Conducting competitor keyword research will give you access to more details on your competitors and which SEO strategies and keywords they use to dominate SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages) in specific niches.
What if I told you that you could check your competitors’ organic traffic details using competitor keyword research within a few minutes?
Yes, find competitors’ keywords that drive thousands of search traffic to your competitors’ websites every day…
And use them to funnel organic traffic to your sites and increase sales.
Keep reading, and you will find out how I conducted a competitor keywords analysis campaign within 5 minutes.
The last thing you want to do is get one thing from today’s post…
…That could be learning HOW to find keywords of ANY competitor you have, regardless it is a website or YouTube channel.
Ready to spy on competitors’ forbidden reports?
So, let’s do this… 1,2,3!
What is competitor keyword analysis?
When it comes to search engine optimization, keywords take an important role in terms of traffic, conversions, and sales. Without a proper keyword strategy, you can’t grow your business. It is the reality.
Keyword research is equally or more important than producing content, optimizing social media, and building links.
Because
Keyword research means targeting your market (aka market research).
If you target the wrong market, your business won’t grow despite receiving lots of traffic.
Analyzing competitors’ keywords provide you with these benefits:
- Market Research: If you are struggling to vertically grow your business profile, analyzing a competitor with an established keyword ranking can give you more insights on which areas to focus on or not.
- Drive More Traffic: Identify the content gap between your site and competitors and generate quality content that can outperform competitors.
- Identify Your website’s competitiveness: Compare your site’s keyword profile with competitors and find the competition level.
- Keyword Opportunities: Get to know untapped keywords with domain vs domain or URL vs URL competition keyword analysis. Learn more.
How to Find Best SEO Keywords Your Competitors are using
Like we use different tools for keyword research, we want to use tools with specific features to analyze competitors’ keywords.
Among several competitor keyword research tools, only one tool stands out from others and is considered the market leader.
It is none other than Semrush.
What is Semrush, and How can you use it for your website?
Semrush is a powerful digital marketing toolkit that provides many tools for bloggers, SEO experts, digital marketers, and business owners.
I have been using Semrush since 2012 and have gotten great results. Check out this Semrush review to find out details about the tool.
Meanwhile, check these Semrush guides I assembled previously on Pitiya in your spare time. They discover many tools’ corners that you might miss!
- 7 different ways to use Semrush for keyword research
- Semrush SEO Writing Assistant Review: Is it worth it?
- How to use Semrush SEO Content Template
- How to use Semrush SERP Post Tracking Tool
- Top ways to use Semrush for blogging
- Semrush Pro and Guru discounts for new users
- Best Semrush Pricing plan for your requirements
- What is the traffic cost in Semrush?
- Sites similar to Semrush.com
- Canceling Semrush subscription possible?
Semrush has a FREE plan. But, It is minimal. Here’s the pricing table of Semrush.
Find competitor SEO keywords using Semrush
Once created your Semrush account, follow the steps below to conduct good competitor keyword research.
Now I will show you how to find competitors’ keywords using Semrush competitor research tools in four ways.
#1. Find Competitor Keywords with Root Domain.
This method is less targeted but gives you more SEO keywords and opportunities.
What you will do here is find high-traffic keywords and essential information such as search volume, CPC distribution, competitive score, and organic traffic share. This is a good way to generate new content ideas and remedy writer’s block.
Our Goal: Analyze competitor’s blog and find profitable keywords that drive traffic to website.
Step #1: Go to the Semrush home page and enter your competitor’s website address. Here, I will use QuickSprout’s URL as my competitor’s address.
By default, you would receive the competitor analysis report for the Google United States database (Google.com). However, you can change the Semrush Google database to another geolocation.
Click on the “Search” button.
Step #2: Here is Semrush’s main report for the quicksprout.com domain.
You can find several new terms on this page.
- Authority Score: One key score to notice when doing competitor website analysis on Semrush. It demonstrates a domain’s strength by taking traffic volume, costs, backlinks, etc., into consideration.
- Semrush Rank: A ranking system developed by Semrush based on Traffic Analysis.
- Traffic (Search Engine Traffic): The total number of traffic the particular website receives.
- Traffic Distribution: Get a list of top counties from which the specific website receives traffic.
Now let’s take a look at the Top Organic Keywords section.
In this section, you can find two sides:
- Top Organic Keywords
- Organic Position Distribution
Click the view details button to see all competitor website’s organic keywords.
Here are a few top organic keywords of QuickSprout.
In this keyword report, you will find these columns.
- Keyword: Search Query that people use on a search engine before landing on the webpage.
- Position: Keyword’s SERP ranking position for the current or latest updated day.
- Volume: Average monthly search volume.
- CPC: Average Cost Per Click value in Google Ads.
- URL: The Landing page’s location address ranks on SERPs for search terms.
- Traffic %: The percentage of traffic shared to the web page for the given keyword in the date range.
- Costs %: The estimated traffic price for a keyword in Google Adwords.
- Competitive Density: PPC Keyword competitiveness for a given keyword.
- Results: The number of web pages competing for a given keyword.
- Trend: Interest over time for the keyword.
- SERP source: A snapshot for a given keyword on the search engine result page (SERP).
As you see, QuickSprout ranks higher on SERPs for several highly competitive keywords, such as website builder and online marketing.
Not only that, QuickSprout ranks for a vast number of long-tail keywords too. That brings tons of traffic from search engines consistently.
Use search filters to explore keywords. For instance, you can find keywords with SERP features.
