keywords that they simply don’t seem to be targeting. Can you simply by targeting these keywords, using them in title, using the keyword in answering the query, using relevant subheadings and supporting content and winning the top spots?
I think this is my third question today, but I’m just reviewing your content once again and finding more little nuggets of info. I hope you don’t mind me picking your brain like this š
“… by simply targeting the keywords they are targeting ….” I mean “aren’t targeting…”
Yeah, I don’t mind what sites are in the results and how high their DA is, if they’re not targeting the keywords specifically Google is just ranking them as it’s the closest result they have, right? Sure, DA helps a bit, but my case study site is still only DA8 according to Moz.
Hi Phil.
Thanks for the great post. Very informative and helpful. Thanks.
Has WMS changed since you posted this?
I only see 8 results under “Related Keyboards”.
How can I see more results to find the lower comp stuff.
I’m confused.
Hi David
The tool updates now and then, but I’m still using it and it’s displaying loads of results for me. It should show a “related keywords” box and a “people also search for” box underneath that one with more results, you have to click the arrow to see the next 8 keywords.
Hey David.
Someone above had the same issue as yours. This is how she resolved it:
“I solved this right after I posted my comment here hahaā¦
so for everyone reading this and having trouble with WMS everywhere, just log out with your Gmail account, then restart the chrome browser, go to settings at the bottom left of the home page, and change the location of the search results to the US, things will work just fine with wms extension after this.”
I love your cleared and straight mind tutorial, I have being using this method for some time now and it had being working well for me
Though I am still learning to understand more of some areas as forum type keywords and ecommerce sites
Actually, I was searching for a keyword in keyword explorer. And the keyword has zero competition, and on another hand, the same keyword has max difficulty in ahrefs, how?
Yeah, that’s why I don’t use Keyword difficulty at all from any tools, the stats are so different in different tools. I just look at the results and decide for myself if the keyword has been answered and it works much better.
Can I apply this same strategy for affiliate sites like best (product) with 10-20 volume?
Hi Nils, absolutely yes. It’s all about the competition, which usually means low volume – if the KW is low competition, you will rank for it whether it’s an buyer KW or an informational KW.
Hi Phil, it looks like you are putting in quite a bit of time into keyword research for one keyword. I saw your posts on the niche website you were building. You wrote over 500 articles.
– How long did it take for you to carry out the keyword research?
– Did you have all the keywords ready at one go or did you do keyword research every month.
– Any suggestions for a premium long tail keyword finding tools?
Hi Phil,
Learnt a lot from your blog recently, thanks a lot.
I’m having a bit of a problem understanding whether a keyword is targeted or not sometimes.
For instance, if the keyword I chose is “can you store fruits in the freezer”, and the results that come up are from high DA sites which don’t exactly target my keyword such as “best way to store fruits”, would you say this keyword is targeted due to the relevancy of the results?
Have a great day!
Hi John, it’s hard to be 100% sure, and Google certainly isn’t consistent with these things so it’s a bit of a judgment call.
What I do is look at the content on the pages, do they answer the query properly? If not, you should go for it. Having a more relevant article targeting a KW that other people are missing the mark on should work in your favor.
Hi Phil. Can this be implemented for a commerce site, that deals on lifestyle retail
Hi Ilegar, absolutely yes, low competition keywords are there for taking. Just be sure to get the search intent right, if it’s informational, make your post informational, if it’s e-commerce, make it e-commerce, etc.
How do I install the keyword surfer on my phoney
I tried, I don’t think you can.
Thank you mate, I am going to try out this strategy. Will keep you updated witht the results.
Hey Phil, this has been the best starting strategy I’ve found that doesn’t use expensive tools like ahrefs.
I have a question concerning how keywords work in google. Say there is a low comp phrase like “How to find date”. If I wrote an article but I targeted the phrase “How to find a date”, would that still be targeting the original low comp phrase? In the same vein if I targeted “How to find a date in Hungary”, as long as it has the low comp phrase in it would my article still rank for that?
