Hi Iwan,

Most people do keyword research wrong.

They go straight to a keyword tool, find something with decent volume, and start writing.

Meanwhile, Reddit is sitting there showing you exactly what your audience actually wants.

Here's a 4-method process to find keywords your competitors are completely missing:

Use Google operators to find Reddit discussions that already rank

1. Search: site:reddit(.)com [your keyword]

This shows you every Reddit thread Google is already indexing for that topic.

Look at the thread titles and the bolded phrases in the snippets.

Those are the terms Google is associating with each result.

Quick and free.

2. Pull an entire subreddit into Ahrefs Site Explorer

Enter reddit(.)com/r/[yourniche] into Site Explorer, go to Organic Keywords, and filter for positions 3-0.

Positions 1-2 mean Google loves the Reddit thread format for that query.

Positions 3-10? That's where you can write something more thorough and take the spot.

Example: The /r/hiking subreddit alone ranks for nearly 80,000 keywords. That's 80,000 content ideas sitting right there.

3. Browse subreddits manually, sorted by "Top" posts

Upvotes are a built-in validation signal.

A post with 15,000 upvotes tells you people actually care about that topic.

Look for: "How do I..." posts, rant posts, "I finally figured out..." posts.

The exact phrasing people use in their questions is often better copy than anything you'd find in a keyword tool.

4. Track brand mentions

People are already talking about you on Reddit.

Those conversations rank in Google and get cited in AI tools like ChatGPT and Perplexity.

Tools like Ahrefs' Brand Radar show you which threads mention your brand, which mention competitors, and what keywords are driving the most impressions from those discussions.

If a "best X" thread ranks and mentions 4 competitors but not you, that's a gap worth closing.

The real advantage here isn't just finding keywords. It's understanding WHY people search for them in the first place.

That context is what separates content that ranks from content that actually converts.

Not sure which keywords you should actually be targeting? We audit sites for free and show you exactly where the gaps are.

Click here to claim your free keyword audit.

To your continued success,

Matt Diggity