Keyword Opportunity Finder

Keyword Opportunity Finder helps Apify builders, SEO researchers, content strategists, and product teams discover search questions that may be underserved by existing Apify Store supply. Give it a keyword or niche. It collects public People Also Ask-style questions, checks lightweight competition signals, looks for matching Apify Store coverage, and returns scored opportunity rows for review.

Use it when you want a structured shortlist of possible actor ideas, content gaps, or product research questions before spending time on source reconnaissance and implementation. The actor is a discovery tool, not a guarantee that a niche is monetizable, scrapeable, or worth building.

Why use this actor

• Turn one seed keyword into a table of related user questions.
• Prioritize questions with lower visible competition and weaker Apify Store coverage.
• Use opportunityScore to sort research leads before manual validation.
• Keep verification URLs in the output so scores can be reviewed.
• Run the actor from Apify Console, schedules, API, or downstream workflows.
• Use datasetId and runId to connect results to a larger TroveVault product-validation pipeline.

What it produces

Field	Meaning
question	Search question discovered from the seed keyword.
allintitleCount	Lightweight competition count for pages targeting the exact phrase when available.
apifyActorCount	Number of visible Apify Store results that appear related to the question.
apifyStoreGap	Whether Store coverage appears thin for the question.
topApifyActors	Visible matching actors, when found.
opportunityScore	0-10 prioritization score combining competition and Store supply signals.
googleSearchUrl	Verification URL for manual review.
runId	Optional workflow identifier.

Use cases

• Actor ideation: find questions that might map to a useful new Apify actor.
• Store portfolio planning: compare potential niches before building or buying data sources.
• SEO content research: discover long-tail questions with relatively weak exact-title competition.
• Competitive analysis: check whether existing Apify Store actors already cover a question.
• Validation workflow input: create a shortlist for source reconnaissance, buyer validation, and output design.

How opportunity scoring works

The score is a review aid. It combines two visible signals:

• Question competition: lower exact-title competition can indicate easier content or product positioning.
• Apify Store supply: fewer related public Store actors can indicate a possible actor gap.

A high score means “worth reviewing next,” not “definitely build this.” Before turning a row into an actor, validate the buyer, repeat use, source reliability, legal reasonableness, output value, and whether a stronger existing actor already solves the workflow.

What this actor is not

Keyword Opportunity Finder is not an SEO-suite replacement, paid keyword-volume database, or automatic actor-launch decision maker. It is a fast triage layer for finding questions that deserve deeper review. The strongest workflow is to use it before the TroveVault intake gate, then validate who pays, what decision the output supports, and whether the sources behind the idea are public, stable, and useful enough to justify an actor.

How to use it

1. Enter one seed keyword, such as Shopify analytics, Amazon price tracking, or LinkedIn lead generation.
2. Set maxQuestions to control cost and runtime.
3. Run the actor and sort the dataset by opportunityScore.
4. Review question, apifyActorCount, topApifyActors, and googleSearchUrl before making product decisions.
5. Feed promising rows into a TroveVault actor-validation checklist.

Input example

{
  "keyword": "Shopify store analysis",
  "maxQuestions": 20,
  "runId": "shopify-actor-ideas-q3"
}

Input reference

Field	Required	Description
keyword	Yes	Seed keyword, niche, or topic to research.
maxQuestions	No	Maximum number of discovered questions to score.
datasetId	No	Existing Apify dataset to append rows into.
runId	No	Workflow identifier copied into output rows or run metadata.

Output example

{
  "question": "how to track competitor prices on Shopify",
  "allintitleCount": 34,
  "apifyActorCount": 1,
  "apifyStoreGap": true,
  "topApifyActors": [
    {
      "name": "Shopify Scraper",
      "url": "https://apify.com/store/shopify-scraper"
    }
  ],
  "opportunityScore": 9,
  "googleSearchUrl": "https://www.google.com/search?q=allintitle%3A%22how+to+track+competitor+prices+on+Shopify%22",
  "runId": "shopify-actor-ideas-q3"
}

API usage

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/trovevault~keyword-opportunity-finder/runs" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $APIFY_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "keyword": "email marketing automation",
    "maxQuestions": 20
  }'

Limitations

• Search result pages and Store search results can change by time, geography, personalization, rate limits, and public page behavior.
• allintitleCount is a lightweight competition proxy, not search volume and not a paid SEO-database metric.
• apifyActorCount reflects visible Store matches found during the run and can miss private, newly published, renamed, or semantically adjacent actors.
• A high opportunityScore does not prove buyer demand, source scrapeability, legal safety, or commercial value.
• The actor should be used as the first discovery step before product validation, not as a launch decision.

Troubleshooting

Problem	What to try
Few questions returned	Use a broader seed keyword or reduce niche-specific wording.
Results look too broad	Use a more specific seed keyword with the target platform, buyer, or workflow.
Store counts seem off	Open topApifyActors and manually search Apify Store for adjacent terms.
Scores feel too optimistic	Treat high scores as review leads and run source/buyer validation before building.
Runs slow down or fail	Lower maxQuestions and retry later if search pages throttle requests.

FAQ

Does this actor tell me what to build?
No. It produces candidate questions and opportunity signals for review.

Is allintitleCount the same as keyword difficulty?
No. It is a simple exact-title competition proxy.

Does it include search volume?
No. The actor focuses on visible questions, competition, and Apify Store supply.

Can I research multiple keywords?
Run separate tasks or API calls for each seed keyword so scoring remains clear.

Can I use it for content planning?
Yes. The question rows can support blog, documentation, or landing-page research.

Can this feed TroveVault actor validation?
Yes. Use promising rows as inputs to buyer, source, and output validation.

Why do I still need manual validation?
Search gaps can be false positives. A useful actor still needs a real buyer workflow and reliable source data.

Related actors

• Apify Store README Optimizer for improving Store-facing actor copy.
• SEO Fields Scraper for page-level SEO metadata extraction.
• Competitor Intelligence Scraper for broader funnel and positioning research.

Changelog

• 0.1: Initial TroveVault release with keyword input, question discovery, competition checks, Apify Store supply checks, opportunity scoring, datasetId, and runId support.

Feedback and support

Open an issue on the actor page with the seed keyword, run ID, expected question or Store match, and a short explanation of the scoring concern.