This post is sponsored by SE Ranking. Opinions expressed in this article are their own.
Wondering why your competitors are ranking higher than you?
The secret to your competitors’ SEO success may be as simple as targeting the right keywords.
Because these keywords are successful for your competitors, they’re more likely to be valuable to you.
In this article, we will explore the most effective and easiest ways to find your competitors’ keywords so that you can derive your own SEO strategy and outrank your competitors in the SERPs.
Benefits of Competitive Keyword Analysis
Competitive keywords are search terms that your competitors target in your content to rank higher in the SERPs, either organically or through paid advertising.
Collecting the search terms your competitors rely on can help you:
1. Identify and fill your keyword gaps.
Your competitors’ lists of top keywords that drive traffic to them may contain valuable search terms that you’re currently missing out on.
To fill these keyword gaps, you can either optimize your existing content with these keywords or use these keywords as inspiration to create new content that has a higher traffic potential.
2. Adapt to market trends and customer needs.
You may notice that the keywords your competitors are optimizing their content for are shifting, which could be a sign that market trends and customer expectations are shifting.
Track these keywords to jump on new trends and adjust your content strategy accordingly.
3. Increase visibility and rankings.
Analyzing your competitors’ top keywords and pages can help you identify their winning patterns (content format, user intent focus, update frequency, etc.).
Study what’s working for your competitors (and why), and learn how to adapt these tactics to your own website to improve your ranking in the SERPs.
How to Identify Your Competitor's Keywords
There are many ways to find keywords your competitors are using in their content. Let’s compare the pros and cons of the most popular options.
Use SE Ranking
SE Ranking is a complete toolkit that provides unique data insights that help SEO professionals build and maintain successful SEO campaigns.
Below is a list of benefits the platform offers for agencies and in-house SEO professionals:
- Huge database. SE Ranking is one of the largest keyword databases on the web. It contains over 5 billion keywords across 188 regions. And the number of keywords in the database is constantly growing. 30% increase in 2024 compared to the previous year.
- Data you can trust. SE Ranking collects and analyzes keyword data to calculate core SEO metrics directly from its proprietary algorithms. The platform also utilizes AI-powered traffic estimation that matches GSC data up to 100%.
Recent news from SE Ranking Major Data Quality Updatesthe platform boasts more up-to-date and accurate information on backlinks and referring domains (both new and lost).
As a result, SE Ranking can now calculate Keyword Difficulty very accurately, taking into account a website’s backlink profile, authority and SERP competitiveness, making it easy to know the chances of your website or page ranking high in the SERPs for a particular query.
- Extensive feature set. Apart from conducting competitive (and keyword) research, you can also use this tool to track keyword rankings, run website audits, handle all aspects of on-page optimization, manage local SEO campaigns, optimize your content for search, and more.
- Great value for money. The tool offers premium features with generous data limits at a fair price, eliminating the need to choose between functionality and affordability.
Now let’s see how you can use SE Ranking to find out what keywords your competitors are targeting both organically and with paid ads.
first, Competitive research tools Enter your competitor's domain name in the search bar. Select your region and click on it. analyse Start analyzing this website.
Depending on the purpose, Organic Traffic Research or Paid Traffic Research Click on the tabs in the left navigation menu.
Here you can see data on estimated organic clicks, total number of keywords, traffic cost, and backlinks.
As you scroll down this page, you will see a table of all the keywords your website ranks for, along with data like search volume, keyword difficulty, user intent, SERP features triggered by the keyword, ranking position, and the URLs that rank for the analyzed keywords.
Additionally, this tool allows you to find keywords that your competitors rank for but that you don't rank for.
To do this, Comparison with competitors Click on the tabs to add up to two websites to compare.
Within do not have In the tab, you can see the existing keyword gaps.
Although this platform has many advantages, it also has some notable disadvantages:
- Some features require more expensive plans. For example, keyword history data is only available to Pro and Business plan users.
- Data is restricted to Google only. SE Ranking’s competitor research tool provides data from Google only.
Use Google Keyword Planner
Google Keyword Planner It’s a free Google service you can use to find your competitors’ paid keywords.
Here is a list of the advantages this tool offers regarding competitive keyword analysis:
- Free entry and exit. Keyword Planner is completely free to use, making it a great choice for SEO beginners and businesses on a tight budget.
- Core keyword data. For each identified keyword, the tool displays key SEO metrics such as search volume, competition, and suggested bids.
- Keyword classification. Keyword Planner allows you to organize your keywords into different groups, which helps you create targeted ad campaigns.
- Historical data. The tool has four years of historical data.
Once you log in Google Ads account, tool Select a section Keyword Planner.
Now, Discover new keywords option.
choose Start with a website Optionally, enter the domain, region, and language of your competitor's website, and choose whether to analyze the entire site (recommended for deeper insights) or a specific URL.
Now you have a table with all the keywords that the analyzed websites are using in their Google Ads campaigns.
While Keyword Planner is helpful, it's not the most effective or data-rich tool for finding competitor keywords. Its main drawbacks are:
- There is no organic data. This tool provides data on paid keywords and is primarily suited for advertising campaigns.
- Extensive search volume data. Because it's presented as a range rather than an exact number, it can be difficult to accurately assess the demand for a particular keyword.
- There is no keyword gap feature. This tool doesn’t allow you to compare your keywords side-by-side with your competitors’ keywords, so you won’t find any missing keyword options.
So, if you want access to more reliable and detailed data on your competitors’ keywords, you’ll probably need to look at other dedicated SEO tools.
Using SpyFu
SpyFu is a comprehensive SEO and PPC analysis tool built around the idea of “spying” on your competitors.
The main benefits of competitive keyword analysis are:
- A database containing over 10 years of historical data. Only available on Professional SpyFu provides long-term insights to monitor industry trends and adapt accordingly.
- Keyword gap analysis. This tool allows you to easily compare your keywords against those of your competitors using metrics like search volume, keyword difficulty, and organic clicks.
- Affordable price. Suitable for businesses with limited budgets.
To find out your competitors’ data, simply visit their website and type their domain into the search bar.
You'll see valuable insights into your SEO performance, from estimated traffic to a list of your best-performing pages and keywords. Top Keywords Click on a section View all organic keywords Click the button to see which search terms they're ranked for.
However, this free version only provides you with an overview of the top five keywords for your domain, along with metrics like search volume, rank changes, SEO clicks, etc. To perform a more comprehensive analysis, you'll need to upgrade to a paid plan.
The disadvantages of this tool include:
- Your keyword data may be out of date. SpyFu updates its keyword ranking data on average once a month.
- The target area is limited. Keyword data is available for only 14 countries.
summary
There’s no doubt that finding your competitors’ keywords is a great way to optimize your own content strategy and outrank your competitors in the SERPs.
By following the step-by-step instructions outlined in this article, you should be able to find high-value keywords that you may not have considered before.
Ready to start optimizing your website? Sign up for SE Ranking and get the data you need to deliver a great user experience.
Image credit
Featured Image: Image by SE Ranking, used with permission.