Key takeaways
- Low competition keywords are terms where the current top 10 is weak enough for a new page to break in without many backlinks.
- A keyword difficulty score under 20 or 30 is a good filter, but it is only a starting point. Always look at the real results page.
- Forum threads, thin pages, and off-topic results in the top 10 are the clearest signs of weak competition.
- Most easy wins have 50 to 500 searches a month. A cluster of 20 of them beats one term with 10,000 searches you will never rank for.
- Pick keywords that match what you sell. An easy keyword that brings the wrong visitor is not a win.
Low competition keywords are search terms where the pages ranking today are weak, so a new page with a better answer has a real chance. They are how small sites, new blogs, and young businesses get their first organic traffic. Big brands can afford to fight for "credit cards". You probably cannot, and you do not need to.
This guide is for anyone who has a site with little authority and needs traffic anyway. That includes new bloggers, small business owners, and SEOs who just took on a client with a fresh domain.
You will learn what makes a keyword easy and why difficulty scores only tell half the story. You will also get a two minute method for reading a results page. Then a step by step process to build a list of keywords with low competition that still bring the right people.
What are low competition keywords?
Low competition keywords are search terms that few strong pages target well. The current top results are weak, thin, or off topic, so a new page with a good answer can reach page one without many backlinks. Most tools flag them with a low keyword difficulty score, usually under 20 or 30 out of 100.
Two things make a keyword hard. The first is authority. If the top 10 is full of sites with thousands of backlinks, Google trusts them more than a new domain. The second is content quality. If every result is a long, well built page that fully answers the question, you have to beat all of them on quality.
A keyword is low competition when at least one of those is missing. The best ones are missing both. Nobody with authority has bothered, and the pages that rank are short forum posts or pages that only touch the topic by accident.
You will also see these called easy keywords to rank for, low difficulty keywords, or low hanging fruit. They usually have lower search volume than the big terms. That is fine. Fifty visits a month from a page that ranks beats zero visits from a page that never will. If volume numbers are new to you, read what search volume is first.
Why keyword difficulty scores are only a starting point
Every keyword tool shows a difficulty score from 0 to 100. Ahrefs builds its score almost entirely from the number of referring domains pointing at the top 10 pages. Semrush blends backlinks with other signals. Zutrix shows its own difficulty score next to volume, CPC, and intent. All of them are estimates, and all of them measure the same thing: how strong the current winners are.
The score is useful as a filter. Set it under 30 and you cut a list of 5,000 ideas down to a few hundred. It is not useful as a verdict. Three things it misses:
- Topical fit. A page with 200 backlinks can rank for a term it barely covers. You can beat it with a page that covers the term fully.
- SERP features. If an AI Overview, a video carousel, and four ads sit above the first result, position 1 is worth far less than the score suggests.
- Your own site. A KD 40 keyword is easy for a site that already ranks for 50 related terms. It is hard for a site with 3 pages.
How to find low competition keywords, step by step
This is the process we use. It works with any keyword tool, and most of it works with free tools too.
- 1
Start with 5 to 10 seed topics
Write down the things your site helps people with. Not keywords yet, just topics. A bike repair shop might list "flat tires", "brake noise", "chain cleaning", and "bike fit". Seeds that are specific give you better ideas than broad ones like "bikes".
- 2
Expand each seed into hundreds of ideas
Put each seed into a keyword tool and pull every suggestion, question, and related term. Our Keyword Research tool returns ideas with volume, difficulty, CPC, and intent for 200+ countries. If you want to stay free, the Google Suggest tool pulls autocomplete ideas in bulk. Aim for at least 300 raw ideas per seed.
- 3
Filter by difficulty and volume
Set difficulty under 30 and volume above 30 searches a month. Sort by volume. Do not throw away the 10 to 50 volume terms yet. Many of them are long-tail phrases that convert well, and our guide on how to find long-tail keywords shows how to group them.
- 4
Steal your competitors' easy wins
Find two or three sites about your size that already rank. Pull the keywords they rank for in positions 4 to 20. If a site like yours can reach position 8, so can you, and you get to start from their page as a benchmark. See competitor keyword research for the exact method.
- 5
Check the real results page
Search each shortlisted keyword and look at the top 10. You are hunting for forum threads, Q&A sites, thin pages under 500 words, PDFs, and pages that answer a different question. Two or more of those in the top 10 is a green light. Use a free SERP checker to see the page for a specific country without your own history in the way.
