TL;DR: Recently, a netizen cried to me that an "SEO Studio" quoted them $2,000 USD a month, with a six-month lock-in (totaling over $12,000), just to do basic "keyword planning." This is robbery. Keyword planning is indeed the foundation of SEO, but it should never be a black hole for your marketing budget. Today, I’m launching the "Low-End SEO Agency Hunting Plan." I will reveal these basic operations and teach you for free how to use professional tools (like Ahrefs) to complete a strategy worth thousands of dollars on your own. Let free knowledge remain free, so you can spend your budget where it truly matters.
James here, CEO of Mercury Technology Solutions.
A business owner recently consulted me, mentioning an SEO agency that charged nearly $2,000 a month purely for "keyword planning," forcing a six-month contract.
Hearing this, I decided to launch this "Low-End SEO Agency Hunting Plan."
Why? Because this fundamental knowledge should be free, or at least extremely low-cost. Choosing the wrong keywords means that no matter how many resources you invest later, you are running in the wrong direction.
Correct keyword planning helps you target market demand and seize traffic entry points. It sounds professional and logical, but this is a skill you can master yourself. You do not need to pay huge sums to an operator who just runs software!
For SMBs, you don't need a long-term subscription to expensive tools like Ahrefs or SEMRush. You just need to concentrate your operations within one month and cancel the renewal. The cost is negligible, yet the effect beats those "consultants" charging you thousands.
Below, I will use Ahrefs to demonstrate how to "legally steal" your competitors' traffic codes.
Practical Tutorial: How to Lock in High-Traffic Keywords Using "Content Gap"
This method is particularly suitable for websites that have been operating for a while but whose rankings have stagnated. We don't guess keywords; we look directly at what the market winners are doing.
Step 1: Lock onto Your Real Competitors
Open Ahrefs and enter your website URL. Find "Organic Competitors" in the left menu.
Don't just look at who you think your rivals are; look at who Google's algorithm thinks your rivals are.
Step 2: Filter Threatening Competitors
On the competitors' page, focus on websites with a Market Share of 10% or more.
- Strategy: Select up to 10. If your field is fiercely competitive, pick the top 10. If it's a niche market with fewer rivals, pick the top 5 by share.
- Action: Check these competitors and click "Content Gap" at the top.
Step 3: Set Golden Filter Parameters (This is Million-Dollar Experience)
This step is critical. Many beginners get overwhelmed by thousands of keywords. Based on our decade of experience, set the filters to this ROI sweet spot:
- Keyword Difficulty (KD) < 20: We are looking for soft targets, not hitting a wall.
- Target Position: Set to "No rank". We want the fish that competitors are catching but you are missing entirely.
- Competitor Rank: Set to 1-30. This means competitors are on the first three pages, proving these keywords have traffic and are rankable.
- Intersect:
- If you selected 5 competitors: Set "At least 2" ranking.
- If you selected 6-9 competitors: Set "At least 3".
- If you selected 10 competitors: Set "At least 4".
Why this setting? This filters out accidental rankings and noise, filtering out the golden keywords that competitors are fighting for, which are proven profitable, but you have missed.
The "Gemini 3" Warning: Why Basic Skills Are Now Worthless
Why am I giving this away for free? Because the world changed today.
Gemini 3 was released, and it has completely blown up the internet. After testing it, I have one conclusion: For the first time, its coding capability can truly replace a junior engineer.
This year is the year of the AI explosion. Last year, when I wrote SEO scripts, I had to find examples and piece together logic. Today? I just need to explain the underlying logic clearly, and the AI writes the code perfectly.
This shifts the entire paradigm. SEO is no longer about "Can you do it?" It is about: "Do you understand the underlying logic?"
And it’s not just SEO. The boundaries of job roles across the internet industry are collapsing. A person who can write, design, automate, and integrate can now do the work of an entire small team.
The era of the "One-Person Company" has just begun. Those still clinging to a single skill have no seat at the table for the future.
Let me be blunt: By next year, if you only know how to write articles, only know how to build backlinks, or only understand single-channel SEO but don't understand CRO (Conversion Rate Optimization), algorithms, coding, or automation—you will be eliminated.
The industry no longer divides into types; there are only Full-Stack SEOs left. When AI can execute all low-end SEO skills (like the keyword report above), why would a company hire you?
Those SEO KOLs still shouting "Content is King" and "Just write good articles" are walking dinosaurs. You will watch them naturally go extinct very soon.
Conclusion: Spend Your Budget on Assets, Not Reports
By following the steps above, you will get a high-value keyword list. This list is exactly the "result" those low-end agencies want to sell you for thousands of dollars. Now you can do it yourself for the cost of a coffee.
So, what's next? If your site rankings don't improve after optimizing for these keywords, congratulations—you saved the cost of trial and error. It means your field is too competitive for basic operations.
This is when you consider a truly professional team. A real team (like Mercury) doesn't charge you for running basic reports. We do:
- Technical Foundation: Architecting a site AI can read perfectly.
- Answer Assets (GAIO): Building authoritative content libraries.
- Trust Layer (SEVO): Engineering ecosystem-wide reputation.
Shift your budget from "buying reports" to "buying assets." Don't let low-end vendors harvest your wallet using information asymmetry.
Mercury Technology Solutions. Accelerate Digitality.
