How to Find Easy Keywords That You Can Actually Rank

SEO can feel intimidating at first. When your competitors are literally years ahead of you, it’s hard not to feel like you’re just playing catch up.

You might’ve found some relevant keywords to target, but they’re just far too competitive.

The big guns are in the top 10 in Google, and you feel like you’ve got no chance of ranking alongside them.

Or perhaps you’ve written a blog post, but you’re really struggling to push the needle and climb to the first few pages of Google.

It’s a problem lots of startups and small businesses face: where should I start when my website has little to no authority?

Everyone has felt like this at some point. But there are still keywords you can target - trust me.

There’s a goldmine of keywords your competitors haven’t tapped into yet, waiting to be discovered.

At TwinklHive, we specialise in working with startups and small businesses.

In fact, we took a website with one page to ranking for 360 keywords in a matter of weeks.

How? By targeting easy, low-competition keywords that their competitors were ignoring.

In this guide, we’ll talk you through the step-by-step process of how to do keyword research if you’re a startup or small business.

No paid tools, no gimmicks - just a clear process for discovering the goldmine of easy keywords in your niche.

Step 1: Set Your Goals

Content can be extremely powerful for your business. But it’s easy to get wrong.

Lots of people fall into the trap of trying to make their content do everything at once.

You’ll get much stronger results if you stick to one (maximum two) core aims for each piece of content.

For example, here are some goals content can help you achieve:

Brand awareness
Free sign-ups/email leads
Conversions
Repeat customers
Referrals

Decide which goal you're working towards first, then plan your content around this.

Step 2: Decide Which Topics to Focus On

Now you have a goal, it’s time to focus on which topics you’re going to cover.

Below is a really handy framework from Laura Hampton at Impression:

The ‘Core’ incorporates topics that are very closely aligned with your business. For example, the topics we cover at TwinklHive’s SEO services relate to SEO for small businesses and startups specifically.

The ‘Secondary’ segment includes topics that are still aligned with your business offering, but not as closely as your ‘Core’ topics. For example, we might write about SEO more generally, rather than focusing just on small businesses and startups.

Finally, the ‘Tertiary’ segment includes topics that are still relevant to your audience, but aren’t part of your core offering. For example, we might write about digital marketing trends.

The theory goes that content in the ‘Core’ segment leads to more conversions. This is because the people searching for these terms are more likely to be your ideal customer.

It all ties back to the goal you set in step one of this tutorial. If you’re aiming for brand awareness, topics in the ‘Tertiary’ segment will most likely bring you more traffic. However, if you’re focusing on conversions, stick to ‘Core’ topics that move someone closer to a purchase.

Many businesses sell an innovative product where there isn’t much search demand (yet). In this case, it makes more sense to focus on the ‘Tertiary’ segment, so you can make more people aware of your unique offering before demand for your product increases.

Have a go yourself: what topics would you put into the ‘Core’, ‘Secondary’ and ‘Tertiary’ segments?

Step 3: Find Keywords with Search Volume

The next step is finding keywords that people are actually searching for, so you can target them in your content.

The first thing we need to think about is search volume. In short, this is the number of people who search for a keyword on average every month.

This is taken from a 12-month average, so it may fluctuate month-to-month. For example, a Halloween keyword may have a search volume of 100, but in reality most searches will occur in October.

Aim for a keyword with a search volume of at least 20. This may seem low, but if you’re just starting out, it’s a good idea to target easy keywords first, then build yourself up slowly.

We’ll talk about how to assess the competitiveness of a keyword in the next step.

At TwinklHive, we use paid tools which provide unique data-driven insights to help us plan our content.

However, if you’re a startup or small business, you might not have the budget for this yet.

Thankfully, there are plenty of free keyword research tools you can use.

Here are some SEO tools for startups which will tell you the search volume of a keyword:

Keyword Surfer
Topics by SEOMonitor
Ubersuggest (limited number of free searches)

Here’s a question we often get asked: if a keyword doesn’t have any search volume, is it still worth targeting?

If you have a brand-new website, it’s still worth targeting some of these phrases, but it’s important to be strategic about it.

Some phrases may not have search volume yet, but they could be popular in the future.

Type your keyword into Google Trends. If the popularity of the keyword is increasing, it’s a good time to target this phrase, so you can rank for it now before it becomes more competitive - even if it doesn’t currently have search volume.

There are also ‘People Always Ask’ questions that appear in Google search results.

Even if these questions themselves don’t have search volume, they can appear in search results for broader queries which lots of people search every month.

We wouldn’t recommend creating content based solely on these questions, but you can incorporate them into blogs on a wider topic.

Answer the Public is a really user-friendly tool that will find questions likely to appear in the ‘People Always Ask’ box.

Using the above information, play around with the free tools provided and generate a list of keywords that you can target in your content.

