Question

How to find low competition high traffic keywords using Ahrefs keyword difficulty?

Answer 1

Ahrefs’ Keyword Difficulty (KD) metric is designed to estimate how hard it will be to rank in the top 10 organic results, based mainly on the backlink profiles of those pages. To find low competition, high traffic keywords, you’ll want to combine KD with other Ahrefs metrics and some manual SERP analysis. Here’s a step-by-step approach:

1. Start with Keyword Explorer

• Enter a broad seed keyword related to your niche.

• Use Phrase match or Related terms to get a larger keyword list.

2. Filter for Low KD

• In the KD filter, set a maximum—usually under 20 for newer sites, or 20–30 for moderately authoritative sites.

• This weeds out keywords that require strong backlink profiles to rank.

3. Filter for High Traffic Potential (TP)

• Set a minimum monthly traffic threshold (e.g., 500–1,000+ for smaller niches; 5,000+ for broad topics).

• Use Traffic Potential (TP) over “Search Volume” because TP accounts for all the clicks you could get from ranking for the primary keyword plus related keywords.

4. Prioritize Long-Tail Keywords

• Look for 3+ word phrases. They’re more specific, easier to rank for, and often show clearer user intent.

5. Check SERP Intent & Competition

• Click the SERP button in Ahrefs to see the top-ranking pages.

• Look for results with weak domain ratings (DR < 40), low referring domains (RD < 20), or non-optimized content (thin, outdated, poor formatting).

6. Look for Gaps with Content Explorer

• In Content Explorer, search your topic and filter for pages with high organic traffic but low DR—a strong sign of achievable rankings.

7. Save and Group Keywords

• Use Ahrefs’ Lists to group your chosen keywords.

• Sort them by search intent (informational, commercial, transactional) so you can plan your content strategy effectively.

Pro Tip: Sometimes a keyword with slightly higher KD (25–30) but extremely high TP is worth targeting if you can create the best resource on that topic.