Hi Marco
Yes, don’t worry about making small changes to the title to make it read better, I touched on that, and it’s something I do.
Google is very smart, if you want to verify this for yourself, just search the other keyword and see which sites are ranking – if they’re all the same sites as “how to find date” you know Google understands it’s the same keyword.
When you target longer phrases like “how to find a date in Hungary” you can sometimes rank for the shorter keyword, but not very often. You’re telling Google that you’re specifically trying to rank for that exact longtail keyword. So, your post wouldn’t be as relevant for people searching outside of Hungary, right?
Hi Phil,
Thanks for the great content. It’s really useful and I’m putting these strategies to work on my own site right away.
I wondered if you could please advise on the following scenario (apologies for the peculiar keywordājust trying to stick with the rabbit theme!):
Keyword: “how to remove urine stains from rabbit feet”
Looking at the SERP (for the USA), none of the results are optimised for this keyword (it’s not used in the titles or URLs). However, some of the results do answer the question.
In this case, would you only write an article for this keyword if the relevant results weren’t well written or well-optimised? Or would you still go for it, simply because nobody has targeted that specific phrase?
I ask this because, for a number of the keywords I’ve checked so far, even though nobody is specifically targeting that keyword, there are usually a handful of well-written articles that answer the question and focus on the same search intent.
I’m not sure if these would count as “low competition” or not. Any advice would be much appreciated.
Many thanks & all the best,
Tom
Hi Tom,
You raise a good question, and the short answer is that you can never be 100% sure how Google is reading the results and picking those it thinks are answering the question.
It’s definitely something that comes easier the more you do it though, making judgment calls, and there are some key metrics to look for.
For the keyword you mention, looking at it myself without a VPN targeting US results, you’re right – none are an exact match but some are answering the query (which is why KGR and Allintitle searches aren’t reliable on their own).
Overall, I’d expect to be on page 1 for this KW if I had a bunny site, and it’s exactly the type of KW I like; long, specific, and with room on the SERPs.
For example, I can see posts titled:
-Rabbits United Forum
-Bottom of feet..too yellow…
-Best way to clean feet
-How to keep a white bunny white
This shows Google is lacking relevant posts in my opinion, and I would expect to out-rank those for sure, just by being a lot more relevant and targeted.
The URL and Title does play a part, too, in my opinion. Even if those posts answer the KW perfectly, you will outrank them.
You found a great example, this is essentially what I do, craft a post for this kind of KW and carefully incorporate more KWs to deliver something better optimized – rinse, repeat, and your traffic will not fail to increase.
Hope that helps.
Hi Phil,
Thanks very much for your reply.
This really helps to clarify things. Two things you said really clicked for me:
– Checking that there’s room on the SERPs
– Judging whether Google is lacking relevant posts
I was being too black & white about it before and can see now it’s a bit more of a judgement call. I’ve had a look through a number of keywords from my previous research and can definitely see some opportunities in there, looking at them in this way.
Just like the example above: nobody is using the exact keyword, there are a few results that answer the question, but there’s also other results that are low quality and not completely relevant.
I’m feeling more confident about writing my topics now, so thanks very much for that. I’m looking forward to seeing what happens over the next few months and improving my skills & processes over time.
One more question please, if you don’t mind: do you write a meta description for your posts, or leave it up to Google to choose what’s displayed?
Thanks again for your help. Much appreciated.
Awesome, keep me posted I’m always interested to hear how things work out for people.
I do write META descriptions in the RankMath box, yes, but I have no idea if it helps and I know Google tends to show whatever they want for most results.
I just do it because I always have, and things are working pretty well, you know? I’m like, do I ‘fix’ what isn’t broken or jinx something if I change what I’m doing.
Hi!
Great article!
You mentioned using incognito mode (to prevent being geo-tracked). Can you please explain the importance of this? Thanks!
Hi James
I actually don’t do that any longer, and only did it for a short while because I kept reading other people saying that it helped.
To be honest, once I had time to look into it, I couldn’t see how it was helping.
