Reddit is an incredibly valuable platform for discovering new keywords and topics that your target audience in the UK is interested in and discussing.
With over 52 million daily active users, 500 million monthly visitors, and over 130,000 active communities focused on every topic imaginable, Reddit offers a trove of untapped keyword opportunities.
In this comprehensive guide, I’ll walk you through step-by-step how to leverage Reddit for ongoing keyword research and discovery as part of your SEO strategy if you are targeting users in the UK.
The first step is to get very clear on who your ideal target audiences are and what content themes you want to create content around.
Get to know your key buyer personas in the UK. What are their demographics, interests, pains and goals? What topics and issues are most relevant to them?
By understanding your target UK audiences and themes, you can go to the right subreddits and listen in on the right conversations around these topics.
For example, if one of your personas is a UK-based small business owner interested in marketing, you would want to explore subreddits like.
– r/UKBusiness
– r/smallbusinessuk
– r/marketinguk
If you are a B2C brand targeting 18-34-year-old gamers, you may want to search for terms like “gaming UK” and explore subreddits like.
– r/gamingUK
– r/AskUKGamers
– r/britishgaming
Make a list of your core themes and target communities so you know where to get started.
Reddit’s built-in search is very powerful for keyword discovery. Here are some tips for using it effectively.
Search for your target themes and audiences – Use search strings like “marketing tips UK” or “UK mums” to explore how these groups are talking about topics.
Try related keywords and questions – Try additional keywords and question formats like “social media ideas UK” or “What social networks do UK companies use?”
Search by subreddit – You can limit results to a particular subreddit like “digital marketing r/marketinguk” to drill down further.
Use quotes – Use quotes around exact phrases like “SEO audit UK” to find places where that specific phrase is used.
Filter by time – Try limiting your search results to the past year or past month to see the latest keyword trends.
Spend time searching with different keyword themes and filter options enabled to uncover conversations around topics that interest your personas. Reddit search will give you a keyword goldmine based on real user interest.
Once you find one relevant subreddit, look at the “related communities” section in the sidebar to find other closely related subreddits around your topics.
For example, if you search for social media terms and find r/socialmediauk, you may find related communities.
– r/socialmediaukmarketing
– r/ukinstagramers
– r/uktiktokers
Follow this trail to go deep into all aspects of your topics. The related subreddit list offers a simple way to quickly discover hyper-relevant keyword conversations.
You can also search for keyword phrases like “UK social media subreddits” to find lists people have compiled of the most popular UK communities people are participating in around your themes.
Don’t just look at Reddit posts themselves. Also, leverage Reddit comment search to see the in-depth keyword-rich conversations happening around posts.
– Search for exact match keywords in quotes like “SEO audit UK.”
– Filter by subreddit like “backlinks r/bigseo” to narrow it down.
– Sort by new or relevant to see the latest or most active discussions.
The comment sections contain a wealth of long-tail phrase ideas on specific sub-topics related to your themes. Mine them for conversational keywords your UK audience is using.
As you explore relevant subreddits and comments, start to notice key patterns in keyword use cases and conversation topics. Here are some things to look for.
Questions – “How do I learn SEO in the UK?” “Where can I find clients as a UK freelancer?” Questions show search intent.
Discussions – “TikTok isn’t effective for UK brands.” “What makes digital marketing different in the UK?” Discussions reveal topics.
Use cases – “Best affordable accounting apps UK” and “Top UK parenting blogs” Use cases show commercial intent.
Complaints – “Terrible mobile customer service UK companies.” “Hard to find good UK web developers.” Complaints indicate gaps.
Innovations – “New UK fintech companies.” “AI in UK healthcare.” Innovations give emerging opportunities.
Identify these key conversation patterns and the keywords used around them. This shows you exactly what UK searchers care about right now.
In addition to search, Reddit has two very useful keyword research tools built right in.
Autocomplete – As you type any term into the search bar, Reddit will automatically show you the most common ways people are searching for that term. The autocomplete results are essentially a keyword suggestion tool based on actual searches people are doing today.
Search Suggestions – At the top of search results, Reddit provides “search instead for” suggestions for more popular keyword variations others are searching for. These can reveal many closely related keywords you may not have thought of.
Leverage Reddit’s keyword research right within the platform to see additional untapped keyword opportunities.
Your competitors likely know many of the same keyword opportunities you do in the UK. But you can use them as an additional keyword research source.
– Search for their brand name on Reddit to find discussions about them.
– See what keywords they rank for in the UK with tools like SEMrush.
– Reverse engineer the keyword themes their content is optimised around.
– Identify gaps where they aren’t present for UK opportunities.
Your competitors have likely done lots of keyword research for the UK. Piggyback off their efforts by researching the keywords they have already determined are relevant.
Dedicated keyword research tools like Ahrefs, Semrush, and Moz Keyword Explorer allow you to take your seed keywords from Reddit and expand them into full keyword opportunity sets optimised for the UK.
You can look at keyword difficulty, volume, CPC data and more. And they provide filters so you can focus just on UK search volume and optimisation opportunities.
Keyword tools take your manual Reddit research to the next level. They help you turn conversational keywords into well-optimised SEO content pillars around topics that drive search volume.
As you gather keywords from Reddit, organise them into a spreadsheet to create your master UK keyword research vault.
– Separate tabs by theme/subreddit
– Include columns for keyword, search volume, difficulty, CPC, etc.
– Add notes on what types of content would fit each keyword
– Revisit regularly to expand with new keyword ideas over time
A well-organised spreadsheet helps you keep all your UK keyword opportunities in one place so you can easily reference them when creating content.
With your robust spreadsheet, you now need to determine which keywords deserve to be targeted first with new content in the UK.
Volume – Higher search volume indicates more opportunity. But beware of very high-competition keywords as well.
Intent – Keywords with high commercial intent and conversion potential are ideal. Is the user seeking to buy something?
Gaps – Keywords your competitors are not targeting well represent low-hanging fruit.
Emerging – New trends you spot on Reddit may become huge. Get in early.
Conversion – Optimise for keywords that align with your business goals like phone calls or form fills.
Let search volume data guide you, but use critical thinking to determine which keywords are truly the best bet for your UK growth.
Now for the fun part – take your prioritised UK keyword list and start creating content around it.
– Write blog posts and articles optimised for specific keyword targets
– Create visual content like videos and graphics for social media
– Build UK-localised site pages around buying themes
– Develop UK content pillars around topics personalised for British culture and slang
Bring your UK keywords to life by publishing locally-flavored content across platforms. Optimise around them but focus on creating genuine value for the UK audience.
Keep a close eye on how your UK-optimised content performs with keyword tracking.
– Use Google Search Console to see keyword rankings in the UK.
– Track clicks and conversions from keywords in Google Analytics.
– See keyword ranking changes and opportunities in tools like SEMrush.
Continuously monitor which UK keywords are driving results and which need more work. Use this data to further refine your UK targeting.
Reddit provides a powerful platform to tap into how real users in the UK are talking about your industry. By searching subreddits, analysing comments, leveraging competitor keywords, organising your finds and tracking performance – you can continually uncover the most valuable UK-optimised keywords to drive more organic growth.
Implement these steps, and Reddit will become one of your most valuable UK keyword research resources. Just be sure to always provide genuine value to UK communities rather than just blindly optimising for keywords.
Now get out there, do some UK keyword digging on Reddit and start ranking!