If you wish to appear higher in search engine results than your rivals, competitor keyword research is crucial (SERPs)
But how can you discover the keywords of your rivals? What equipment are you able to use?
This article will describe competitor keyword research, walk you through the process, and provide top-notch resources for crafting an effective content strategy centered on your keywords and those of your rivals.
What is analysis of competitive keywords?
Finding the keywords that your rivals are ranking highly for in an effort to outrank them in search results is known as competitive keyword research.
An essential component of any SEO plan is keywords. They guarantee that your audience understands you have the stuff they're hunting for and assist you in maintaining concentrate on the work you do.
While doing keyword research could assist you in determining which keywords to utilize for your company content, it's also critical to comprehend how rivals in your market are utilizing the same keywords and the kind of success they are having with different approaches.
This knowledge may be obtained by studying rival keyword trends.
When doing competition analysis, it is important that the keywords you choose are both relevant to your industry and previously covered in your material. This research also helps you identify high-ROI chances where it would not be too tough to outrank a rival for a relevant term, as well as how difficult it will be to outrank a competitor that is outperforming you in the SERPs.
But first, how can you discover the keywords of your rivals?
How to Locate the Keywords of Your Rivals
Go to wordstamp.com/wordstream.
Enter the URL of your rival's website.
To find my keywords, click.
Verify the URL, choose an industry (if desired), and provide a location.
Press the Next button.
To email the whole list, click Download All Keywords.
You must first identify the keywords used by your rivals before you can analyze them. Fortunately, you can locate their keywords and fill in any content holes in your plan using a variety of paid and free tools.
To further your rival keyword research, we'll start with free tools and then go over a few commercial options.
1. How to Use WordStream to Discover Competitors' Keywords
Visit the wordstream.com/keywords page.
Type the URL of your rival's website into the text field.
To find my keywords, click.
Verify the URL, choose an industry (if desired), and provide a location.
Press the Next button.
Click. Get the whole list of keywords and download it to your email.
What WordStream Is Best At
WordStream is a straightforward, user-friendly tool that provides you with an instant list of the keywords used by your rivals. It's totally free to use, in contrast to other programs, and you may get a ton of information without having tremendous register. All that is required is your email address.
What WordStream Is Not
The actual rankings of your rivals, which might tell you how well they're performing for certain phrases, are not provided by the program. Since WordStream was developed by a marketing firm rather than a software business, it is what it is and does not provide an enhanced version of the product with more capabilities.
2. How to Use Google Keyword Planner to Discover Your Rivals' Keywords
Visit the keywords-planner tool at ads.google.com/home/tools.
Click. Visit the Keyword Planner.
If you're not signed in, log into your Google account.
Select your Google Ads account from the list or select New Google Ads account to start a new one.
On your dashboard, click the "Discover new keywords" button.
Click the Start using a website option.
Type the URL of your rival in the text field. Select whether you want to use the home page just or the full website. Note: We advise making use of the full website first.
Click. Obtain outcomes.
What Google Keyword Planner Is Best At
Google Keyword Planner is an effective tool with great filtering and sorting features for identifying the top keywords used by your competition. You may filter and sort the keywords in WordStream in a variety of ways, including by average monthly searches, three-month changes, year-over-year changes, competition level in the SERPs, and more. You can also choose which columns to include in your report and download it as a Sheets or CSV file.
What Google Keyword Planner Is Not
The ranks of your rivals are not provided by Google Keyword Planner, so you cannot determine where they excel. It's essential to understand their performance if you want to compete in organic search results and succeed.
3. How to Use Spyfu to Find the Keywords of Competitors
Go to spyfu.com.
Type the URL of your rival in the text field.
Select the SEO Keywords tab located between Kombat and Ranking History under the header.
What Spyfu Is Great At
Even in its free version, Spyfu is an excellent tool for more comprehensive competitor research. Along with a list of the top keywords used by your rivals, you also receive information on their top competitors, inbound links, top pages, and page-one keywords. Even a cursory comparison between your domain and the domain of your rival is possible.
What Spyfu Is Not
Spyfu is a restricted competitive keyword research tool in its free edition; it only provides the top 5–10 keywords that your rival ranks for and locks down particular information behind a membership barrier. The good news is that all of Spyfu's capabilities are readily accessible with a subscription that starts at $33/month (paid yearly).
