After gaining a year of experience in search engine optimization (SEO), I believe frustration is a compelling motivator. When I first started my fitness supplement blog last year, I used to spend countless hours making content, optimizing headlines, and promoting posts only to watch my traffic stay stuck. This made me feel like I was shouting into the void.

One day when I was frequently checking my Google Analytics software for the tenth time of that week I realized that I needed to pay attention to what people were searching for. Instead, I was just mindlessly guessing.

This was where I had a turning point in my SEO journey. I started to make new changes to my approach to SEO by learning to spot opportunities that others overlooked. This is the story of how I did it and the strategies that I still use.

My Breakthrough Moment

It all started when I saw a search query on a certain fitness supplement topic “Does creatine affect my mood?”. I saw that this term popped up in Google’s “People Also Ask” sections while doing my research to write a new blog post on creatine supplementation.

This was not at all a keyword I had initially planned but something about this topic made me feel interested to do more research on this topic. So I took my SEO tools and plugged them in for further research purposes.

When I had put this keyword on my keyword research tool (P.S. I use SEMrush for keyword research) I saw a relevant keyword “Does creatine make you aggressive?” where the search volume was not that much.

I clearly remember that it was showing around 400 searches per month in the United States of America. But the catch was the competition was surprisingly low.

So seeing that the keyword was of low competition fueled my motivation and I decided to write a post centred on the topic of “Does creatine make you aggressive?”, where I included my own practical advice, personal experience and answers to common questions.

Two to three months later my article became one of the top articles that drives traffic for my site. My blog’s overall monthly visit increased by a good margin and I began to rank for related terms I had not even considered like “Creatine aggression” or “Creatine and aggression”.

That experience taught me that SEO is not just about targeting the obvious but it is about finding the gaps that most people ignore.

Now I Will Share The Exact Strategy That Changed The Game For Me

First Of All, You Need To Explore The “People Also Ask” And Related Searches

I strongly believe that the “People Also Ask” section on Google’s search engine results page (SERPs) is a goldmine for content ideas because each question represents a real sure query.

For example, when searching for my blog I found a question under People Also Ask that says “What are the negatives of taking creatine?”.

I had not even thought to address this while making an outline of my article but I added a section dedicated to it. Adding a dedicated section in the article drove me more engagement and improved my page’s ranking.

You Have To Leverage Niche Communities By Keeping An Eye Out

Social media like Reddit, Quora and even Facebook groups are great places for brainstorming opportunities for new content.

I found this one discussion that someone posted related to creatine supplementation when browsing Quora and the thread had a good amount of upvotes and comments with personal opinions. The topic of the discussion was “Can we take creatine supplementation with milk?”.

I turned this topic of discussion into a blog post and to make it stand out I added my personal opinions and experiences, expert opinions, and cited credible studies.

That single post still ranks in the top 10 results of Google’s search engine results page.

You Have To Know And Analyze Your Competitors’ Weaknesses

I believe that if you do not know about your competitors then you are not dedicated in your SEO game.

You have to dive into the sea of websites and find out who your competitors are in the market. SEO tools like Ahrefs and SEMrush can help you find your competitors but they’re only as good as the strategy behind them.

What I always do till today is that instead of chasing high-volume keywords with intense competition I focus on what competitors miss.

The Website Called “Exploding Topics” Became My Best Friend

The website named “Exploding Topics” became my best friend for spotting emerging opportunities. Recently I was casually surfing on the website of “Exploding Topics” and I noticed an increasing trend on the topic of “Creatine gummies. And my conclusion is that this topic might be the next big hit.

So without making any delays I acted quickly and started writing about creatine gummies. Because I believe by the the time larger competitors catch me up I will be in a much better position on Google’s search engine results page. I have to make sure I am already ranking better than them.

To End My Story

I would love to hear about your SEO journey. What is the most surprising insight you have discovered? Please share it in the comment below or feel free to ask questions.

Let’s learn from each other!