How to Research Keywords for a Niche: Full Ahrefs Walkthrough
Why Keyword Research Is the Starting Point for Every SEO Strategy
In SEO, the first way to get your content in front of the right customers is proper keyword research. In this video, I'll show a simple keyword research process that will help you find the best potential topics for your website and save you hours of work using just three simple steps.
Step 1: Gather Keyword Ideas by Thinking Like Your Customer
The first step is to gather keyword ideas. This means putting yourself into your customer's shoes. What words and phrases might they use to find solutions to their problems?
The good news is that there are multiple proven ways to uncover keyword opportunities. Use any single approach or combine them to build a solid pool of potential topics.
Method 1: Brainstorm Seed Keywords in Ahrefs Keywords Explorer
I'll open Ahrefs Keywords Explorer and start from a seed keyword. A seed keyword is a broad term that your customers are typing into Google to search for your business. We're going to use them to find thousands of keyword ideas.
For this video, I'll do keyword research for a hypothetical coffee equipment supplier. I'll type in "coffee." Even better, I can ask AI to suggest more seed keywords related to coffee -- and just like that, you have 20 extra seed keywords to start your research.
Hit enter, then go to the Matching Terms report to expand on those keywords and see how many keyword ideas we can generate. We've got over 20,000 keywords that you could potentially target. This might look overwhelming, but don't worry -- you'll learn how to narrow them down a bit later.
For now, select the keywords that you think might make sense for your business, or simply batch-select and add them to a new keyword list.
Method 2: Check Keywords Your Own Website Is Already Ranking For
The next method is simple: check for keywords that your website is already ranking for. If you already have a website, these keywords are a gold mine for brainstorming similar keyword ideas or improving underperforming pages.
Enter your domain into Ahrefs Site Explorer and go to the Organic Keywords report. Then look for keywords that have recently dropped in rankings -- like "best coffee maker with grinder." Click on it to get to the Keywords Overview, then scroll down to the keyword ideas table.
To win back those rankings, check the Questions tab for additional questions related to the seed keyword. Then explore the "Also Rank For" and "Also Talk About" columns. These show related keywords that top-ranking pages typically cover. By adding these related terms and questions to your content, you can strengthen your topical authority and climb back up the rankings.
Found a promising keyword? Just add it to your keyword list and move on to the next dropped keyword.
Method 3: Run a Content Gap Analysis to Find Competitor Keywords You're Missing
Now that you know what keywords your website is ranking for, let's spy on what your competitors are actually doing. In fact, this is one of the best ways to uncover hidden keyword opportunities that you're missing.
Head over to Ahrefs' Competitive Analysis tool and run a content gap analysis. Simply paste your site at the top, then add your competitors below. This will show you keywords where at least one of your competitors ranks in the top 10 search results, but you're nowhere to be found in the top 100 yet.
Hit "Show Keyword Opportunities" and we've got 33,000 such keywords to help you close the gap. To make things easier, sort by the Traffic column to see which of them actually drive visitors for each competitor. Take "niche zero grinder" for example -- it brings in consistent traffic even at position six, so it goes straight onto our list.
Method 4: Study the Keywords Your Competitors Are Paying for in Google Ads
Here's another smart move: study what keywords your competitors are paying for in Google Ads. Simply plug their domain into Site Explorer and go to the Paid Keywords report.
The thing is, if your competitors are willing to pay real ad dollars for these keywords, they're clearly profitable. So why not try ranking for them organically instead? To find the most expensive keywords they're bidding on, sort by the Cost Per Click column (CPC). The higher the CPC, the more valuable that keyword likely is.
And if you still have doubts, check the paid/organic ratio to see how much competition there is between ads and organic results. Take "Beanbox Coffee" for example. Our competitor is not only paying for ads, but also ranks organically at position one with a knowledge panel pulling in 96 visits each month. That's a clear signal this keyword converts. So, we'll add it to our list.
Step 2: Filter Your Keywords Using Key Metrics
Once you're happy with the keywords you've gathered, it's time to filter them to find the best and most appropriate ones for your business. But with so many keywords, how do you know which ones to target? The answer: keyword metrics.
I'll show you how to use them to find high-volume, low-competition topics early on in the buying process that compete with websites in your league -- which will help you gain more traffic and leads to level up your rankings.
Metric 1: Search Intent and the Marketing Funnel
One of the most important keyword metrics is search intent. Search intent is the reason behind the searcher's query. This helps categorize keywords into four main groups: informational, navigational, commercial, and transactional.
The good news is that you can map them out to a traditional marketing funnel that reflects a customer's journey. You might be at the top of the funnel searching for informational keywords like "how to make coffee at home." Then as you advance further down the buyer journey, you might switch to commercial keywords like "Lelit espresso machine" or "Lelit vs De'Longhi" because you heard about these brands in an ad. Finally, when you're ready to buy, you might type in a transactional keyword like "buy Lelit espresso machine."
The goal here is to target keywords that are at the top and middle of the funnel to get in front of your customers early on in the buying process. By providing value upfront, you build brand awareness that pays off when they're ready to buy later.