That leads us to the next section of our competitor keyword analysis guide:
#2. Permalink
Our Goal: See competitor’s keywords from our eyes and determine whether can be ranked on search engines easily.
Suppose you know a competitor’s web page and are unsure which keywords it ranks for on Google.
In that particular case, Semrush could come in handy because you can easily find the top organic keywords of an URL.
Here’s how to find search terms on a competitor’s web page.
Step #1: Enter the permalink of a competitor’s website.
Step #2: In the Overview section, you will be shown very interesting statistics like organic keyword trends over time, changes after Google updates, top position changes, etc.
Like before, use filter options to find keywords you need. For instance, the KD filter lets you find keywords based on the ease of ranking on Google.
This leads to my favorite way of doing competitor keyword research in Semrush:
#3. Your Domain + Competitors
Our Goal: Stay aware of competitors and research competitor’s keywords instantly.
This is probably the best way to find your competitor’s keywords. What I am going to do here is analyze my competitor’s websites and find missing and untapped keywords.
So later, I can use those search terms in my blog posts and strengthen my competition level.
Step #1: Enter your website address into the Semrush competitor analysis tool.
Step #2: According to the keyword profile and considering other factors, Semrush found 2,672 main organic competitors as of writing this guide.
Here is the complete list of competitor websites and common keywords. Notice that competitor websites are listed according to the competition level.
The competition level is based on the percentage of common keyword percentages between two domains.
I ran a Domain vs. Domain search on Semrush between my site and the top organic website with a high competition level.
So, what can I do to improve my search engine rankings for these terms?
Use proper on-page SEO techniques and build authority backlinks towards the blog post with diversified anchor texts.
But you can go even deeper and find untapped keywords that are easy to rank.
Can you use Semrush Keyword Gap Analytics for URL vs. URL analysis? You bet!
Here is an example of comparing our Blogger SEO techniques guide with its main competitor on Google SERP.
Check out this guide on How to use the Semrush Keyword Gap Analysis tool to find winning content writing opportunities.
As you see, I could write separate blog posts or integrate these low-competition keywords into existing blog posts. Either way, I can drive targeted traffic to my blog, increase traffic, generate more leads, and grow my online business.
Competitive Keyword Analysis is not complex — All it takes is an excellent competitor analytics tool like Semrush and proper usage.
My favorite tool for competitor keyword research is Semrush. If you’re interested in trying Semrush Pro for free, use this link to open a Semrush free trial account.
Conclusion on Competitor Keyword Research
Competitor research is one of the best ways to grow your business in a short period without worrying about marketing research or depending on an agency or freelancer to do essential tasks that you should do mainly at the beginning of your online marketing career.
If you are serious about your website and regard it as a business (and it should be!), you must analyze your competitors; their daily traffic volume, backlinks and buyer keywords, etc.
I would like to know your views about competitors’ keyword research and how it affects your business.
What are other tools that you use to find competitor keywords? I use Semrush. What’s your favorite SEO tool?
A good Content sure worth Commenting .
Though its a king of very lengthy, am in a hurry now but I'll be back to go through it systematically.
I got to know your blog by Searching for " How to add a contact form on a Blogger blog"
Your Blog Design its so awesome. . you did a great Job
Keep it up
John, Thanks for kind of words. Follow these steps and surely you can see a clear difference in your organic traffic reports. I used this strategy and was able to increase my search traffic pretty quickly. Let me know if you have anything to ask me.
Not really,
I'm just being blessed visiting your blog even i went ahead to apply same theme with yours at http://www.blogginglane.com .
Honestly, Someday i hope to be writing such highly quality contents which gets shares easily.
One more thing is that, i want to go into Affiliate Marketing , Can you walk me through?
Since you're good and have been doing it for long time now. .
John, I am happy that you have started a blog. Yes, writing high quality content matter. You should first keyword research, because when it comes to affiliate marketing, quality traffic is really important. I struggled make money blogging when i first stated. After a few months, i understood that the keyword strategy i used were poor. If you followed the tips in this article, you can find keywords of competitors which is pretty awesome. I also recommed you to check out other articles related to keyword research and traffic generation.
I have started writing articles related to affiliate marketing. I will reveal behind-the-scenes affiliate marketing strategies that'll make you more money.
Okay. . Thanks for the assuring words. I'll be checking on you always.
So Cool to meet you, man
You're more than a Brother to me. . Am hoping on a day we'll Meet One-on-One to Share ideas.
You can Hit me an Email Anytime via Jonmaduka@gmail.com or you find me on twitter @Jonmaduka
Bye for now. . until i come your way again
I & The Blogging Lane Editor wish you the BEST
Glad i could help you. It's a pleasure me too know you. BTW, don't place your email address anywhere in any website. Spammers crawl the web content to find email address. You could type [at] or anything instead @.
Yes, Surely, We'll meet one-on-one one day. Thanks for commenting here, John!
Hi
Thanks to provides very good information about various tools, I m using semrush since 1 year and I deserve semrush is good for Competitor analysis.
Really impressive stuff. For one of my client, I need to work on improving their DA. After going through these steps, my mind is full of ideas on what I need to do on their site correctly to improve their domain authority. Thanks!
Great! Implement one of above steps and you will also see the improvement of search engine traffic.
Excellent writing. I appreciate your knowledge and guidance regarding keyword research tools. SEMRUSH plays important role among them which is ideal to hack your competitors marketing strategies and traffic sources too.
Have a great Sunday !
Much love,