Stop Competing with SEO Giants. Start Outsmarting Them. This guide gives early-stage SaaS founders a battle-tested, guerrilla-style framework to uncover high-intent, low-competition keywords, the kind you can actually rank for today, even with zero domain authority.
Most SEO advice works, if you're already winning.
If you have a high Domain Authority, a content team, and thousands of backlinks, playing the high-volume keyword game can work just fine.
But if you're an early-stage founder with limited resources and zero authority, that same playbook can drain your time, energy, and hope.
You can’t win a ground war against giants like Ahrefs or HubSpot. Competing on broad, competitive terms is like bringing a knife to a gunfight.
This guide is different. It’s about guerrilla warfare SEO.
I’ll show you a practical framework to find the overlooked, high-intent keywords your ideal customers are actually searching for, ones that the giants ignore. These are the keywords that can help you win your first 10, 50, and 100 customers.
The Scrappy Founder's Keyword Framework
This framework is built on a simple premise: focus your limited resources on the 20% of keywords that will drive 80% of your initial, high-quality signups.
1. The 80/20 Competitor Analysis (Find Proven Winners)
Your first step isn't to guess, but to see what's already working. This isn't about copying; it's about validating topics that people in your market care about.
- Make a list of 3-5 of your most relevant competitors.
- Use a tool like Semrush or Ahrefs (even the free version can work) to find their top-performing blog posts by traffic.
- Look for themes. Are their most popular posts about "integrations," "pricing comparisons," or "how-to guides"? This gives you a clear signal of what resonates.
2. The Zero Authority Filter (Why Low-DA is Your Superpower)
This is where the guerrilla mindset kicks in. Your low Domain Authority (DA) isn't a weakness; it's a filter that forces you to be smarter. You must target low-competition, long-tail keywords that the big players overlook.
The key is to focus on problems, not just topics. A founder with a new invoicing tool shouldn't target "invoicing software." They should target the pain that leads someone to search for it.
- Bad (High Competition): ten tips to look good on a Zoom call
- Good (Low Competition, High Intent): free alternatives to Zoom for long meetings
Search for keywords with commercial intent that signal a reader is ready to make a decision. These are often called bottom-of-the-funnel (BOFU) keywords.
3. Uncovering Whisper Keywords with Google
The best keywords are the ones your customers are already whispering into the search bar. Google gives you these for free if you know where to look.
When you search for a problem-based query, pay close attention to these three sections:
- Google Autocomplete: The suggestions Google shows as you type.
- People Also Ask (PAA): The box of related questions in the middle of the results.
- Related Searches: The list of queries at the very bottom of the page.
These are not just suggestions; they are a direct insight into the user's mind and a goldmine for long-tail keywords.
Google directly tells you what your audience is searching for in the People Also Ask and Related Searches sections.
4. Mining Your Own Customers (The Ultimate Source)
Once you have even a handful of users, they become your most valuable keyword research tool. Simply ask them one question:
"What did you Google right before you found us?"
Their answer is the purest form of a high-intent, bottom-of-the-funnel keyword you will ever find.
Using AI as Your Research Assistant
AI tools like ChatGPT, Claude, or Google's NotebookLM can act as an incredibly powerful research assistant to accelerate this process. The key is to use them not for generic ideas, but to simulate your ideal customer.
Here's a simple, step-by-step process:
- Create a Persona Prompt: Start by feeding the AI your Ideal Customer Profile. Prompt Example: "You are a non-technical founder of a 5-person B2B SaaS that sells a simple invoicing tool to freelance photographers. You are frustrated with complex accounting software. What are the top 5 problems you face every month related to getting paid?"
- Generate Problem-Based Keywords: Based on the AI's response, use a follow-up prompt. Prompt Example: "Great. For each of those 5 problems, give me 10 long-tail Google search queries you might type to find a solution. Focus on questions and comparison-based searches."
- Find the Whisper Keywords: Review the list. Ignore generic terms. Look for the specific, painful queries like 'quickbooks alternative for solo photographer' or 'how to handle late-paying clients invoice template'. These are your targets.
- Validate with Google: Take your best 2-3 keywords from the AI and plug them into Google. Now, use the People Also Ask and Related Searches features from our framework above to validate that real people are searching for these terms and to uncover even more variations.
From Keywords to Customers
Finding the right keywords is the first step in building a content engine that drives real growth. This scrappy SEO framework is one of 30 proven plays in my complete SaaS Growth Playbook, a core resource we've developed at Thoughtlytics.
Download the full PDF now to get:
- ✅ Growth frameworks on user experience, activation, and more.
- ✅ 30+ more proven strategies for acquisition, conversion, and retention.
- ✅ A complete roadmap for building sustainable growth channels.
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