Apply an informational and navigational filter to focus on these early-stage keywords. Let's say "cold brew coffee" -- click the search button to see the top 10 search results in Google. A quick scan through the titles shows most results are informational, which is perfect for our strategy.
But let's dig deeper. If you click on "Identify Intents," you can see exactly what people are searching for, plus the percentage of traffic going to each search intent. According to this data, you could write a focused article on how to make cold brew coffee, or go for a comprehensive one and cover all angles to rank for multiple related keywords with a single piece of content. And trust me, you want this because AI-generated answers take into account multiple topics when surfacing your brand.
Metric 2: Search Volume and Keyword Difficulty Working Together
Next up are two keyword metrics that work hand in hand: search volume and keyword difficulty. Search volume shows how many times people search for a given keyword each month, while keyword difficulty tells you how hard it will be to rank for a keyword.
Together, they help you find low-hanging-fruit keywords -- those with a decent search volume but lower competition that are easier to rank for. To find them, click on the Presets in the top right corner and select the "High Volume, Low Competition" use case. This will automatically apply a search volume of at least 500 searches (that's high volume) and a KD score of up to 10 (that's the low competition part).
Hit "Show Results," and we have 457 keywords that are easy to rank for yet still bring consistent traffic on a monthly basis.
Metric 3: Growth Rate -- Catching Trending Keywords Before They Explode
But wait -- what's this column with positive deltas? This leads us to the next metric: growth rate. Here's something most people don't realize: search volume is an annual average, which can be misleading when you're planning future search demand.
A better strategy is to target keywords with a low search volume that are on their way to becoming more popular, so you can catch them before they explode. That's where the growth metric comes in. Simply sort the growth rate column for the past 12 months in descending order to find trending topics right now. You can also set a minimum threshold in the filters to narrow things down even further.
If we take a closer look, we can spot some emerging espresso machine models that are just starting to gain traction. These are perfect candidates to target before they become mainstream.
Metric 4: Growth Forecast -- Predicting Which Keywords Will Blow Up Next Year
Growth shows how search volume changed over the past 12 months. But its twin metric, Growth Forecast, predicts which keywords will become popular in the next 12 months. Go ahead and sort the Growth Forecast column in descending order to see which keywords are expected to explode in the upcoming year.
Metric 5: Domain Rating -- Only Target Keywords You Can Actually Win
We could keep narrowing down the list with even more filters and presets. But here's the truth: all this effort is useless if you're trying to compete with websites way out of your own league -- and by that I mean websites with a higher domain authority than yours, or Domain Rating (DR) as we measure it in Ahrefs.
Think of keyword research like choosing your battles. You need to rank for keywords you can actually win among websites with a similar DR as yours, before targeting the ultra-competitive ones. Here's how you find the needle in the haystack: click on "Lowest DR" and filter for keywords where websites with a low DR of around 30 rank in the top five. If sites with similar authority to yours are ranking, you can probably rank there too without massive domain authority.
Take "espresso vs Americano." If you check the SERP overview, you'll see not one, not two, but three websites with a DR below 30 already ranking in the top 10 search results.
Step 3: Cluster Keywords by Topic to Maximize Your Content ROI
By now, you might have hundreds -- if not thousands -- of keyword ideas, but you probably don't want to create a page for each and every one of them. So it's time for step number three: cluster keywords by topics.
Keyword clustering refers to grouping keywords with similar search intent so you can target them with one page instead of multiple pages. This deepens your topical authority, positioning your brand as a subject matter expert to Google, which in return boosts rankings and visibility for all related keywords.
In Ahrefs, the process is straightforward. Click on "Clusters by Parent Topic" to group keywords almost instantly. You'll see a tree map chart of all the clusters found. The larger the rectangle, the higher the search volume, plus key metrics to gauge your content ROI -- like global search volume and traffic potential, meaning how much traffic you could get if you were to rank number one for that cluster.
This is a much better metric than search volume alone because top pages rank for more than just one keyword, and it also reflects traffic -- which is what we're after -- rather than just raw counts. To see the keywords in a cluster, just click on the caret.
Parent Topic Clustering vs. Term Clustering -- and How to Decide Between Two Similar Keywords
That was parent topic clustering, which takes into account SERP similarity. There's also term clustering, which groups keywords by common words or phrases.
But what if you're unsure whether to target two keywords on the same page or separately? Just search for a keyword in Keywords Explorer -- let's say "whipped coffee" -- and scroll down to its SERP overview. Open the "Compare With" dropdown and enter the other similar keyword, "Dalgona coffee." Then hit Apply.
What we're doing here is checking the SERP similarity between the two keywords' top 10 search results. Based on a low similarity score, you should probably target them separately. That said, you should cluster them if the score is high, and make an educated guess when the score is medium.
Repeat This Process Every 3 to 6 Months as Your Authority Grows
And that's how you do keyword research like an SEO pro. By now, you should have several keyword lists organized into topical clusters ready for content creation. And as your rankings improve and you build more topical authority, you'll unlock more opportunities to target even more competitive keywords.
I'd recommend repeating this keyword research process every 3 to 6 months. The next step is to turn those keyword clusters into high-ranking content -- watch the next video to learn how to do it.
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