Stop guessing KDP keywords. Steal them from the bestsellers in your niche (legally)

Something that changed how I approach keywords: every successful book in your niche is a public answer key.

If a book in your exact subgenre sells well, Amazon is showing it for specific searches. Those searches are proven to bring in readers who buy books like yours. You don't have to guess. You just have to find out what they are.

How to do it by hand:

1. Pick 3-5 books that are similar to yours and selling well (check their Best Sellers Rank, ideally under ~50,000 in the Kindle Store).
2. Look at their title and subtitle. Bestsellers almost always hide their main search phrase there.
3. Type the start of likely phrases into Amazon's search bar and watch the autocomplete. If the competitor shows up on page one for a suggestion, note it.
4. Look for phrases that appear across several of the competitors. Those are the core searches for your niche.
5. Put the strongest ones in your subtitle and keyword slots, as full phrases, without repeating words already in your title.

One caution: borrow search phrases, never author names, series names or trademarked titles. Putting those in your keywords breaks KDP rules and can get your book suppressed.

Steps 2-4 take a long time by hand, so I built a reverse ASIN lookup into aibookseo.com. You paste a competitor's ASIN and it shows the searches that book ranks for and where it sits. Combined with the keyword finder, it gives you a shortlist in a few minutes instead of an afternoon.

Full disclosure: I'm the founder. There's a free tier, no credit card needed, and the manual method above works without it.

If you want to try it, comment with your subgenre (no links needed) and I'll reply with a few phrases the top books in it seem to be ranking for.