Low-competition keywords: how to find ones a small site can rank for in 90 days

If your site is new or small, "project management software" or "running shoes" is not your keyword. The first page is owned by sites with years of links. You can write the best article on earth and sit on page six.

What you can win are the smaller, more specific searches: fewer people, but people who know exactly what they want. Here's how to find them.

What "low competition" actually means

SEO tools (Ahrefs, Semrush, Moz, and several free ones) give each keyword a difficulty score, usually 0 to 100. It's mostly a guess based on how many links the current top results have. For a small site, under about 20 is the zone to look in.

The score is a starting filter, not an answer. You still have to look at the results page.

Step 1: Start from your customers' words

Write down the questions people ask you before they buy. Sales emails, support tickets, the chat on your site, questions at a market stall. "Can I put a linen shirt in the dryer?" is a keyword. So is "how long does a sourdough starter last in the fridge".

Step 2: Expand them

Put each seed phrase into a keyword tool. Look at the "questions" and "also ranks for" lists. Google's own "People also ask" box and the related searches at the bottom of the page are free versions of the same thing.

Step 3: Filter

• Difficulty under about 20
• Some real volume (even 30 to 50 a month is fine if the intent is right)
• The search matches something you sell or know well

Step 4: Check the results page by hand

This is the step people skip. Search the phrase. Good signs:

• Forum threads (Reddit, Quora) in the top five: Google can't find a proper answer
• Small sites or old posts ranking
• Results that only half answer the question

Bad signs: ten pages from big brands, or Google answering it directly at the top with nothing left to click for.

Step 5: Match the format

If the top results are lists, write a list. If they're step-by-step guides, write one. If they're product pages, a blog post probably won't rank; that keyword belongs on a collection page.

Step 6: Group and plan

Put similar keywords into one post rather than writing three thin ones. "Linen shirt dryer", "shrink linen shirt" and "wash linen shirt" is one article. Then link each post to the product or collection it relates to, and to two or three related posts.

A worked example

A small tea shop can't rank for "green tea". But "how many times can you steep sencha" has modest volume, low difficulty, and a results page full of forum threads. So does "gyokuro water temperature". Fifteen posts like that, each linking to the relevant tea, and the shop starts getting found by people who are about to buy good tea.

Consistency beats bursts

Thirty posts published over a month, all on one topic cluster, usually does more than thirty scattered across a year. Google reads it as a site that covers the subject properly.

Before any of this, make sure the basics are in place: our Shopify SEO checklist covers the eight fixes.

Questions people ask

What keyword difficulty should a new site target?

Under about 20, then check the results page by hand.

How much search volume is enough?

For a niche business, 50 to 500 searches a month on a phrase that matches what you sell can beat 10,000 on a vague one.

How many posts do I need?

For most small businesses, 30 to 60 good posts on a tight topic set is where results show.