Hy Phil,
Great work you are doing. Thanks for the help. How do you find other topics to write about after exhausting the main seed keyword related questions thanks ?
You said you just scratch a surface, of course.. Can we get few ideas on topic research as well. I’m unable to find 50 topics for any niche I had in mind.
I just use the WMS Chrome extension and keep clicking through the suggested keywords the tool populates, that’s really all I do. If nothing interesting is coming up, then I type something off the top of my head related to the KW and start looking at the suggested kWs again.
Thanks for such amazing method i used to work on high competition keywords without good links i hope with method i can rank on low competition keywords keep posting such articles š
Hi Phil,
Am just starting out and would like to know how you nail low competition keywords into articles. After seeing the internet does not have sharp content aimed at your keyword(s), do you deliberately avoid the high competition words? In other words, is it useless to have an article full of low competition keyword with a hyper competitive keyword(s) , meaning it’s better to stick with low competition keywords for as long as possible. Clarify this.
Thanks
Hi Patrick
Yes, I pretty much never move on from low competition keywords. I don’t see any reason to, I’m getting a good return on just targeting low comp, so I just keep trying to get better at it. š
Hi Phill Sir,
How are you?
I wrote 2 articles with this method after reading this article, semrush writing assistant suggested 576 words and I wrote 800+ words. Today After indexing, One article is in top100 and second one is not even in top100. Is it normal??
Waiting for your response.
yeah, if your site is new posts will not index high without supporting content and more topical relevance.
Yes sir my site is one month 1.5 months old. It has 19 articles right now on it.
Is there any tip for me to rank faster and higher?
The more low competition content you post, the quicker you’ll see results. That’s about it in terms of what you can do to make a real difference.
When you analyze the competition for a particular keyword and you see 3 or 4 websites, targeting the keyword and with ok articles , and the rest of the results are forums, will you still go after the keyword?
Hi Niccol, sometimes I will, yeah. If it’s a keyword that ties in nicely with other articles and those sites ranking really aren’t well-optimized. You can expect to be on page 1 at least, and that’s a great start. Keywords with zero or 1 sites targeting it are great, but those are hard to find, there will usually be 1-3 sites in the mix, but if it’s not a popular topic they’re usually not that good and haven’t been targeted by SEOs like us. š
Phil,
My question do you use exactly searched KW in Title and URL as it is like that google suggested KW (e.g how to clean hamster cage) Or you do some changes in URL and Title.
One more question Do you use Kw with Quest mark in the Page Heading like “how to clean hamster cage?” or simple using in Heading “how to clean hamster cage”
Which one works best as per your experience.
Thanks for sharing a great tip
Hi John
I use the exact keywords in the URLs for my posts, then I change them a little to make them read better for the H1 / post title. So, ‘how to clean hamster cage’ would be my URL, and I’d go with something like ‘How to clean your hamster cage (the quick & easy way)’
I always use a ‘?’ if it’s a question, yes. I think that’s pretty important, if someone is searching a question I’m sure they’ll be drawn to it seeing the question mark.
Hey Phil!
Do you recommend any security addons or plugins? What about backups, especially of content and media, just in case?
Thanks again!
Looking forward to your next update or any other great tidbits, news and observations!
Hey Dave!
Hope you’re doing well, my friend.
Since I had that hacking incident I’ve added Wordfence as a security measure. Haven’t messed with it or tweaked the settings, hope it steps up should I get hacked in the future – or there is an attempt to hack me.
WPX does automatic daily backups, so I leave it up to them. I’ve restored from them a few times, it’s pretty easy I just go into my dashboard and select a date and click a button.
Hi Phil, I really need your help/opinion about secondary keywords. Should I use do keyword research for secondary keywords to find low competition keywords?
Where to find keywords? I am very confused can please explain me in this regard.
Hi Hamza
Any keyword that is low competition is fine. As I showed you in this post, literally all I do is use the WMS extension and see what related keywords are suggested – then pick through those and see which haven’t been answered.
