Picking random blog topics often wastes time and misses what people are really searching for. Let’s see how you can use Ahrefs to find article ideas that actually drive traffic.
Written by Lucie Simonova
If your goal is to grow traffic, writing whatever comes to mind isn’t always the best approach.
Instead of guessing what your audience wants to know about, tools like Ahrefs help you find topics people are already searching for, and you can use real data to guide your content. This means you’re more likely to write something relevant and visible in search results.
In this blog, you’ll learn how to use Ahrefs to come up with article ideas that have the potential to bring in traffic. We’ll walk through the process step by step, using examples and screenshots along the way.
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Before diving into things like keyword difficulty and traffic potential, you need a basic starting point—a broad keyword.
A broad keyword is usually a general term that represents the theme of your content. It’s not what you’ll necessarily target, but it’ll help you begin your research with an overview of what people search for and how competitive those topics are.
Let’s say your website is about food, and you’re planning to write about coffee. Type “coffee” into Ahrefs’ Keywords Explorer. This will open up a high-level view of how competitive the keyword is, how much traffic it gets, and what other related keywords people search for.
From here, your goal is to branch out into more specific ideas based on what you find.
When you type a broad keyword like coffee into Ahrefs, you’ll land on the Keyword Overview page. This gives you a snapshot of how competitive the keyword is and how many people are searching for it. Here’s what each key number means:
Now that we’ve covered the very first step, let’s move on to finding some related keyword ideas.
Once you’ve entered a broad keyword and reviewed the overview, it’s time to dig into related keyword ideas. In Ahrefs, go to the “Matching Terms” tab. This gives you a long list of keywords that include the word you searched for.
This is where you can start spotting opportunities.
Use the filters to narrow things down. Set a Keyword Difficulty (KD) range that matches your site’s current strength. If you’re still building up authority, keep it lower, something like 0 to 10. If you already have some authority, you can widen that range to include keywords with medium difficulty, like 10 to 30. This gives you access to more competitive ideas that may still be within reach.
Next, sort the list by Search Volume to see which of those filtered keywords people are actually searching for. You’ll start to see more specific topics. These are more targeted than the broad keyword “coffee” and often easier to rank for.
The goal here is to find keywords that bring in traffic without needing a huge effort or years of domain history.
You’ll also see a column called Intent next to each keyword. This shows what the person is likely trying to do when they search for that term. Understanding intent helps you figure out what kind of content to create.
Here are the main types you’ll see:
Once you’ve picked a keyword that looks promising, it helps to look at what’s already ranking for it. Let’s now take a look at the next steps you can follow.
After you’ve chosen your keyword, you plug it into Keywords Explorer, a tab you’re already familiar with. Then, in Keyword Overview, you’ll scroll down to the SERP Overview. This shows the top 10 pages that currently rank for that keyword.
Look at the results and ask yourself a few questions:
This step is all about getting inspired by what already works and spotting gaps at the same time. Maybe the top pages are comprehensive, but outdated and without visual assets. These gaps are your chance to write something better.
Sometimes, the top results are Shopping ads, product listings, or “People Also Ask” (as you can see in the screenshot above). This usually means the keyword has transactional intent—people searching for it are looking to buy something, not read a blog post.
If you see this in the SERP Overview, it might not be the best keyword for an article. You could either:
The Keywords Explorer is not the only tab where you can find inspiration. Let’s take a look at the
Parent Topic determines if you can rank for your target keyword while targeting a more general topic on your page instead. Let’s see what happens if we search for espresso machine cleaning.
Here, we can see that this keyword has a low keyword difficulty (KD 2), but also a lower search volume (150).
Now let’s take a look at the parent topic: how to clean espresso machine. This is a more common way people search for the same idea, which is reflected even in the higher search volume (1.1K). If we click on the keyword to explore it a little more, we’ll find out that on top of the higher search volume, it has a lower KD (1), meaning it’s even easier to rank for that the child topic.
So, targeting the parent topic can get you more traffic with less competition, even though it’s related to your original keyword. It’s a great way to find better opportunities by thinking about how people phrase their searches.
Another way to find strong article ideas is to look at what’s already working for your competitors. In Ahrefs, you can do this by running a competitor’s site through Site Explorer and checking their Top Pages report (you’ll find it in the left menu under Organic search).
This shows which pages on their site bring in the most search traffic. Each page will also list the top keywords driving that traffic. Look at the topics, the format, and the angle. See if there’s a way to cover something similar in a way that’s more up to date, more focused, or more helpful.
For example, maybe your competitor has an article about how to make an americano, like in the screenshot above, but it’s missing interesting details and facts that could add to the reader’s experience. This kind of research helps you spot ideas that are already proven to bring in traffic.
Once you’ve gone through your keyword research, you’ll end up with a handful of topics that feel like good fits. Now it’s time to save them somewhere so you can actually use them.
In Keywords Explorer, you can go to Matching terms or Related terms (you’ll find it in the left menu under Keyword ideas) and tick the checkboxes next to the keywords you like. Then you can click “Export” to download them into a spreadsheet.
From there, it’s time to start organizing. You might want to sort your ideas by:
As you review your keyword ideas, look for ones that sound like how people actually speak. Phrases like “what is a cappuccino,” or other long-tail keywords work well for voice search, which has become increasingly more popular.
Using these tips helps you focus on keywords and topics that real people search for. When your content matches what users want, it gets more clicks and stays relevant longer. This kind of targeted approach makes it easier for search engines to understand your content and rank it higher.
Better SEO means more visibility. When your site appears near the top of search results, it attracts more visitors without extra advertising costs. This steady flow of traffic builds your brand’s authority and trust over time, which leads to even better rankings.
In short, researching and choosing the right keywords is just the first step. Combining that with content that answers real questions and fills gaps makes your site more useful. That helps you grow an audience, reach more people, and meet your goals.
Want more people to find your brand online? This cheat sheet breaks down practical SEO tips to help you rank higher. You’ll get videos from our team explaining some key SEO topics and interactive checklists in each chapter to help you every step of the way.
Finding the right keywords is a smart first step, but it’s not the whole picture. A good article needs more than just a good topic. How you structure it, how easy it is to read, and how accessible it is all play a big role in how well it performs.
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