Trying to rank highly for popular keywords is really hard, right? All the competition already takes the top spots no matter how well you optimize. Well, I’ve got a smarter idea – go after hidden “low hanging fruit” keywords instead! These are the less obvious long-tail versions that perfectly match what shoppers search for but have way lower competition. So you can nudge to page one more easily and start driving tons of clicks. But how to find these gems quickly? I’ll share my secret source and simple steps. By digging through one free report, cross-checking difficulty scores, and then optimizing just a bit, you can unlock a goldmine of untapped traffic and sales! This stuff works consistently no matter your niche. Ready to unlock major growth the easy way in 2024? Let’s get you started…
Why Finding These Keywords Matters
Low-hanging keywords are hidden gems – high-value keywords that are easier to rank for than ultra-competitive ones. By analyzing your GSC performance report closely and spotting patterns, you can uncover dozens of relevant long-tail and short-tail keywords that have good search volume and low difficulty.
Specifically, look for keywords that get lots of impressions but low CTR on 2nd/3rd queries and optimize them for quick wins. You’ll be amazed at how transforming these “low-hanging fruits” can accelerate your organic growth!
Here are some stellar benefits:
- Cost-Effective: Requires significantly lower efforts and costs than ranking for competitive KWs
- Quick Wins: Can help you gain traction and momentum fast
- Untapped Keywords: Can find long-tail Long-tail versions can have a decent search volume that adds up
- Low Risk: Easy to target without impacting existing rankings
- Gateway: This can be a gateway to ranking for additional related keywords
Clearly, not prioritizing these keywords means leaving money on the table! Now let’s get into the practical strategies.
Strategies for Identifying Low-Hanging Keywords in GSC
Your Google Search Console contains a hidden goldmine of easy-win keyword opportunities. You just need to know where to look!
Here are two proven techniques to dig up relevant, high-value long-tail and short-tail keywords from GSC that have less difficulty ranking:
Analyzing Queries with High Impressions but Low CTR
One strategy is to analyze queries on your site that are getting substantial impressions in search results but have a low click-through rate (CTR). These queries present prime opportunities for quick wins through some optimization.
Here’s how to find these queries:
- Head over to your GSC dashboard and navigate to the Performance tab.
- Click on Date and set a reasonable date range like the past 3 months
- After that, click on the queries view.
- Ensure you have metrics like Clicks, Impressions, CTR, and Position displayed. To enable CTR and Position, click on Avg CTR and Avg Position.
- Sort the table by Impressions in descending order to surface queries with the most impressions.
- Identify queries that have high impressions but a CTR below your overall site average. These queries are strong candidates for easy keyword wins.
Example
Here, you can see that the old keyboard connector keyword has a higher impression rate (1,051) with a very lower CTR percentage (0.1).
This one is our ideal low-hanging or low-fruit keyword. Like this, you can find yours from the GSC and then analyze the keyword to find long tail keywords and write content to rank on Google with ease. For example, my keyword “old keyboard connector” is a short-tail keyword. After that, I used Google and tools like Ahrefs to find out the long tail keywords and got something like these –
- How to convert the old keyboard connector into USB?
- How to connect an old keyboard connector to USB?
Like this, you can find long tail keywords for yourself as well
Why do these high impression, low CTR queries represent such great optimization potential? There are a few likely reasons:
- Unoptimized title tags and meta descriptions fail to entice searchers to click.
- The content fails to fully match or answer the intent behind the keyword.
- Lack of compelling calls-to-action within the SERP listing.
By taking the time to optimize these queries for the target keywords, you can massively boost CTR and rankings. Even minor tweaks can sometimes lead to big gains.
Analyzing Keywords Ranking on Pages 2 and 3
Another source of low-hanging fruit is keywords where your site already ranks on the second or third SERP queries. Keyword-driving positions 11 through 30 often present quicker wins than shooting straight for more competitive page-one rankings.
Here is how to surface these “hidden gems”:
- In GSC, go to the Performance tab and select Queries. Set your preferred date range.
- Make sure Position is among your metrics and sort by Position (lowest to highest).
- Identify keywords ranking between positions 11-30 to analyze.