It’s best not to overthink it. Start by targeting super longtail, remote keywords, and see if you can rank for those then slowly build up to higher volume.
Hi Phil,
I am always inspired by your work and appreciate helping us understand the process. I have the following questions:
1. When you perform the keyword research do you do it in groups of topic clusters?
2. Is the site content made up of topic clusters only and you do not include any blogs outside the clusters?
3. What moves the needle in approaching the content like this if this is how you approach it?
Thanks
Hi Nicole,
Thanks for the kind words, to answer:
1. I do keyword research in groups yes, and I try to find related KWs so I can almost always link back to the previous article as I’m writing new ones.
2. I’ve become a lot more relaxed about creating clusters of content. As long as all the content is relevant and you build out a few posts around each topic, I think it’s fine. I don’t silo certain topics together in a deliberate way or anything.
3. I think what moves the needle is writing more posts on a given topic than other sites and interlinking it all. Let Google know you’re an ‘authority’ by going deeper into a topic, I’m sure that’s what works for me. As I write more on a topic I can see in Analytics that visits to the overall topic grows faster.
Wow Phil, you literally blew my mind haha. We tend to overcomplicate keyword research so much that we get those expensive SEO tools – and then we just get overwhelmed by it. I’m just wondering, how would you go about research in different niches? I feel like I can’t find a proper kws to target + I am worried that there won’t be a lot of them.
For ex. let’s say my niche are standing desks. How would you proceed with research?
Thanks for any advice or help man, I really appreciate your time and effort!
Hey Tom – I actually didn’t see this message before we spoke in person, my bad!
I think you now have the answers. š
Hey, I rarely write comments on a website. But, maan, you nailed it!
I’m super happy to see someone among us, like us, who can rank websites and explain stuff in an easy manner, not like other gurus who write theoretical stuff.
Really, thank you , I’m starting my website and I’m now confident thanks to your ideas.
Hey Phil!
Long time since I’ve posted here, but I still keep tabs on you in Reddit as well as here to see what tidbits you add in comment sections š
Question regarding Zero Volume Keywords. I just watched Shaun Marrs video again on Zero Volume Keywords. Great video that I know you recommend btw.
He breaks it down nicely into First and Second Tier Zero Volume Keywords as follows: First tier = seed keyword + anything in the extended search bar results with Zero Volume. Second tier = seed keyword + alphabet soup i.e. a, b, c etc. and anything in the extended search bar results with Zero Volume.
Question for you Phil is: “What about if the “seed” keyword is a longer phrase (more than 2 or 3 words) and shows volume? Would the extended search results with Zero Volume still be considered “First tier”?”
What’s your take?
Anyway, still hammering away on my site, the growth is slower than I’d like, but it’s consistent, since the niche is fairly competitive. However, the affiliate programs pay well, so itās worth it IMHO. Although I’m finding with your approach I need much more volume, which is fine by me. I just need to keep chipping away at it until I hit my goals, which I’ve accepted).
The AI I started using has really helped my productivity to the point where I’ve just started 2 new websites.
I could give you a more in depth update on Discord if you like.
All the best!
SmutProfit!
Hey Dave
Been a while, and always drop by Discord and let me know how things are going for you, I’m always interested, you know that!
Hard to say if those are “first tier”, not sure it matters, if you have volume on a longtail KW, jump on it!
Hey there Phil,
I saw a lot of youtube videos, blog posts, courses, you name it.. I think I’ve used every keyword tool out there and I was still very lost. None of that had the impact your post did. I read this post 3 months back and made a promise to myself that I would only use your method and don’t listen to anyone else.. and man, what crazy results I’ve got. I now feel like I can find every sweet high volume keyword out there.. they just keep coming.. My post average page views went from 200 each to 750, my traffic is exploding and I already hired 2 writers to help me keep up with post production. Anyway, sorry for the long comment, just wanted to thank you big time, you’re amazing!
Hey Gabriel, appreciate you taking the time to share that – and 750 average is awesome! Good luck, I’m sure if you carry on doing what you’re doing it will only be a success.
