How to Find Low Competition Keywords in 5 Steps (2026)

Here's how to find low competition keywords: cap keyword difficulty at what your domain can actually win. Pull the queries Google already shows you for, filter by real demand, read the live results pages, and score what's left. That's the whole method. Five steps, one afternoon, no agency retainer.

If you're asking how to find low competition keywords for a new SaaS site, you've probably tried the other way first. You typed a seed term into a keyword tool. It handed back high traffic terms with big numbers. You wrote about them on weekends. Three months later, those posts had zero visits.

The problem usually isn't the writing. It's the targeting.

The keywords high on everyone's list belong to sites with years of links. A new domain can't outrank them yet, and better prose won't change that. This guide is built for a solo founder with almost no backlinks. Every step ties your keyword research to your own site's strength, not to a generic difficulty number.

It's also the logic we built into topic selection. If you want to see where it fits in a bigger loop, Draftful's homepage overview shows the writing, fact-check and tracking side. Nothing here promises a ranking. What you get is a short list you can defend.

Key Takeaways

• Set a difficulty ceiling for your own domain before you look at a single keyword.
• Search Console queries sitting on page two are often your fastest wins.
• Filter candidates in a fixed order: difficulty, then demand, then product fit.
• Read the real results page, because forums and small blogs signal a winnable term.
• Score survivors on three checks and keep only 5 to 10 topics.
• An empty list usually means your seed terms are too broad, not that your niche is full.

What do you need before you start?

You need four things: Search Console access to your domain, a keyword tool that shows difficulty scores, 5 to 10 seed topics tied to your product, and about one afternoon with a notes file. No paid suite is required. A difficulty score from some tool, free or paid, is the one non-negotiable.

Difficulty: Beginner. Time: About one afternoon for a first pass.

• Google Search Console access to your domain
• A keyword tool that shows difficulty scores
• A list of 5 to 10 seed topics tied to your product
• About one afternoon and a notes file to track candidates

Two terms come up in every step, so here they are in one line each.

Low competition means few strong pages compete for a term, so your site can plausibly rank for it. Keyword difficulty is a score most keyword tools show, estimating how hard it is to reach page one.

For a rough benchmark, keywords with difficulty under 30 are described as the fastest path to organic traffic for newer websites, according to a keyword tool vendor's overview page. That vendor sells keyword data, so read it as a sales-side claim, not an independent study.

Your seed topics matter more than the tool. Pick problems your product solves, in your buyers' words. For an invoicing app, think late fees, payment reminders and recurring invoices, not just your product category name.

Now the honest part. A new domain with few backlinks needs patience. This method picks better targets. It doesn't make Google move faster, and no ranking is promised.

If you later want to hand off the drafting, you can compare Draftful's plans before you commit.

Step 1: What is your domain's difficulty ceiling?

Set a difficulty ceiling: the highest keyword difficulty your site can realistically compete for, based on your authority and how many sites link to you. New sites should start with a low cap and raise it only after pages start ranking. Anything above the ceiling waits, however good its traffic number looks.

A difficulty ceiling turns keyword research from a wish list into a filter, and filters are much easier to follow on a tired Sunday night.

Many SEO tools sum up a site's strength as one authority score. One vendor describes its version as a measure of a website's overall SEO strength and credibility, per that vendor's keyword overview page. That's the vendor defining its own metric, so treat it as a rough signal.

No reliable public data maps an authority score to a safe difficulty cap. Treat the bands below as a starting framework, not a formula.

• New site, almost no links: the lowest cap your tool allows; start with the easiest terms only.
• Few links: a slightly higher cap, still well below the middle of the scale.
• Some links and a few ranking pages: raise the cap one small step at a time.

A brand-new site may need to sit well below the under-30 band mentioned earlier.

Picture a founder with an invoicing app and almost no backlinks. She sets her cap low and runs her list. "Invoicing software" fails instantly. "How to add late fees to an invoice" passes. She didn't have to argue with herself. The ceiling said no for her.

Pro tip: write your ceiling at the top of your notes file. It's easy to quietly raise it when a juicy term shows up.

Step 2: Which of your queries are already close to ranking?

Open the Search Console Performance report, export your queries, sort by impressions, and flag the ones where you sit just off page one. Google already connects those terms to your site. A dedicated page or a sharper section can move them faster than starting a topic from nothing.

In order:

1. Export your queries. Use the Performance report and compare the last 28 days with the previous 28. That shows which queries are rising.
2. Sort by impressions. Impressions mean Google showed your page, even without a click. High impressions with low clicks is a clue.
3. Flag page-two queries. Look for an average position just past the first page. Those are your near misses.

The report's interface only shows part of your data. For a fuller pull, Google's guide to pulling all your Search Console data recommends the Search Console API and paging results with startRow. You won't need that on a small site. It matters once your query list gets long.

Add every flagged query to your notes file with its position and impressions. Those numbers become tiebreakers in Step 5.

Exporting by hand is enough. If you'd rather connect Search Console to a tool, first read how account data is handled before you connect Search Console.

A new site may show only a handful of queries. That's normal. If your export is nearly empty, skip ahead to Step 3 and build your list from seed topics instead.

Step 3: Filter your keyword list by difficulty and volume

Export your candidate keywords from your tool, drop anything above your Step 1 ceiling, then drop terms with no sign of real demand. What survives is a list you can plausibly win that someone searches for. Product relevance comes last, so you don't keep terms out of loyalty.