These mid-ranking keywords already demonstrate some relevancy to your queries. With some optimization work, you can likely vault many to page one and significantly boost organic traffic.
The key takeaway – don’t fixate only on the most high-volume keywords. Look for low-hanging fruit in mid-range rankings and high impression/low CTR queries for quicker SEO wins!
Tips to Assess Low Difficulty
When analyzing mid-funnel keywords from GSC reports, how do you evaluate which have genuinely lower barriers to ranking high?
Here are 5 handy tips:
1. Use Google’s Keyword Planner
Check monthly searches and competition estimates. Anything with under 10k searches and low or medium difficulty has potential. Input each potential keyword and assess the suggested search volume ranges. For longer tail keywords, monthly volumes between 500-5000 indicate opportunity. Also, review the projected competition levels – “Low” means easier ranking while “Medium” can still be viable if relevance is strong. Expand your thinking by scanning the top Keyword Idea variations provided which merge additional concepts. Having Google’s algorithm provides top-level estimates instantly helps validate lower-hanging viability.
2. Use Keyword Difficulty Tools
Plug keywords into SEMRush, Ahrefs, or Moz and see difficulty scores. Specifically, input each mid-funnel phrase directly into the tool and review the difficulty score rated from 1-100. Generally, anything scoring below 30 indicates a much easier path to page one. For tougher keywords with higher difficulty levels, drill into the detailed opportunity analysis estimating ranking potential based on metrics like your current domain authority. The goal is to identify any quick wins – for example, a keyword scoring 78 overall difficulty might show a “Fair Chance” of rankings success within 6 months given your site’s metrics.
3. Evaluate the Top 10 Results Manually
Another smart validation step is evaluating existing first-page results manually for a sample of 5-10 medium competition keywords. Simply google each seed keyword and scan the page one rankings, taking note of Domain Authority and Page Authority metric scores via MozBar or SEMrush site audit tools. If you find multiple ranking domains only have scores below 70 DA, that’s a strong signal of high achievability for your own content in the future after optimization. Conducting manual reconnaissance on the current page one website helps assess the validity of automated difficulty scores.
4. Check Click Volume in GSC
Higher impressions but lower CTR indicates opportunity. Optimize targeting to boost engagement. keywords driving 500+ impressions over 2-3 months in your Search Console reports, inspect click-through rate trends. Consistently low CTR below 2% clearly signals the opportunity to boost engagement by better matching searcher intent through content and page optimization. Also analyzing click graphs for up and down patterns over 12-24 months allows you to capitalize if tougher keywords start declining in clicks. This indicates an opening to make your move.
5. Compare Search Trends
Never underestimate the importance of studying historic and predicted search volume trends. Within Keyword Planner and SEMRush, adjust date filters to show past and future search estimates segmented by month. Rising long tail keywords demonstrating consistent upward momentum over 12+ months show emerging interest and online traffic potential if targeted early before competition intensifies drastically in future years.
Essentially, accurately determining the difficulty helps unlock dozens of keyword treasures!
Optimize For Quick Wins
Once you’ve identified at least 20-30 low-competition keywords from your GSC reports, optimize quickly for conversions:
- Carefully review those landing pages – can their targeting/UX be improved? Are they fully relevant?
- Enhance pages for each keyword theme by adding related images, videos, expansions
- Create new Location or Feature pages targeting specific high-potential long-tails
- Interlink optimized pages to reinforce relevance
- Producing enterprise-quality content covering questions around those subjects
- Promote pages on social communities related to those keywords
- Use internal search to double-check keyword usage
- Track rankings growth in GSC while monitoring click volume
Rapidly implementing such optimizations for your hidden gems can deliver surprisingly quick surges in organic traffic and revenue minus all the heavy lifting!
Wrapping Up
And there’s your map, folks! Leverage my process to unlock all those easy-win gems tailored to how shoppers actually search. No more killing yourself on impossible keywords. Simply dig through the free data, validate low competition, optimize a bit, and ka-ching – new streams of high-value organic traffic and sales. Now get after those low-hanging fruits just waiting to be plucked for profits. I wanna hear about your page one wins real soon!