4. How to Use Ahrefs Site Explorer to Find the Keywords of Competitors
Go to the web explorer at ahrefs.com.
Click Join Ahrefs Now.
Select the tier of your subscription. With the $99/month Lite subscription, you will be able to use Site Explorer.
Click the Site Explorer icon from the dashboard.
Enter the URL of your rival in the text field.
Select the Organic keywords from the sidebar's Organic search section.
The Best Things Ahrefs Site Explorer Can Do
Ahrefs, the first completely paid tool on our list, has all the functionality you would expect from a premium competitive keyword research tool at a premium cost. You receive complete access to the keyword profile and traffic of your competitors, including their successes and losses in the search results and rich snippets. Along with great filtering options to locate or exclude certain keywords, the program allows you to export up to 500,000 rows of keywords for storage.
The Things Ahrefs Site Explorer Is Not
Ahrefs does not have a competitive research tool that is easy to utilize without using a significant amount of your team's resources. Certain companies may not need position adjustments or even the whole keyword profile of their rivals. Sometimes developing an initial SEO plan to counter competition just requires a rudimentary understanding of SEO.
5. How to Use Semrush to Discover Your Rivals' Keywords
Visit www.semrush.com/analytics/organic/overview to learn more.
Type the URL of your rivals into the text field.
A request to register for a free account will appear. After entering your email address and selecting a password, click "Create Account."
You will be sent to a dashboard containing all of the organic performance data for your competitors.
Select View all organic keywords from the Top Organic Keywords card.
As an alternative, hit the Overview tab next to Positions.
What Semrush Is Best At
Semrush is a powerful premium tool that provides you with a wealth of free information. The keyword profile of your rivals, including position changes, top changes, and top competitors, is fully accessible to you. Even if you aren't a subscriber yet, you can still do a keyword gap study by selecting Keyword Gap from the sidebar.
What Semrush Is Not
Semrush provides all the necessary tools for doing a thorough rival keyword analysis at no cost. But, a free membership only allows you to study 10 rivals; thus, if you want to examine more, you'll need to switch to a premium subscription, which starts at $119.95 per month. The good news is that you may give it a try for free for seven days. There are a ton of Semrush reviews available that list the tool's benefits and drawbacks.
6. How to Use SE Ranking to Find the Keywords of Competitors
Go to competitor-traffic-research.seranking.com.
In the search field, type in the URL of your rivals, choose the location, and press Analyze.
In order to continue, you must begin a 14-day free trial. You will then be sent to the platform dashboard, which includes a summary of the assessed site's performance.
Click the "View Detailed Report" button after selecting the Organic keywords tab.
Alternatively, choose Organic Traffic Research — Keywords from the menu on the left.
What SE Ranking Is Best At
A useful tool that can offer you a comprehensive understanding of any competitor's keyword strategy is SE Ranking. Along with the whole list of terms it ranks for, you will also receive information on each keyword's search volume, difficulty, search intent, and SERP characteristics. You'll be able to see how well a rival ranks for that term as well as how rankings have moved in the last month. You may also get more detailed historical data if needed. The list may be further exported, and there are options for fine-grained filtering.
You can even go one step further with your study and look for keyword gaps by examining how your target keywords intersect with those of numerous rivals.
What SE Ranking Is Not
SE Ranking contains everything, however access to the abundance of information requires a subscription. Positively, their price structure is reasonable, with monthly minimums of $55.
Now that you know the keywords used by your rivals, how do you research and use them? Let's examine this.
How to Analyze Competitor Keywords
Competitor keyword analysis is related to but distinct from normal keyword analysis. We'll go over each stage of the procedure below.
1. Make use of templates for competitive analysis.
It might take a while to finish a competition keyword study, and it can be difficult to compile all the data you uncover in one location. To help you stay organized and compile your results in one location, we suggest using a competitive analysis template.
Included in this template are:
Two-Sided Competitive Environment Diagram
Strategic Overview of Competitors
Template for Content Marketing Analysis
Competition Side-by-Side Battle Card: You versus.
Comparing Features of Several Competitors
SWOT Analysis Template with Score Cards for Multiple Competitors
Review Tracker for Categorical Feature Comparison Template
The Content Marketing Analysis Template will come in most handy as it allows you to list several rivals along with the quantity of keywords that each one ranks for.