Hello,
Iām having some trouble with this method. The add-on WMS everywhere was updated, and I guess itās less effective now. When I look up the same things that you do, it shows about 8 results. It never gets low enough to show the 10s and 0s. If you use a new add-on or something, I would appreciate it if you let me know.
It does seem to change from time to time, but WMS is working fine for me. Sometimes you need to Google some different keywords to bring up longer lists of KWs. Make sure you have the US flag selected, just in case.
Hi, quick question.
If I have a KW “How to increase sales online” and google SERP are full of articles, but they have all in titles “how to increase sales in webshop” or “”how to increase sales in e-shop” would you go for that keywords? If yes / no – why?
Thanks
Hey Mike
I wouldn’t go after this keyword, to me it’s super competitive as every post on page one (and beyond) are targeting variations on how to increase sales digitally.
If the keyword was not competitive by half way down the page I’d like to see posts that are pretty much irrelevant to the KW.
Awesome guide Phil. I’m using this guide to help a friend find easy to rank keywords. We aim to find 100 keywords and have already found 20.
I do have one question: My friend was struggling to rank his published articles. There are 90 articles on his site but 90% of the keywords are very very difficult to rank. My friend’s site is one year old and for the keywords he is targeting major publications like The Atlantic are already ranking.
Right now we are looking for easy to rank longtail keywords in his niche.
I’m wondering what to do with the difficult to rank keyword articles published on his site. The articles are poorly written. They don’t contain any images and interlinkings are done poorly. There is no point in rewriting the articles. But should I let the articles remain published on the site? Will that hurt the site in any way? Or is it better to delete the articles?
Would appreciate your views on this matter! Thanks!
Thanks, Eren!
Personally, I would delete those articles if they’re never going to rank. It’s hard to say what impact it will have SEO-wise, but it’s better to do it and have no impact than to leave them and they have a small negative impact taking up crawl space, etc.
Chalk it up to a lesson learned.
Hi Phil, great guide. I was wondering what steps do you take to ensure Google uses your text as a featured snippet?
Do you immediately answer the query (Can rabbits eat swede?) in the intro and Google picks up the text and shows it as a featured snippet or do you answer the query after the first H2 tag, or something else?
Hi Wasp
That technique was working well for me, a little too well – just answering the question right off the top.
A lot of sites lost all their snippets in the November update, and this site was one of them. I still believe in doing that though, it works well if your site is able to take snippets.
Hey, Phil just wondering how you do your keyword research? Just installed the two extensions for chrome but I am not able to find keywords with WMS Everywhere. Just wondering if you’re using other extensions.
Hi Stefan
All I’m using in WMS, I don’t use any other tools at all. Sometimes not many suggestions come up, it depends on the topic and KW I’d guess, just try a few keywords and see what kind of hole you can go down, it never takes long to find some KWs once you’re used to it.
Hey Phil,
This was a wonderful read. Actually, it was the BEST read ever.
Thank you for being so clear and concise. I have read/watched hundreds of articles/videos out there but none of them have been as helpful as this article.
I am a new blogger and I will be trying your method out soon. Hoping for the best! I am super excited and I think I have finally understood how to do keyword research the right way and that’s all thanks to you.
Bless you man, you’re the best!
Cheers š
Thanks, Zeeshan, appreciate it- let me know how you get on!
Hey Phil,
I have a doubt, I came across a blog that said an ideal keyword to target should have less than 500,000 results in SERP, ideally less than 100,000 results. My question to you is, is this step in finding a keyword important or can it be ignored?
I also have another doubt. If I am creating a recipe called “Vegan Cheesecake Recipe”, will it also compete with “Cheesecake Recipe” on the SERPs?
Thank you so much once again š
Hey Zeeshan
The number of overall results is useless, you don’t need to worry about it only worry about the number of very relevant results to your keyword.
āVegan Cheesecake Recipeā should not compete with āCheesecake Recipeā if Google knows what it’s doing, as those are two very different things. Even if the results looks a little diluted, I’d still focus on the vegan one as vegans will be clicking your post and bouncing back from the non-vegan ones!