- 6
Check the intent matches your page
Look at what kind of pages rank. If every result is a product listing, Google wants a store page, and a blog post will struggle no matter how weak the competition looks. Match the format that already ranks.
- 7
Group keywords and pick one page per group
Many easy keywords are the same question asked five ways. Put them in one group and write one page that covers them all. A page that ranks for 15 small terms often brings more traffic than a page built for one medium term.
How to spot weak competition on the results page
The results page tells you more in two minutes than any score. Here is what to look for and what it means.
| What you see in the top 10 | What it tells you | Signal strength |
|---|---|---|
| Reddit, Quora, or forum threads | Nobody has written a proper page yet | Strong |
| Pages under 500 words | The topic is covered thinly | Strong |
| Results about a different question | Google has nothing better to show | Strong |
| PDFs, slide decks, old dated posts | The content is stale or hard to read | Medium |
| Small sites you have never heard of | Authority needed is low | Medium |
| Big brands with a barely relevant page | Beatable on relevance, not on authority | Medium |
| Every result is a long, focused article | Competition is real, score or not | Not a low competition keyword |
Do low competition high volume keywords exist?
Rarely, and never for long. When a term gets 10,000 searches a month and has weak results, someone notices within months. You can still find them in three places.
- New topics. A product, law, or trend that appeared this year has demand before it has good pages. Google Trends shows terms that are rising. Write early and you own the topic for a while.
- Niche jargon. Terms that only people inside a trade use. Volume looks small in tools, but tools undercount rare phrases, and the intent is very specific.
- Local versions. "emergency plumber" is hard. "emergency plumber in Round Rock" is not, and local results have their own pack. See local keyword research.
For most sites, the honest target is medium volume and low competition. A term with 300 to 2,000 searches a month and a weak SERP is a great find. Twenty of them add up to more traffic than one big term, and you can win them this year.
Low competition niches and YouTube keywords
People often ask for a list of low competition niches. There is no fixed list, because a niche is only easy until enough people enter it. The pattern behind easy niches is stable, though. Look for topics that are too small for big publishers, too technical for generalist bloggers, and too new for the old guides to cover.
Some examples that fit the pattern right now: repair guides for specific products, how-tos for niche software, and local services in mid sized towns. Hobbies with a small but active community and compliance questions for one industry also fit. Check each one with the steps above rather than trusting the label.
Low competition keywords for YouTube
YouTube competition works differently. Backlinks matter little. What matters is how many good videos already answer the query and how new they are. A query with only old, low quality, or off topic videos is open. Our free YouTube keyword tool pulls YouTube search suggestions so you can spot those queries fast.
What makes a keyword good, not just easy
An easy keyword is only good if the people searching it are people you want. Before you write, ask three questions about each keyword.
- 1.Does it match what I offer? A bike shop ranking for "how to draw a bicycle" gets traffic and no customers.
- 2.What does the searcher want to do next? Learn, compare, or buy. Learning terms are easiest to rank and hardest to make money from. Comparison and buying terms are the reverse.
- 3.Can I write the best page on this? If you cannot add something the current results lack, the low score will not save you.
A quick word on negative keywords
Negative keywords come from Google Ads, not SEO. They are terms you tell Google not to show your ad for, such as "free" or "jobs" when you sell a paid product. In organic search you cannot block a keyword, but the idea still helps. Keep a list of terms you do not want to rank for, and use it to prune your ideas before you write.
Common mistakes when chasing low competition keywords
- +Check the real SERP for every keyword you plan to write
- +Group similar easy keywords into one strong page
- +Match the page type that already ranks
- +Track positions after publishing so you learn what worked
- +Raise your difficulty ceiling as your site gains authority
- xTrust a difficulty score without looking at the results
- xWrite 40 thin pages for 40 tiny keywords
- xChase easy terms that have nothing to do with your business
- xIgnore SERP features that push organic results down the page
- xExpect a new page to rank in a week
One more point. Finding the keyword is the cheap part. A low competition keyword still needs a page that answers the question better than anything on page one. Read our guide on how to write SEO content before you publish, then add the keyword to your rank tracker so you can see it climb.
FAQ
Common questions
Written by the Zutrix team
Last reviewed September 12, 2026
Zutrix has built rank tracking and SEO software for more than eight years. Our guides come from the same team that runs the product, and every how-to is checked against what we see in real ranking data across the keywords our customers track. We write them for people who are new to SEO and for agencies who want a clear answer fast.
Search volume and difficulty figures come from live Google results and third-party keyword data.