How to Use Reddit For Keyword Research (Updated for 2024)

While Reddit may seem like just a community forum website, I promise you it can be much more than that. In fact, it can actually be used as a powerful keyword research tool. 

There is so much untapped potential when it comes to finding topics that are actually relevant to your audience.

With 861 million users, Reddit is one of the most visited websites (ranking 18th) in the world. 

While tools like Ahrefs and SEMrush will give you estimated traffic volume, Reddit will give you the opportunity to dive into your audience’s mind and see what they’re talking about and why they’re talking about it.

As an example, if your main target audience is runners, you can use running subreddits to find information like:

• Which products do they like
• Which questions they’re asking
• Which content is being upvoted
• What do they dislike and like about your product
• Who are their favorite brands
• Where do they go to shop

While it’s not just limited to these, Reddit is a great way to uncover information about your audience research without having to pay for a marketing tool. Unknowingly to most, it can be a powerful keyword research tool.

In this article, I’ll show you how you can leverage Reddit for keyword research and find topics that actually matter to your target audience.

Here’s also a video that will basically cover this article.

6 Ways You Can Use Reddit for Keyword Research

Now we’ll get into the actual meat of the article. If you want to use Reddit for keyword research, there are a few ways you can do this. You can: 

• Use Site Operators to Find a Specific Range of Posts
• Use Python to Scrape Top-Rated Posts
• Sort by Top Manually to Find the Most Popular Posts
• Use Subreddit Stats
• Look for Common Problems People Are Having 
• Add Reddit to the End of Your Search

Use Site Operators to Find a Specific Range of Reddit Posts

The first keyword research method you can use to find topics on Reddit is to use site operators. The easiest way to do this would be to use the “site:” operator along with the “intext:” or “intitle:” operator. 

This will allow you to find pages on Reddit that contain specific text or phrases within the content. 

If you do it this way, I highly recommend you use a specific subreddit to further filter the results. 

As an example, I’ll use r/SEO to find questions about agency prices. 

All I’ll do is enter “site:https://www.reddit.com/r/SEO/ intext:agency price.” 

Look at the results this yields me. 

After this, you’ll have access to plenty of topics that are related to your search. Be as specific as possible with your phrases to find relevant posts and solid keyword opportunities.  

Use Python and Reddit’s API to Scrape Top-Rated Posts Across Different Subreddits

Now, I’m going to be honest here, I have almost zero coding experience. 

However, ChatGPT can be incredibly useful here. 

If you use it right, it can basically walk you through this step by step.

You can use Python as a tool to connect to the Reddit API and make specific requests. 

Like I said, ChatGPT is great for walking you through this and it can even write the code out for you. 

In this example here, I was able to connect to the API and find the top-rated questions on the SEO subreddit from the last year. 

Sort by Top to Find the Most Popular Reddit Posts

If you’re not a developer and would rather do this the easy way, you can go straight to your subreddit of choice and search by “top.” 

Just be aware that the results will largely depend on the subreddit you’re using. If you’re on a subreddit like r/politics, you’re not going to see any questions or answers posts. Instead, it’s going to be mostly news pieces.

But if you go to r/fitness, it will be fitness advice, questions, memes, and forums.

I recommend sorting by “top” of last week or month to find posts that aren’t just for engagement. Top-upvoted posts of all time will typically be memes and posts that aren’t relevant for audience research purposes.

Remember this will depend heavily on the subreddit you choose and the type of posts for it. But this still yield you solid keyword opportunities.

Use Subreddit Stats to Find Top Posts and Data

Another great keyword research tool that you can use for Reddit, is subredditstats.com. It’s a website that’s basically a massive data analytics platform for all of Reddit.

It’s really a fun tool to use and you can use it in a few ways.

Finding Entities to Include in your Content 

Using the subreddit stats tool, you can find the most common entities that appear in that subreddit. Using r/SEO as an example, we have all of these different keywords that are tracked and monitored. 

Here we can see “long-form,” “clients,” and “data-driven” are the top keywords being used.

You can use this report though to help with NLP with your content. Instead of stuffing your content with the same keyword over and over, you can use these terms to integrate into your content to increase the relevance of it. 

You want to improve the salience of your keyword using NLP and help Google better understand what you’re writing about.

Top Submissions

If you don’t want to go venturing on Reddit to find keyword opportunities, you can also use their top submissions section to see top submissions for the last hour, day, week, month, year, or of all time. 