Step 4: Assess the Competition to Find Easy to Rank Keywords

It’s tempting to try and rank for a keyword with a search volume of 1000+.

And in some cases, you’ll strike gold and get hundreds of visitors per month.

But it’s important to assess how competitive this keyword is before you create content for it. Otherwise, you’ll be stuck a few pages down Google search results, with little to no traffic to show for it.

So how do you find easy to rank keywords?

Now you have your list of keywords and their search volumes, assess the competitiveness against two criteria:

The amount of competition.
The strength of the competition.

First, download the Moz tool bar Chrome extension (for free). This means you’ll be able to see the ‘DA’ (Domain Authority) of the results in the top 10.

DA is based on the number, relevancy and strength of backlinks pointing to a website.

Approach this metric with caution. Remember that this is a third-party metric, and not something Google directly uses in its algorithm.

Despite this, it’s still useful to gauge, in a general sense, how authoritative the results in the top 10 are.

Calculate an average DA for the results on the first page and then compare with your website. If the results are a lot higher, you may struggle to rank alongside these websites if you don’t have a high DA yet.

However, if there are a couple of websites with a DA similar or lower to yours, this keyword is easy enough for you to realistically rank on the first page of Google.

It's also worth considering the quantity of competition for the keyword. At TwinklHive SEO, we use a formula for this to find great keyword opportunities for our clients. As a starting point, you can simply look at the number of search results for your keyword.

Together, looking at the amount and strength of the competition will help you find easy keywords to rank for.

But that’s not all you need to take into consideration.

Step 5: Consider User Intent

At this point, you’ll have some low-competition keywords with search volume.

That’s great, but you always need to consider user intent before you create your content.

Fundamentally, Google’s job is to answer people’s queries. By using contextual clues, they can work out what type of content the user wants. For example, a blog-style post, product page or a unique SERP feature like Google maps.

If your page doesn’t match user intent, you’re unlikely to rank, because Google would be providing a poor service to its users if it didn’t match what they were looking for.

Broadly speaking, there are three types of intent:

Transactional - where the user is looking for a product or service (e.g. ‘laptop under £500’).
Informational - where the user is looking for information (e.g. ‘how to bake a cake’).
Navigational - where the user is looking to navigate to a specific page (e.g. ‘Netflix login’).

Before you create content, consider the intent of all the keywords you’ve chosen. Don’t guess - simply type the keyword into Google and see what results come up.

Not only should you look for whether the keyword is transactional, informational or navigational. You should also ask yourself:

Who is searching for this keyword? Are the results for beginners or experts?
What angle should I take? For example, are people looking for ‘easy’ recipes specifically?
Why are they searching this query? Are they worried and need reassurance, do they want to learn something, or are they looking to buy a product?

Use these questions to inform the type of content you create and what you write.

Top tip: try and find keywords where the user’s need hasn’t been met yet. Do the top 10 results not actually answer their question? Is the user looking for ‘easy’ recipes but all the results are advanced? This is a great opportunity to create content that actually solves the user’s problem and stand out from the crowd.

Remember: Google wants to meet the needs of their users as best they can. When you match user intent, everybody wins.

After the following steps 1-5, you should have a good list of easy to rank keywords. But thinking about keywords in isolation is a thing of the past. Read on to learn current best practices.

Step 6: Content Clusters

Increasingly, Google is prioritising longform content in search results.

In fact, a study by SERPIQ found that longer content correlates with higher rankings.

In the past, websites would often create one page per keyword. However, it’s becoming more common to create one, in-depth post about a topic that targets multiple keywords at once.

In short, fewer pieces of longer content provide you with the best chance of growing your traffic, compared to lots of smaller posts.

So how does this impact your keyword research?

It means that you shouldn’t think about your keywords in isolation. Instead, cluster them together into topics. As such, think about “cluster search volume” instead of “keyword search volume.”

For example, if you have five keywords about pet food for Labradors, don’t create five separate posts. Cluster these keywords together into one post, and calculate the total “cluster search volume” by adding up the search volume of all keywords in the cluster.

This way, you can have a better idea of the traffic potential of this page.

Be careful, though: only add keywords to the cluster that have the same type of intent (informational, transactional, navigational). Otherwise, the type of content you’re creating may not meet the user’s needs.

We’re now at the final stage of the keyword research process. All you need to do is finalise your ideas based on the research you’ve done so far.

Step 7: Finalise Your Content Ideas

At this point in the tutorial, you’ll have thought about the following:

Goal
Cluster/keyword search volume
Competitiveness
User intent

Now it’s time to bring this all together to finalise your ideas.

Putting your data into a Google Sheet with some conditional formatting is a great way to identify the best topics to start with.

Colour code your columns as follows:

Search volume: Red < 20; Amber 20-100; Green 100+
Keyword Difficulty*: Red 60+; Amber 40-59; Green <40

*(Here, Keyword Difficulty is the average DA of the top 10 search results for your keyword).

