Under-Served Keyword Wedge
- Difficulty
- Advanced
- Time to result
- ~weeks to results
- Steps
- 6
- Confidence
- —
Enter a competitive online market through a narrow language or distribution gap rather than attacking the dominant term directly. Begin with a category where demand and commercial value are already visible. Study the exact words customers and merchants use, including synonyms that competitors may overlook. Select a variant with meaningful intent but weak optimization, then build a deliberately small set of focused pages. Direct promotional effort and links to those specific pages rather than spreading resources across a huge site. Once rankings and revenue validate the wedge, repeat the process across additional merchants or pages. The mechanism is concentration: a small operator can compete by being substantially more relevant for an overlooked query than larger incumbents are.
Origin
Extracted from Deep Dive with Ali Abdaal
How to run it
- 1
Choose Proven Demand
Start in a category where existing businesses, affiliates, or customers already demonstrate that money is being spent.
Pro tip Forums and industry communities can reveal categories where participants are openly reporting strong earnings.
Watch out Evidence that a broad category is lucrative does not mean its primary keywords are accessible.
- 2
Map the Market's Language
Inspect customer journeys and merchant interfaces to collect every term used for the same underlying need.
Pro tip Look beyond search tools and study checkout pages, labels, and customer wording.
Watch out Do not assume the industry's most familiar term is the only term customers search.
- 3
Find an Under-Optimized Variant
Identify a commercially relevant synonym for which leading pages have weak titles, content, or deliberate optimization.
Pro tip Hearn found that 'promotional code' was less contested than 'voucher code.'
Watch out A term with no competition may also have no useful demand, so confirm intent before investing.
- 4
Launch a Small Focused Site
Begin with only a handful of high-priority pages instead of trying to cover every merchant or query.
Pro tip Concentrate available attention on roughly five well-constructed pages before expanding.
Watch out A large number of thin pages can dilute effort before the wedge has been validated.
- 5
Promote Deep Pages
Point links and promotional work toward the pages designed to rank for the selected variants.
Pro tip Allocate effort to individual merchant pages instead of sending every link to the homepage.
Watch out Use sustainable promotional methods; tactics that work temporarily may expose the site to platform risk.
- 6
Scale the Validated Pattern
When pages begin ranking and earning revenue, reproduce the approach for additional merchants and related variants.
Pro tip Scale the same repeatable unit rather than simultaneously changing the entire model.
Watch out A business dependent on search rankings remains exposed to algorithm and policy changes.
In the wild
Competitors concentrated on the phrase 'voucher codes.' Hearn inspected checkout pages and noticed that many merchants instead used terms such as coupon code, discount code, promo code, or promotional code. Search results for 'promotional code' were poorly optimized, so he created promotionalcodes.org.uk, started with a small number of merchant pages, optimized them, and directed links to those deeper pages.
→ The affiliate business eventually generated more than £2 million in annual profit before being sold.
Common mistakes
Attacking the Dominant Keyword
Competing directly for the most obvious term places a new entrant against established sites with stronger authority and resources.
Building Too Many Pages First
Launching thousands of pages prevents the founder from concentrating links, content, and learning on the best opportunities.
Sending Everything to the Homepage
Homepage-only promotion may not give specific merchant pages enough relevance or authority to rank for narrow queries.
From the transcript
“there's always niches within every category there's always a niche you can go after”
“everybody chased after voucher codes because that was the sort of generic that people said but when i analyzed a lot of people checkout pages…”
“i point them to a specific product page so there's sort of deeper pages”
From the episode
How I Built a $72,000,000 Business In 5 Years - Julian Hearn Founder Of Huel
Julian Hearn Founder Of Huel