Use Community Forums on Specific Subreddits to Find Common Pain Points Coming From Your Audience 

Another tip for using Reddit as a keyword research tool, while not entirely necessary, can be useful to find out more pain points.

Using r/running again, there’s a daily Q&A board up for people looking for help with things related to running. Not saying you should use this as an opportunity to pitch your product, but you can use this as a way to better understand your audience. 

What their pain points are, what are the questions they’re asking that haven’t been answered yet? Keyword research tools like Ahrefs and SEMrush will not tell you this stuff. 

Basically, you want to look for issues they’re having and how you can fix it. Instead of just saying your product does x,y, and z, you want to make sure that you’re creating content that makes your audience feel understood.

It doesn’t have to be over-the-top sentimental, but once you know what they’re looking for, you can better craft your messaging to meet them.

You even can use your content briefs to inform your writers who they should be writing to.

Why Reddit Works Great for Keyword Research

As I mentioned, Reddit can be a goldmine when it comes to keyword research. This is about as good as gets depending on the niche you’re in.

On Reddit, your target audience is clustered into one space discussing things that directly relate to your business.

In some cases, Reddit can even help users make decisions through word of mouth or referrals. 

Using Reddit for topics and audience research will allow you to find plenty of keyword opportunities for connecting with your audience and building trust with them. 

Finding the Right Subreddit and Where Your Audience Currently Is

So before we even start doing keyword research on Reddit, you’ll want to find a relevant subreddit where your audience interacts in. 

This is harder in the B2B space, except maybe keyword research for SaaS, but hobby-related subreddits work best. 

Using my previous example, if you sell running shoes, then r/running is perfect for finding more information about runners. What shoes they like, how they run, how they get ready for races, what they wish they had, etc.  

Even if you’re in the travel industry, r/travel works great for travel-related questions. 

But finding the right subreddits can be hard sometimes. If you operate in a more broad niche, then this shouldn’t be a problem, but the more specific you go, the less opportunities you’ll have.

With that being said, you can still find different subreddits in three ways. You can:

• Search for subreddits manually 
• Use the related subreddit button
• Or use a similar subreddit tool 

How to Find Similar Subreddits for Keyword Research

Another tool you can use to find similar subreddits is this subreddit finder tool. This will find all relevant subreddits to your entered one and connect the dots between them based on common subscribers and topics discussed. 

From there, you can find subreddits that can work for keyword research.

Things to Keep in Mind When Using Reddit for Keyword/Topic Research

So now that you know how to use Reddit for keyword research, here are a few more things to keep in mind.

Look for Commonly Asked Questions from your Audience

When using Reddit for keyword research, the most important thing to look for is commonly asked questions or patterns. Is there a common problem your audience is dealing with?

Even better, is there a common problem they’re dealing with that hasn’t been solved before that your product solves?

These are the goldmine keyword opportunities you’ll find on Reddit. 

These questions or pain points won’t be found through Ahrefs or SEMrush, which makes it even better since these topics will likely be less competitive in the SERPs. 

Always try to avoid getting caught up in search volume; think about your keywords/topics from a business perspective. Focus on the business value rather than how often people are searching for something.

Search volume doesn’t even dictate conversions, and half the time, the data on third-party tools are inaccurate. 

Focus on what actually matters to your business. 

Your business efforts and brand growth will thank you later. 

Find Topics From Subreddits That Have Conversion Intent. Avoid Focusing Too Much on Traffic Volumes

No matter what, always prioritize conversion intent over monthly search volume. 

In most cases, you want to craft your content for your absolute ideal persona and hit them at every touchpoint. High-volume keywords do not equal high conversions.

If anything, it’s the opposite. High conversions typically come from longer-tailed keywords, whereas shorter keywords (with higher volume) have lower conversion rates.

This will obviously depend on the niche you’re in, but out of these 2 topics, which one do you think has more purchasing intent:

• Running Shoes
• Black Running Shoes Men’s Size 12

It’ll all depend on the niche you work in, but in most cases, long tail keywords will typically generate more conversions and is less competitive to rank for. 

Closing Thoughts on Using Reddit for Keyword and Audience Research

While Ahrefs, Google Search Console, and SEMrush have their place as keyword research tools, Reddit can be an absolute goldmine when it comes to keyword research.

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