Learn how to identify rival keywords to give yourself a competitive advantage in SEO. Improve your SERP performance over your rivals with smart targeting.
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Do you ever wonder why your rivals are ranked higher than you?
It may be as easy as choosing the right keywords to target as the key to your rivals' SEO success.
These keywords might be beneficial to you as well, given that they are working effectively for your rivals.
In order to inform your own SEO approach and maybe exceed your rivals in search engine results, we'll look at the most efficient but straightforward methods for locating competitors' keywords in this post.
Competitive Keyword Analysis's Advantages
Competitor keywords are the search phrases that your rivals use in their content to attain high search engine rankings (SERPs), either naturally or by using sponsored advertisements.
Gathering search phrases that are used by your rivals might be beneficial to you.
1. Locate and Fill Keyword Vapors.
There may be important search phrases on the list of highly ranked keywords that are directing traffic to your rivals that you are presently overlooking.
You have two options for filling in these keyword gaps: either utilize these keywords to improve your current content or use them as ideas for brand-new, highly trafficked content.
2. Adjust To Customer Needs & Market Trends.
It's possible that the keywords your rivals use to improve their content have changed. This may indicate shifting consumer expectations or market trends.
To capitalize on new trends, keep an eye on these keywords and adjust your content strategy appropriately.
3. Improve Rankings & Visibility.
You may discover your rivals' successful strategies by examining their highly-ranked keywords and pages (e.g., content structure, user intent focus, update frequency, etc).
To discover how to modify these strategies for your website and rank better in search results, examine what your competitors are doing well (and why).
How to Determine the Keywords of Your Rivals
There are several methods for locating keywords that rivals are using in their writing. Let's examine the benefits and drawbacks of the most often used choices.
Employ SE Ranking
A comprehensive toolbox that offers distinctive data insights is SE Ranking. SEO experts may use these facts to create and manage profitable SEO initiatives.
The following is a summary of the benefits the platform provides for agency and internal SEO experts:
enormous databases. SE Ranking has one of the biggest keyword datasets on the internet. It includes 188 areas and more than 5 billion keywords. Additionally, their database has an increasing amount of keywords—in 2024, it increased by 30% over the previous year.
trustworthy information. SE Ranking uses its own unique algorithm to gather, evaluate, and calculate essential SEO indicators. Additionally, the platform uses AI-powered traffic estimates that match GSC data up to 100% of the time.
The tool now features even more up-to-date and accurate information on backlinks and referring websites (both lost and new), thanks to SE Ranking's recent big data quality improvement.
As a consequence, SE Ranking now calculates keyword difficulty with a high degree of accuracy by taking into account the website's backlink profile, authority, and SEO competitiveness. This makes it simple to determine the likelihood that your page or website will appear first in the search engine results for a certain query.
wide range of features. This tool is not only for researching competitors and keywords; it can also be used for tracking keyword rankings, website audits, managing local SEO campaigns, managing on-page optimization, and much more.
Outstanding value for the money. The product is reasonably priced and provides substantial data limitations along with premium features. This removes the need of choose between price and usefulness.
Now let's go over how to utilize SE Ranking to find the keywords that your rivals are using for paid advertising and organic search.
To begin, use the Competitive Research Tool and type the domain name of your rival into the search field. To begin analyzing this website, choose a region and click Analyze.
Select the Paid Traffic Research or Organic Traffic Research tab from the left-hand navigation menu based on your objectives.
This section contains information on backlinks, traffic cost, total number of keywords, and expected organic clicks.
You may view a table with all the terms the website ranks for by scrolling down this page. It also includes information on search volume, keyword difficulty, user intent, ranking position, and URLs ranking for the studied keyword, among other things.
Additionally, you may use the tool to discover the terms that your rivals rank for but you don't.
Go to the Competitor Comparison tab and enter up to two websites to compare in order to do this.
You may see the existing keyword gaps on the Missing tab.
Even if the platform has a lot to offer, there are certain drawbacks to be mindful of, like:
Certain features demand more expensive plans. For instance, only those with the Pro or Business subscription get access to past keyword data.
Data is exclusive to Google. The Competitor Research Tool from SE Ranking only offers information for Google.
Make use of Google Keyword Planner
You may utilize Google Keyword Planner, a free tool from Google, to discover the sponsored keywords of your rivals.
The following is a list of advantages this program provides for competitive keyword analysis:
No cost of entry. Because Keyword Planner is totally free to use, it's a fantastic choice for SEO novices and companies on a tight budget.
primary keyword information. For every term that has been found, the tool displays important SEO indicators including search traffic, competitiveness, and proposed bid values.
Classification of keywords. You may aggregate keywords using Keyword Planner, which can be useful for developing tailored advertising campaigns.
past information. Four years' worth of historical data are accessible in the tool.
After logging into your Google Ads account, choose Keyword Planner under the Tools section.
Select the option to find new keywords now.
Select Choose a website choice first, then input the domain, language, and location of your competitor's website. From there, you may study the whole website (which is advised for more in-depth analysis) or just a particular URL.
And there it is: a table listing every term that your website's analysis indicates it utilizes in Google AdWords campaigns.
While Keyword Planner is useful, it isn't the most efficient and comprehensive tool for locating terms used by rivals. The following are its principal shortcomings:
Absent organic data. The tool provides information on sponsored keywords, which are mostly useful for marketing initiatives.
extensive statistics on search volume. It might be challenging to determine the demand for certain keywords since it's presented in ranges rather than actual amounts.
lacking the keyword gap functionality. You cannot use this tool to compare the keywords of your rivals and yourself side by side, which prevents you from finding keyword choices that are absent.
Therefore, you will probably need to look into additional specialized SEO tools if you want to get more accurate and detailed data on the terms used by your rivals.
Employ SpyFu
SpyFu is a feature-rich SEO and PPC analysis tool designed to be used for rival "spying."
When it comes to rival keyword analysis, its primary advantages are as follows:
database with data going back more than ten years. While SpyFu is limited to the Professional subscription, it provides long-term analytics to track market changes and make adjustments.
examination of keyword gaps. With the use of this tool, you can quickly compare your terms to those of your rivals by using data such as organic clicks, search volume, and difficulty.
Cost-effectiveness. It is appropriate for companies with limited resources.
Visit their website and type your competition's URL into the search field to see competitor info.
You'll be given useful information on their SEO performance, including a list of their top-performing pages and keywords as well as an estimate of their traffic. To see the search phrases they rank for, go to the Top Keywords area and select the see All Organic Keywords option.
However, this free edition offers indicators such as search traffic, rank change, SEO clicks, and more, along with a summary of a domain's top 5 keywords. To conduct an in-depth investigation, you will have to upgrade to a premium subscription.
Concerning the drawbacks of the instrument, the following should be mentioned:
The keyword data could be out of date. SpyFu releases keyword ranking data once a month on average.
Target regions are few in number. There are just 14 nations for which keyword data is available.
Concluding
Without a question, one of the best ways to improve your own content strategy and surpass your competition in SERPs is to identify their keywords.
We guarantee that if you adhere to the detailed guidelines provided in this article, you will discover high-value keywords that you were previously unaware of.
Are you ready to begin improving your website? Enroll in SE Ranking to get the information required to provide excellent user experiences.
