How to Find Low-Competition Keywords for Local SEO in Pakistan

Being a developer, I always felt that SEO was very hard to do, and there is a misconception that you have to keep writing blogs and eventually you will be noticed by Google's algorithm. While writing consistently does help, especially when it comes to building internal links, I think finding the right opportunity can help your pages show up in search results without having to spend years writing content consistently.

How to find an opportunity?

If you know a little bit about SEO, you are probably familiar with keywords. Keywords are specific words or phrases users type into a search engine to find what they are looking for.

For example, someone might search for the keyword tech directory.

When a user types in a keyword, search engines like Google try to find the most relevant content related to that search.

Since the internet has been around for so long, there is a very high chance that short keywords like tech directory already have a decent amount of content competing for them.

AKA: high-competition keywords.

Introducing long-tail keywords

Even though the internet is full of information and there is content for almost everything, we still have opportunities where search engines are not finding content that fully matches what the user is searching for.

For example, if someone searches for Best accounting software, they will likely get generic results, including a mix of local and international products, with very high competition.

Now compare that with:

Best accounting software in Pakistan

And then go even more specific:

Best rice mill accounting software in Pakistan

At this point, you can probably tell that the competition is much lower compared to a generic keyword.

Long-tail keywords are longer and more specific search phrases that usually target a particular niche, business, location, or use case compared to short and generic keywords.

So, drilling down into your niche can give you a much better chance of ranking your pages.

Yes, some long-tail keywords might only get a small number of searches. But interestingly, the people searching for them are often much more relevant to your business and are actually looking for the exact service or product you provide.

How to find long-tail keywords

There are many ways you can find long-tail keywords depending on the business. I will show you two methods here, and most other methods usually come under the same umbrella.

• Search engine suggestions: Go to Google and start typing keywords that your users are most likely going to search for. Keep making the search more specific and look at the suggestions Google gives you.

  Once you find a long-tail keyword that seems relevant, search for it and check what kind of content is already ranking.

  If you notice that Google is not showing content that directly answers that search, great! You may have found an opportunity.

• User search intent: This is closely related to the first method, but Google suggestions should not be your only source of ideas.

  Just because Google does not suggest a keyword does not mean nobody will search for it.

  If you understand your users and believe they would intentionally search for a particular phrase, it can still be worth targeting.

Sometimes, the best SEO opportunities are not the keywords everyone is already chasing. They are the very specific searches where the user knows exactly what they want, but Google still does not have a perfect answer.

My approach for finding keywords

Recently, I wrote a blog on How to Connect a .pk Domain to Cloudflare

Here was my approach:

Opportunity: Most local .pk domain providers recommend that you manage DNS through Cloudflare. That's what they told me to do when I bought the domain.

They don't show how in Message or Mail. Most of the people will immediately go to Google to search for how to connect a PK domain with Cloudflare. I saw before writing that there was not too much competition. So, I ended up targeting this keyword for my blog, and luckily I'm showing up in the top 3 results. Pretty good experiment for me :)