2. Compile a list of the major search engine rivals.
Now that you have your template downloaded, you need to compile a list of your main rivals. On your competitive analysis template, you may create a tab and only add one competitor per row. Making a more focused and successful SEO plan is made simpler when you are aware of who your primary competitors are.
Remember that competitors for your goods may not be the same as competitors for your SERP. Although a lot of companies probably provide similar goods and services as you do, not all of them could be strong rivals on search engine results pages. Only rivals that regularly rank for the same keywords you are attempting to rank for should be included.
You may use Spyfu to identify who that is. Here's how to do it:
Go to spyfu.com.
Enter your own URL in the text field.
To see your organic rivals, choose the Competition tab.
On the SERPs, these are the brands that are most in competition with you.
3. Determine the keywords of your rivals.
After you've determined who your main rivals are, research the keywords they rank for higher than you do, and assess how challenging it will be to outperform them. Create a distinct tab in your competitive analysis template for every competition.
We've previously spoken about where to look for those keywords. In conclusion, we suggest the following instruments:
WordStream: This is a good choice for getting a broad sense of the keyword profile of your competition.
Google term Planner: Excellent tool with filtering and sorting capabilities that will provide you with a rough sense of the term profile of your competition.
Spyfu: Robust choice that offers you a more comprehensive picture of your rivals' organic performance, but access to the whole keyword profile will cost $33/month.
Ahrefs Site Explorer: Robust premium solution that allows you to see the whole keyword rankings and profiles of your rivals. The cost of this tool is $99 per month.
Semrush: A great paid solution with limited free requests that provides you with complete access to the keyword profiles, rankings, organic performance data, and keyword gaps of your rivals. You will need to subscribe to a membership, which starts at $119.95/month, if you would want to make additional requests.
SE Ranking: Strong choice that offers a comprehensive overview of the keywords used by your rivals together with all the necessary metrics for efficient keyword data analysis. The starting monthly membership cost is $55.
4. Determine content and keyword gaps.
After you have your rivals' keywords, the exciting part starts: really competing with them for a higher ranking on those terms' search engine results pages and outperforming them.
Initially, you must determine which keywords your rival uses to rank that you do not, as well as which of their sites they use to rank. You may utilize a tool or follow your instincts. For example, you can already know that you don't rank for a certain phrase. The latter is what we advise.
Ahref, Semrush, and Spyfu all provide this data.
Go to spyfu.com to identify any keyword gaps in Spyfu.
Enter your own URL in the text field.
Select the Kombat tab.
It's possible that Spyfu has already selected rivals for you. The text bar of the Kombat tool is where you may add or change a domain.
Select the "Missing Keywords" box located in the upper right corner.
An initial list of the keywords that your rivals rank for but you don't is shown there. You'll be able to filter as well, but an upgrade will be required to see the whole list.
Go to ahrefs.com to identify any keyword gaps in Ahrefs.
Open your Ahrefs account and log in. A paid membership is required.
Select Site Explorer from the upper navigation bar.
Enter your own URL in the text field.
Select Content Gap under Organic search from the sidebar.
Enter the URL of your rival in the text field. You may include a maximum of three rivals.
To see the keywords, click Show.
You'll be able to see the keywords and top rankings that your rivals rank for.
Go to semrush.com to identify keyword gaps.
Log in to your account on Semrush. You will need to subscribe to a premium membership or a free trial of the product if you have already submitted ten requests in a single day.
Click Keyword Gap under Competitive Research on the sidebar.
Type your own URL into the first text field.
Enter the URL of your rival in the following text field. You may include a maximum of four rivals.
Press the Compare button.
To see all weak or missing keywords, you will need to upgrade to a premium account.
Visit seranking.com to identify keyword gaps in SE Ranking.
Log in to your account. An expensive subscription is required.
Navigate to Competitive Research, enter the URL of your own website, and choose the area.
Navigate to Competitor comparison on the left sidebar.
Enter the URLs of your rivals and choose "Show results."
Press the Compare button.
5. Recognize the audience you serve and that of your rivals.
Knowing your audience and their interests is one of the most crucial aspects of competitive keyword research. You must also comprehend the target audience of your rivals. Though ideally they would be identical, there may be times when you wish to target the customers of your rivals due to a strong product match.
In this phase, develop comprehensive buyer personas that describe your target audience at every point of the buying process, from awareness to post-decision. With the use of this information, you'll be able to generate a broad variety of keywords related to your company and more chances to outrank your rivals with content that is specifically targeted.
