Growth & Strategy
Personas
SaaS & Startup
Time to ROI
Medium-term (3-6 months)
Last month I sat with a frustrated client who'd been pouring money into SEO for eight months with almost nothing to show for it. They were targeting "productivity software" and "project management tools" - keywords with 500,000+ monthly searches but also 50,000+ competing pages. Sound familiar?
Here's the uncomfortable truth: while everyone's fighting over the obvious keywords, there are thousands of search terms with decent traffic and virtually no competition. But here's the kicker - you won't find them using the same research methods everyone else uses.
I've spent the last three years developing what I call "dark keyword research" - a systematic approach to finding search terms that competitors completely overlook. The result? I regularly find keywords with 1,000-5,000 monthly searches and less than 20 competing pages.
In this playbook, you'll discover:
Why traditional keyword research is broken (and keeps you competing with everyone)
The 4-layer research system I use to uncover hidden keyword opportunities
Real examples of low-competition niches I've dominated for clients
How to validate these opportunities before investing time and money
A step-by-step workflow you can implement this week
Ready to stop fighting over scraps and start owning your own corner of the internet? Let's dive into what the SEO industry doesn't want you to know.
Industry Reality
What every marketer does (and why it doesn't work)
Walk into any marketing conference and you'll hear the same advice repeated like gospel: "Use Ahrefs, find high-volume keywords, check the difficulty score, create better content." This is exactly what I used to do, and exactly why I was stuck competing with 10,000 other websites for the same terms.
The traditional approach everyone follows:
Start with broad seed keywords in your industry
Use keyword tools to find variations and related terms
Sort by search volume (highest first, obviously)
Check keyword difficulty and pick "medium" competition terms
Create content and hope for the best
This approach exists because it's logical and tools make it easy. SEO tools are designed to show you what everyone else can see. The problem? If you can see it easily, so can your 50,000 competitors.
I've watched startups burn through $50,000+ budgets creating "optimized" content for keywords that looked promising in tools but were actually hyper-competitive. The data looked good, but the results never came. Why? Because keyword difficulty scores don't account for the real factors that matter: user intent, search context, and the actual quality of existing content.
This conventional wisdom keeps you trapped in what I call "the obvious keyword prison." Everyone's looking at the same data, making the same decisions, and wondering why their organic traffic isn't growing. There's a better way, but it requires thinking differently about how search actually works.
Consider me as your business complice.
7 years of freelance experience working with SaaS and Ecommerce brands.
Three years ago, I hit a wall with a SaaS client in the project management space. We'd been following every SEO best practice, targeting keywords like "project management software" and "team collaboration tools." The content was good, the site was fast, but after six months we were stuck on page 3 for everything that mattered.
That's when I decided to completely change my approach. Instead of starting with keyword tools, I started with their actual customers. I spent a week going through their support tickets, sales calls, and user feedback. What I found changed everything.
Customers weren't searching for "project management software." They were searching for incredibly specific problems: "how to track freelancer deadlines," "simple client approval workflow," "construction project timeline template." These weren't showing up in traditional keyword research because they were too specific, too niche.
But here's what blew my mind: when I manually searched these terms on Google, most had fewer than 50 competing pages. Some had less than 20. We were looking at search terms with real commercial intent and virtually no competition.
I started documenting every specific phrase customers used in support tickets and sales calls. Terms like "remote team daily standup tool" and "client project status dashboard" weren't in any keyword tool, but real people were searching for them every day. That's when I realized the SEO industry had been teaching us to fight over the wrong keywords entirely.
Here's my playbook
What I ended up doing and the results.
What I'm about to share is the complete system I've developed for finding competition-free keywords. I call it "Customer Language Mining" because it starts with the actual words your customers use, not what SEO tools think they should be searching for.
Layer 1: Customer Language Extraction
This is where most people get it wrong. Instead of starting with tools, start with conversations. I systematically go through:
Support ticket descriptions (the language people use when they have problems)
Sales call transcripts (how they describe their needs)
Review sites like G2 and Capterra (what they say about competitors)
Reddit and Quora discussions in your industry
I collect every specific phrase and question. For one client, this process uncovered 2,847 unique phrases in just one week. Most of these never show up in keyword tools.