Run the filter in this order:

1. Difficulty under your ceiling. Delete everything above it. No exceptions, no "just this one."
2. A volume floor. Keep terms with some demand, including tiny numbers.
3. Relevance to your product. Would a buyer reading this page plausibly need what you sell?

The volume floor is lower than most people expect. A manual keyword research video on YouTube treats terms showing no data or very little search volume, such as 10 searches per month, as candidates (the YouTube walkthrough). That's one creator's method, not a study. Use it as a candidate threshold, not a rule.

No data is not the same as zero demand. Tools estimate volume from samples, and long, specific phrases often fall through the gaps. Phrase length works in your favor here: longer phrases are usually easier and more specific.

Two invoicing examples:

• "best invoicing software" fails at the first filter. Its difficulty sits far above a new site's ceiling.
• "how to write a payment reminder email for an overdue invoice" passes. Low difficulty, small but real volume, and a clear link to the product.

If you keep candidates in a spreadsheet or another app, you can see how Draftful connects to other tools. Today that means Markdown or HTML export and signed webhooks.

Step 4: Who already ranks for your shortlisted terms?

Search each candidate yourself and count how many top results come from sites your size: forums, directories, small blogs, thin vendor pages. If several do, the results page is winnable. If page one is all large brands with pages built exactly for that query, move the term down your list.

A keyword tool estimates competition from a distance, while the live results page shows you every actual opponent by name.

Check these signals on each results page:

• Site type. Forums, Q&A threads and directories suggest Google is short on dedicated answers.
• Page match. Does the top result answer the exact query, or a broader one? Loose matches are openings.
• Age. Look at published dates and how old the sites look. Stale pages are easier to beat with a current one.
• Format. If every result is a list or a how-to, write that format. Fighting the format rarely pays.

This is a judgment call, not a formula. Some tools publish the factors behind their difficulty scores, but those weights aren't verified for this article, so trust your own eyes here.

Say a founder searches "late fee clause for a freelance invoice." She finds a directory listing, a forum thread with a few replies, and two small blogs with short posts. No big brand page targets the exact phrase. That's a winnable page, and it goes straight onto her shortlist.

Once you've drafted for a term like that, Draftful's analyze tool for checking a draft can flag unsourced claims and broken links before the page goes live.

Step 5: Shortlist and score your topics

Score each surviving term on three checks: difficulty within your ceiling, fit with your product, and a real buyer question it answers. Give one point per check, keep topics that hit all three, and stop at 5 to 10. That shortlist becomes your publishing plan, and everything else waits in the notes file.

The rows below are illustrative, not real tool data.

• How to add late fees to an invoice: under ceiling, strong product fit, answers "Can I charge late fees?", keep (tofu).
• Invoice vs receipt: under ceiling, medium fit, answers "What's the difference?", keep for later (tofu).
• Best invoicing software for freelancers: above ceiling, strong fit, clear buyer question, park until your authority grows (mofu).

Tag each topic with a funnel stage in one line. Tofu (top of funnel) pages serve people learning about a problem. Mofu (middle of funnel) pages serve people comparing solutions. A simple mix of both keeps your strategy from being all education and no buyers.

Write for the person searching, not the tool. Google's SEO Starter Guide pushes the same idea: clear, useful pages that answer what people look for. Narrow topics make that easier, and a precise page title and description help it get the click.

After you publish, search rankings are only half the picture. You can check whether AI assistants such as ChatGPT or Perplexity name your product when a buyer asks the question your page answers. We track that weekly in Draftful, starting from a free baseline report that reads your public pages.

If you work inside an AI assistant already, the MCP integration setup page shows how to connect that workflow.

Once the shortlist exists, the weekly work of turning it into sourced articles is covered in SaaS content marketing tactics for small teams.

What if your list comes back empty?

If nothing passes, widen your ceiling a little, try longer and more specific phrases, or check whether your terms match what a buyer wants. An empty list usually means your seed terms are too broad, not that your niche has no room. Four common causes, each with a fix:

1. No Search Console queries yet. Normal for a new domain. Google needs pages and time before it shows you anything. Look for gaps on competitor pages instead: questions their posts skip or answer badly.
2. Every candidate sits above your ceiling. Your seeds are too generic. Rewrite them toward a specific invoicing problem, like reminders, late fees or tax fields, rather than the product category.
3. The tool shows no volume for a term. Treat it as a candidate, not a dead term. Check the results page in Step 4. If real people ask it on forums, it has demand.
4. The shortlist grows past 10 topics. Cut it to your top five by product fit. The rest stay in your notes file for next month.

Picture a founder whose filter returns nothing. She rewords two terms. "Invoice software" becomes "how to send a recurring invoice to a retainer client." "Payment terms" becomes "net 30 payment terms wording for freelancers." She reruns the filter. Both pass the ceiling, both show small demand, and both answer a question her buyers type.

That's the whole fix, most of the time. Smaller phrases, clearer intent, a second pass. Your visibility in search and in AI answers starts with pages that can realistically win, and you now have a repeatable way to find them.

When your shortlist is ready, run one candidate draft through Draftful's analyze tool to see what it flags before you publish, because the cheapest bug is the one you catch before anyone reads it.