E1064: Most business owners think their niche is too competitive for SEO.

It's not.

I explain why most people completely misjudge competition, why keyword difficulty scores are misleading, and how bottom-of-funnel SEO is still wide open - even in 2026.

Top-of-funnel informational SEO has taken a major hit. Click-through rates have dropped. AI overviews are reducing traffic. Ranking #1 doesn't mean what it used to mean.

But high-intent SEO is different.

If you sell a product or service, there is still enormous opportunity - and most of your competitors are not optimizing properly.

I break down: - Why your niche is probably not as competitive as you think - The mistake of relying on keyword difficulty scores - How to actually evaluate competition by looking at the SERPs - Why relevance matters more than most people realize - The exact on-page placements that influence rankings (page title, URL, H1, first sentence) - Why overusing your keyword can hurt you - How to use keyword variants to rank for more terms with less effort - Why bottom-of-funnel, high-intent SEO is still a blue ocean - How to find longer-tail keywords that are easier to rank for and bring qualified traffic

Most businesses emailing me don't have an authority problem. They don't have penalties.

They don't have technical blockers.

They have a relevance problem.

And they don't know how to evaluate real competition.

This episode walks through how to fix that.

⭐️ Update: AI Overviews Reduce Clicks by 58% - https://ahrefs.com/blog/ai-overviews-reduce-clicks-update/

💎 Compact Keywords - My SEO Course - Get paying customers through SEO - Clear step-by-step video breakdowns - SEO templates to be copied and adapted for your products and services: https://compactkeywords.com/

00:00 Why Competitors Aren't Scary 00:22 Stop Trusting Keyword Difficulty 01:02 Top of Funnel SEO Is Crushed 02:15 Bottom of Funnel SEO Blue Ocean 02:48 Check for Real Ranking Blockers 03:57 Relevance Beats Authority 04:28 Avoid Over Optimization 06:05 Three Mistakes and Fixes 08:52 Find and Target High-Intent Keywords 10:03 Final Outro and Thanks

The Edward Show. Your daily search engine optimization podcast: https://edwardsturm.com/the-edward-show/

#bottomoffunnelseo #informationalseo #searchengineoptimization #seo