If you own a software firm, for instance, you should optimize your website to draw in visitors who are looking at other software possibilities as well as those who have already bought your goods and are curious about how to utilize them more.
6. To fill up content gaps, produce audience-focused and SEO-optimized material.
There are the keywords, rivals, and terms that they rank for that you do not. Additionally, you are aware of who your audience is. It's time to start producing material that will make you rank higher than your rivals.
This material could contain:
blog entries
landing pages
Product webpages
webpages
To manage your content production efforts and outperform your rivals, you need have a solid SEO strategy and content plan. Gather project ideas from their blog and website, then record them in your competition analysis sheet.
Since producing content might first seem daunting, you should use specialized tools to expedite the process of learning and producing content, such as:
A schedule for editing
A workbook for content marketing
A planning template for content marketing
A basic package for SEO
A template for on-page SEO
7. Monitor how your rivals are doing.
Monitor the monthly search traffic, backlink profile, and domain authority of your competition and use this data into your strategy. Even if you know it will be very hard to outrank for a certain term, it's still worthwhile to create content for it since you'll be giving your audience the information they need.
All things considered, these tactics will guarantee that you maintain concentration and surpass your rivals in terms of lead creation and company growth.
Tool for Analyzing Competitor Keywords
You have access to a broad range of tools that you may use to monitor the performance of your rivals throughout the analyzing process. The finest aspect? The majority of these are free.
First, Google Alerts
Google Alerts is a straightforward, no-cost service that you can use to search for information about you, your competitors, and your shared (or non-shared) keywords on the internet. It is possible to configure it to send you email notifications each time a term you want to target is discussed online. You can also monitor mentions of your rivals to find out from where they are getting backlinks.
Cost: Nothing
2. Mention in Social Media
As the name implies, Social Mention keeps an eye on social media and generates reports on every platform on which your keywords are discussed. You may quickly get data on the quantity of mentions, users, and the sentiment of those mentions (good, negative, or neutral) by just typing a term into the search field. You can also examine previews of previous mentions made by users.
Cost: Nothing
3. The Link Explorer by Moz
Moz's Link Explorer is a tool for finding links, mentions, and backlinks. You may utilize it to investigate the linking strategies of your rivals and see how they are establishing their online presence. You can see precisely how a rival who outranks you in search results achieved that position.
The tool offers 10 link inquiries and 50 rows of data per inquiry each month, but registration is required. You may subscribe to a premium membership if you'd like more advanced features.
Pricing: Standard: $99/month; Medium: $179/month; Large: $299/month; Premium: $599/month
4. The Semrush
Strong tools are available from Semrush for examining URLs, traffic, rankings, and keywords. You may monitor your own SERP ranks, examine a domain's backlink profile, and obtain a summary of the on-page SEO status for the links you submit. There are paid and free choices, and creating an account is necessary.
Costs: Free (10 requests per day); $199.95 per month for Pro; $229.95 per month for Guru); $449.95 per month for Business
5. Ahrefs
One comprehensive tool for competition analysis is Ahrefs. You may examine your competitors' backlink profile, referring domains, organic traffic, and the quantity of organic keywords they rank for—all of which need you to create an account. The tool may also be used for general keyword research and to analyze what your clients are looking for.
Pricing: $199 for Standard, $399 for Advanced, $999 for Enterprise, and $99 for Lite per month.
6. Search Engine Ranking
An all-in-one SEO tool for comprehensive competitor analysis is SE Ranking. You may analyze your competitors' backlink profiles, organic traffic, and keywords that they rank for, as well as their technical health by doing a thorough audit, if you have a premium membership. It will provide suggestions based on the parameters of your top-ranking rivals when you use SE Ranking to improve the on-page characteristics of your pages or develop fresh content from scratch.
Pricing: $109/month for Pro; $239/month for Business; $55/month for Essential.
Analyze competition keywords to help you choose what to write.
Competitive keyword analysis, like keyword research, aids in maintaining focus when creating content. When you generate competitive content, you'll know which keywords your audience is searching for, which rivals are using, and how difficult it will be to outrank them.
You'll be able to develop a content strategy that will help you establish your authority and rule the SERPS when you've finished your competition study.
Editor's note: For the sake of being more thorough, this piece has been modified after it was first published in March 2020.