When you input your data, you’ll be able to find keywords and clusters that contain mostly green formatting. These are the best topics to target first, because they'll have a good search volume and low-competition.

All the research you’ve done has finally come together! Finally, you have a strong list of keyword clusters that will give you the best chance of your content succeeding.

Top Tips from SEO Experts

We spoke to SEO experts to discover even more top tips to help with your keyword research.

Use Customer Surveys

Below is an extra step to include when you’ve still brainstorming topic ideas.

“Surveys are a great way to get a feel for the mindset of your potential customers, and to conduct thorough research in a natural way.

“Rather than looking for specific trends in keywords, try actually asking customers questions about the queries they type into search engines when looking for different products. This will give you hints about relevant words that will work for you” - Nathan Murphy, Co-founder of QuizBreaker.

Consider Customer Pain Points

Charlotte McIntyre, an SEO Specialist at MCG, also values getting inside the head of your customers.

“Start by brainstorming what you already know about your product or service,” she says.

“What problems do you think it solves? What are the main benefits? Who is your ideal customer? You could even ask colleagues, or friends/family members, for their perspectives. If you already have customers, definitely ask them too.

“Then, move on to your target market. What problems do they have? Hit up forums, trade publications, and relevant news sites to discover relevant topics, themes and FAQs. It’s possible that your own ideas don’t totally align with what they think and feel, so this is important.”

Prioritise Long-Tail Keywords

Short tail keywords only include a few words (for example “fitness instructor”), whereas long-tail keywords are more specific (for example “cheap fitness instructor Sheffield”).

Darren Dean, founder of Wipelock, recommends prioritising long-tail keywords because they’re often less competitive.

“It's much easier for a startup or small business to rank on the search engine results page,” he says. “What's more, a long-tail keyword is more specific, which means it will have a higher conversion rate.”

Jen Penaluna, a Senior SEO Strategist at Evoluted, agrees: “Try to be fairly specific in your keyword choosing or you may be competing for the wrong terms. For example, as an SEO agency, we wouldn't focus on ranking for the keyword 'SEO' on its own, as a quick search for this term gives us lots of great articles on how to get started with SEO.

“Our goal is to meet potential clients who are looking for SEO services, so we'd prefer to rank for a term like 'SEO Services' as it better describes what we do. We can take it one step further as we can offer our services locally and optimise for 'SEO Services Sheffield'.”

Always Get the Context

“My best advice for small businesses is to look at the keywords they want to rank for and to check the first 10 results in Google,” says Senior SEO Account Manager Billie Hyde.

This way, you can better understand whether your content matches what the user is looking for. “If you search a keyword for a product but only blog posts come up, then the keyword isn't right for the intent,” she adds as an example.

Ultimately, this is where you want your page to end up, so you need a good understanding of the SERP landscape before you decide to create content for the keyword.

Keep an Eye on Competitors

“You are not just competing with the other businesses for sales, but also for your preferred position in the search results,” says Susan Thompson, a Digital Marketing Manager.

“You must keep a track of what keywords your competitors are using and opt for relevant keywords accordingly.

“As your niche is the same as your competitors, the same user queries they get will also return for your business as well. Google’s Keyword Planner is the best free tool to identify the keywords your competitors are ranking for.”

Start Simple

If you’re stuck in the ideas phase, strip things back.

Hammad Afzal, a Senior SEO Expert at TechNerds, recommends that “brainstorming keywords and phrases is the first step towards an effective keyword research process.

“For a computer store, this might be:

computer
mac
MacBook
pc
laptop

“You can use these as seed keywords to find more ideas.” Then simply type them into a free keyword research tool to get your creative juices flowing.

Even better, you could use a Google Sheets script. Elliot Stanion, Senior SEO Account Manager at SEO Works, says: "One way I've found that can completely revolutionise the way in which you can identify questions and queries related to your keyword research is via a script/spreadsheet called QuestionKeywords from keywordsinsheets.com. This sheet allows you to plug in any keyword and it will automatically populate a spreadsheet full of related questions that people are actually asking online."

Final Thoughts

As we mentioned at the start of this blog post, targeting easy, low-competition keywords is the key to success.

Once you’ve followed all of these steps, you’ve found your goldmine.

These keywords will give you the best chance of ranking your content, climbing to the top of Google, and meeting your business goals.

We appreciate that this can be a time-consuming process. If you need some help, we provide both SEO consultancy and hands-on help.

To find more information about our SEO services for startups and small businesses, visit TwinklHive or get in touch with daniel.rawley@twinkl.co.uk.

Want to learn more? Receive 1 SEO explainer, 2 actionable tips, and 3 articles to grow your traffic in our monthly SEO newsletter. All subscribers receive three personalised quick win recommendations for their website (for free).