How can you find keyword and link opportunities?

To find keywords, start with your site’s existing search queries, keywords competitors rank for, and audience questions. Then filter by search intent, search volume, and difficulty. To find link opportunities, look at sites that link to competitors and pages that mention your brand without linking to it. Combining these two kinds of research helps you identify content your audience needs and relevant websites would find worth citing, rather than simply building separate lists of popular keywords and potential linking sites.

Identify search demand before deciding your content’s purpose

If you already have a website, start by reviewing query data in Google Search Console. In a 2022 article, Welly demonstrates how to filter queries for a specific page and use the way people describe their problems to find long-tail keywords. You can use this research method without following the exact interface steps from that year. (S2)

• Start with core terms related to your products or services and use keyword research tools to find related terms and questions. Then use search volume and keyword difficulty to set priorities. (S14)
• Review terms competitors already rank for to find ideas you may not have considered, then select terms relevant to your business. (S14)
• Plan content according to search intent rather than treating high search volume as the only criterion. (S17)

In a SaaS context, for example, a topic such as “how to build a sales pipeline” is suited to answering introductory questions, while product and feature pages serve people looking for solutions. Product comparison terms that people use when they are closer to making a purchase may attract more qualified leads even with low search volume. This does not mean every comparison page will generate conversions. (S17)

As part of our content services at Procrustes, we turn questions that genuinely matter to customers into articles and continue to plan, write, and update content.

Find link opportunities through competitors and brand mentions

Start by identifying pages that link to competitors but not to your site, then review each page to see whether there is a suitable place to introduce your content. Look beyond website authority: consider whether the page’s topic and audience are a good fit for your content, the number and nature of its existing outbound links, and traffic and rankings. (S21)

Another approach is to look for pages that mention your brand without linking to it. Beyond your brand name, you can search for common misspellings of it and distinctive product or campaign names. A 2024 Semrush article describes using Google Alerts to receive notifications of new brand mentions. Once you find such a page, confirm that it does not already link to your site. Prioritize positive or neutral mentions, then thank the author or person responsible for the page and politely ask them to add a link. (S5, S20, S21)

Plan keywords alongside content worth citing

Competitor research should not stop at “Which keywords do they rank for?” Looking at those keywords, content topics, and backlinks together allows you to explore keyword and link opportunities at the same time. (S18)

Start by choosing relevant topics and examining which competitor content has attracted links. Then assess whether your own pages also contain material worth citing. If you do not yet have content that can support your goals and attract suitable links, create it before approaching relevant websites. Pages with unlinked brand mentions can be handled separately; you do not necessarily need to wait until new content is finished. This helps align topic selection with the websites you contact, but a competitor’s success in earning links does not guarantee that you will earn them too. (S21)