Hey Phil,
Thanks for the detailed reply. I appreciate it so much. šš»
Hey Phil,
Great article, super helpful.
One question I have about WMS. In the article you mention for the specific ‘Can rabbits eat’ search “WMS Everywhere added some 50ish keywords to the side of the Google results…” when I run the same query now, I only get 8. This seems to be the case no matter what search I enter. Is there a setting I need to change to get to the lower keywords or has it been updated to cap?
Hi Jamie
WMS changed the number of KWs they show at some point since I wrote that article, I also see a short list of 8 like you now. It’s still the only tool I use though and works fine for my KW research.
Hey Phil,
It’s me again. I have another doubt. The keyword that I plan on targeting has pinterest results showing on the first page of the SERPs. Does this mean that it is a good keyword or bad keyword to try to rank for? Will I be able to compete with Pinterest results as a beginner blogger? I will be so grateful if you can reply back thank you so much once again.
Regards
Hey Zeeshan
I see Pinterest as a good sign and something I can outrank, so I say go for it. People expect or want to see some content and an explanation to most keywords, so I always assume they’re disappointed to see a Pinterest result – I know I would be!
Thank you so much for your reply, Phil! I am still a little confused though. That’s because my blog is in the food niche where I post recipes and Pinterest works well for recipes. You have spoken with regard to search intent which I feel Pinterest is offering to someone searching for a recipe. My doubt is if I can outrank a Pinterest recipe link with DA 94 on the first page of the SERPs with my new blog with a new recipe post with a much lower DA. Or do I just move on and search for another keyword if I see Pinterest in the SERPs. Thanks, Phil š
Hi phil
I found your method of keyword research and it’s a masterpiece
Here’s my question
During my keyword research, I came across the site that has a high DA and a million visitors on ubersuggest but have a very poorly written with one h1 and a multiple h2s with short paragraphs on the h2s, and a video at the end, like this one https://blacktailnyc.com/how-to-drink-absinthe-with-granulated-sugar/
Do you think I can outrank them if I go for their keywords without building backlink?
Hi luciarr
That’s an autogenerated AI spam site, I would always try and rank against them as they’ll get banned eventually – if Google catches them!
Phil, years on, I’m still trying other keyword methods, but always come back to this! Thank you.
Hey, I know you! Hi. š
Hi Phil,
It looks great. But I’ve a few questions, the first one is you didn’t mentioned to rank these keywords how many the number of words article should I need? 2nd one is you didn’t list the modifiers like what, can, why is there more? I’m the newbie and want to explore it.
Thank you
Hi Charity
Almost all of my articles are 800-1,000 words. I could make them a little shorter but Mediavine like the content to be at least this length for good ad revenue.
There are always more modifiers, if you know the niche I’m sure you’ll know the best ones. What, where, how, etc are common ones, but you’ll naturally find more within a niche like, Will I, can I, reasons why…
Are images absolutely necessary? Do you just use a site like pexels?
Hi Phil, I’ve stumbled across this site and found that article really useful.
I just have a question regarding “A lack of SEO-optimized posts with the keyword as the URL and title”.
For example, if I’m using the keyword “where does photosynthesis occur”, on the SERPS, only 4 out of the 10 results seem to be optimised:
“Where does photosynthesis take place?”
“Where does photosynthesis occur?”
“In which part of the plant does photosynthesis take place?”
“In which of the following parts of the plant cell does photosynthesis occur?”
All of the other’s have titles like:
“Chloroplasts and Photosynthesis – Molecular Biology of the Cell”
“Photosynthesis: Definition, Formula & Process”
“Photosynthesis guide, what is it and how does it work?”
“Photosynthetic Cells – Photosynthesis, Chloroplast”
Does this mean they aren’t optimized?
And if I was to target that keyword (URL, H1, Intro etc) and write a solid article, that I’d have a chance to outrank some of those massive sites like National Geographic and Nature.com?