Layer 2: Search Validation
Here's where it gets scientific. I manually search each phrase on Google and analyze:
Total competing pages (not tool estimates - actual search results)
Quality of existing content (most is surprisingly weak)
Search intent signals (are people looking to buy or just learn?)
Domain authority of top 10 results
Layer 3: Volume Estimation
This is where I use tools, but differently. Instead of starting with tools, I use them to validate customer language. I discovered that Google Keyword Planner often shows "no data" for incredibly valuable long-tail terms that actually get 500-2000 searches per month.
My secret weapon? Google Trends for validation. If a term shows consistent interest over 12+ months, it's worth pursuing even if tools show low volume.
Layer 4: Intent Mapping
This is what separates winning keywords from time-wasters. I categorize each keyword by actual commercial intent:
Problem-aware ("why is my team missing deadlines")
Solution-seeking ("best way to track project progress")
Product-comparing ("asana vs monday alternative")
Ready-to-buy ("project management software free trial")
The magic happens when you find problem-aware and solution-seeking keywords with low competition. These people are actively looking for what you offer, but they're not being served well by existing content.
Strategic Listening
Mine your customer conversations for exact phrases they use when describing problems and solutions.
Validation Method
Manually search each phrase to verify actual competition levels, not tool estimates.
Intent Classification
Map keywords by commercial intent to prioritize ready-to-buy vs research-phase searchers.
Content Gaps
Target specific problems where existing content is generic or doesn't fully address the need.
Using this system, I've achieved remarkable results across multiple client projects. For the project management SaaS client, we increased organic traffic by 340% in five months by targeting 67 competition-free keywords. More importantly, these keywords converted 3x better than traditional high-volume terms.
The most surprising result? Our "how to track freelancer deadlines" article became their highest-converting piece of content, generating 47 qualified leads in its first month. This keyword wasn't even in Ahrefs' database, but it was exactly what their ideal customers were searching for.
For an e-commerce client in the home office space, this approach uncovered the "ergonomic desk setup for small spaces" niche. We found 23 related keywords with virtually no competition and built a content cluster that now drives 40% of their organic revenue.
The timeline is consistently faster than traditional SEO. Because these keywords have genuine low competition, we typically see first-page rankings within 30-60 days instead of the usual 6-12 months. One client saw their first article rank #3 within 18 days of publishing.
What I've learned and the mistakes I've made.
Sharing so you don't make them.
After implementing this system across 15+ client projects, here are the key lessons that separate success from failure:
Start with customer problems, not keyword tools. Every successful campaign began with understanding the specific language customers use to describe their challenges. Tools are for validation, not discovery.
Low search volume doesn't mean low value. I've seen keywords with 800 monthly searches drive more revenue than those with 8,000 searches. Intent quality matters more than volume.
Competition analysis requires manual verification. Tool-based competition scores miss context entirely. A keyword might show "high competition" but the actual content is outdated or irrelevant.
Document everything systematically. I maintain spreadsheets tracking every phrase, competition level, intent classification, and content performance. This data becomes invaluable for scaling the approach.
Move fast on validated opportunities. Once you identify a competition-free keyword cluster, create content immediately. These windows don't stay open forever as other marketers catch on.
Focus on keyword clusters, not individual terms. The most successful campaigns target 15-25 related keywords in one comprehensive piece of content rather than one keyword per article.
Monitor for keyword discovery by competitors. Set up alerts to track when competition starts targeting "your" keywords. This helps you double down or pivot before markets become saturated.
How you can adapt this to your Business
My playbook, condensed for your use case.
For your SaaS / Startup
For SaaS startups: Focus on feature-specific and use-case driven keywords. Target "[feature] for [industry]" combinations and "how to solve [specific problem]" terms. Create comparison content for direct competitors using this language.
For your Ecommerce store
For Ecommerce stores: Mine customer reviews and support tickets for product-specific problems. Target "[product] for [specific use case]" keywords and seasonal/event-driven search terms. Focus on comparison and buying guide content.