How to find low hanging fruit keywords

This template helps you to quickly go through Search Console data to find low hanging fruit keywords.

Wins are good. Quick wins are better.

SEO takes time, so anything that can help speed up results is no bad thing.

In this article I’ll walk you through how to use data from Google Search Console and spreadsheets to find keywords you can quickly get results from. Aka low hanging fruit keywords.

But first:

WTF are low hanging fruit keywords?

Low hanging fruit refers to the most easily achieved keywords.

These are keywords you can make a few updates to and see noticeable improvements fairly quick.

Accurate visual representation of finding low hanging fruit keywords:

There’s a couple of ways to classifying these types of keywords, but here’s how I’ve done so for the purpose of this article and tool:

Low hanging fruit keywords = terms you rank on the first/second page for (average position of 5-20)

So basically any rankings not within the top positions.

Keywords hovering between the bottom of the first page and top of second page of the SERPs are your low hanging fruits.

Why?

Because Google has already ranked them, therefore the pages are deemed to be useful enough, but could probably do with a few tweaks to help bump them further up.

Finding low hanging fruit keywords with Google Sheets

Finding these quick win keywords doesn’t have to take ages. In fact, this spreadsheet tool makes it very quick (and easy).

It combs through your Search Console data and plucks out pages/queries ranking in positions 5 – 20 to find low hanging fruit that would be ripe for optimisation (no pun intended).

How to use the sheet

To get it setup…

What you’ll need:

• Google Search Console setup for your site.
• Search Analytics for sheets add-on installed.
• A Google account (obviously) so you can make a copy of this template:

Grab the Low Hanging Fruit Keyword Finder Sheet

Step 1 – Install + configure the add-on

Once you’ve made a copy of the template, you’ll want to make sure you have the Search Analytics for Sheets add-on installed.

If this is your first time using the add-on, you’ll need to authorize it

Step 2 – Setting up your sheet

No you’ve got the add-on, let’s run it. Go to:

Add-ons >>> Search Analytics for Sheets >>> Open Sidebar

Psssst. Make sure your Google account is authorized to use the Search Console property you want to use.

Step 3 – Setting up the add-on

Choose your site. Make sure to add Query & Page to the Group By box.

In Results Sheet, select ‘GSC DATA’ (If you don’t select the GSC DATA tab, it won’t work. 👎)

Your setup should look like this:

NOTE: Limiting the Rows returned to 1000 rows is optional. Pulling in all the rows for a big site can slow down a sheet.

Step 4 – Pull the data

Now request data.

This will get the spreadsheet goblins working and you should see your low hanging fruit keywords! 👍

Content optimisation tips

So you’ve got your list of low hanging fruit keywords. Now what?

Often, getting results is just a matter of either improving your page

Here’s a few things you can try:

• Do more (or better) keyword research – Going after the right keywords can make or break an SEO campaign. So sometimes it’s worth a refresh and running through some keyword research again.
• On-Page SEO – Make sure your pages are optimised for the keywords you want to rank for. Sometimes a page won’t be ranking as well as it could be simply because it is not targeting a specific keyword effectively.
• Improve content – With low hanging fruit keywords, you don’t necessarily have to create brand new content. It can be a case of reworking what is there, rewriting sections or adding in additional sections. Relevancy is key here.
• Check the SERPs – What are the other ranking pages in the SERPs like? If they are all providing a certain feature, chances are you should too.
• Internal Links – Grab a list of the most linked pages of your site (HINT: in Search Console). Add links on those pages back to the pages you want to rank higher.
• Link Building – Point links at the URLs you want to rank higher. There’s loads of ways to build links. Use your noggin and build links that make sense for your website.

Don’t forget to grab a copy of the sheet here to help you find low hanging fruit keywords. Also, checkout the directory of Google Sheets templates to help you automate other SEO tasks.