Learn how to enhance the search engine optimization (SEO) or pay-per-click (PPC) strategy with competitor keyword research, ultimately driving more quality traffic from search engines.
**Competitor keywords** are the search terms that competing websites rank for in search engines like Google, either organically (unpaid) or through sponsored (paid) results. The process of discovering and analyzing these keywords is known as **competitor keyword research**.
This research helps to:
– Understand what your target audience is searching for.
– Identify opportunities to outrank competitors and attract traffic to your site.
– Avoid targeting keywords that are too competitive or costly to rank for.
– Set benchmarks for your overall search engine marketing strategy.
### How to Find Competitor Keywords
To find competitor keywords, you’ll need access to a domain keyword database such as **SEMrush**. A recommended tool is the **Keyword Gap tool**, which compares your Google rankings with those of multiple competitors to identify valuable keyword opportunities.
**Specifically, compare:**
– **Organic keywords**: Keywords that trigger a top 100 organic result for a site, useful for optimizing content for SEO.
– **Paid keywords**: Keywords that trigger sponsored results for a site, best for finding keywords for Google Ads or similar search engine advertising.
– **PLA keywords**: Keywords that trigger a product listing ad (PLA) for a site, ideal for advertising on platforms like Google Shopping.
### Steps to Perform Competitor Keyword Analysis
**Using the Keyword Gap Tool:**
1. Visit the **Keyword Gap** tool on SEMrush.
2. Enter the competitor’s domain along with up to four additional domains.
3. Choose which types of keywords to analyze.
4. Scroll down to view the competitors’ keyword data.
5. Click the “Weak” tab to identify areas where your rankings are lower compared to competitors, revealing opportunities to improve.
**Organic Research:**
1. Use the **Organic Research** tool to check a competitor’s organic keyword rankings.
2. Enter the domain in the Organic Research tool.
3. Explore the **Competitors** tab to consult the **Organic Competitors** table.
4. Open the **Positions** report and check the **Organic Search Positions** table for rankings and features.
**Advertising Research:**
Use the **Advertising Research** tool to find keywords that trigger competitors’ search ads, and use the **PLA Research** tool to identify Google Shopping ad triggers.
### Utilizing Insights from Competitor Keyword Research
After conducting competitor keyword analysis, focus on selecting the best keywords for your marketing strategy. SEMrush provides access to vital keyword data, and you can further explore specific search terms by opening the keyword in the **Keyword Overview** section.
### Analyzing Search Intent
Understanding search intent is crucial for creating content and ads that appeal to your target audience. To do this, analyze the **search engine results pages (SERP)** by asking the following questions:
– What types of content are ranking for the keyword (e.g., educational content, product pages, or ads)?
– Is the resulting traffic aligned with your business goals?
– What is the **search volume**, and does it indicate a broad or niche audience?
– How difficult (KD%) is it to rank organically for the keyword?
### Additional Metrics to Consider:
– **Personal Keyword Difficulty (PKD%)**: Measures the difficulty for your website to rank in the top 10 for a keyword.
– **Cost per Click (CPC)**: Indicates how much it costs when users click on your ads, providing insights into keyword value.
– **Competitive Density**: Measures how competitive a keyword is among advertisers, providing an understanding of ad competition on the SERP.
### Steps for Search Intent Analysis:
1. Identify topic clusters and keyword groupings.
2. Study competitors’ content to create better-performing ads or pages.
3. Use the Keyword Overview tool to analyze the highest-ranking organic results.
### Analyzing Content Quality
Evaluate competitors’ content by asking questions such as:
– Is it easy to read and understand?
– Is the information accurate and up-to-date?
– How well are subtopics covered, and what is the content’s structure?
– Are relevant keywords and SEO best practices followed (e.g., title tags, meta descriptions)?
### Evaluating Paid Results
For analyzing paid ads, use SEMrush’s **Ad History** tool to see which competitor ads perform well. You can visit their landing pages for inspiration to improve your own campaigns.
### Tracking Rankings
After publishing content or launching ads, track your performance using SEMrush’s **Position Tracking** tool. Set up the tool to monitor your keywords and compare your rankings against competitors.
**Steps for Position Tracking:**
1. Configure Position Tracking by adding competitor keywords.
2. Compare performance using the “Overview” report and competitor domains.
3. Use this data to identify improvement opportunities and missed keyword targets.
### Improving SEO Rankings
SEO positions often fluctuate, so continuously monitor performance and refine strategies. Use SEMrush’s AI-powered **Keyword Strategy Builder** to plan future pages and campaigns.
By following these steps, you’ll be able to effectively analyze competitor keywords, refine SEO and PPC strategies, and gain a competitive advantage in search engine marketing.
Competitor keywords are search terms that competing websites rank for in search engines like Google, either in the organic (unpaid) or sponsored (paid) results.
The process of finding and analyzing these keywords is called competitor keyword research.
This research can help:
*Understand what relevant audiences are searching for.
*Identify opportunities to outrank competitors and drive traffic to the website.
*Avoid targeting keywords that are too difficult (or expensive) to rank for.
*Set benchmarks for the search engine marketing strategy.
To find competitor keywords, need access to a domain keyword database like Sem rush.
Recommend using the Keyword Gap tool, which allows to compare Google rankings with those of multiple competitors to identify the best keyword opportunities.
Specifically, Compare:
Organic keywords: These trigger a top 100 organic result for a site.
This is best for SEO keyword research to optimize the site’s content.
Paid keywords: These trigger a sponsored result for a site.
This is best for PPC keyword research to find keywords for Google Ads or other search engine advertising campaigns.
PLA keywords: These trigger a product listing ad (PLA) for a site.
This is best if plan to advertise through Google Shopping or similar platforms.
Steps to Perform Competitor Keyword Analysis:
Using the Keyword Gap Tool:
*Visit the Keyword Gap tool on Sem rush.
*Enter the competitor’s domain and up to four additional domains.
*Choose which types of keywords want to look at.
*Scroll down to the table to see and the competitors’ keyword data.
*Click the “Weak” tab to see where to rank lower compared to the competitors, highlighting opportunities to improve the rankings.
Organic Research:
*Check a competitor’s organic keyword rankings using the Organic Research tool.
*Enter the domain into the Organic Research tool.
*Go to the Competitors tab and consult the Organic Competitors table.
*Open the Positions report and scroll down to the Organic Search Positions table.
The Position column shows the site’s organic placement for each keyword.
An icon in the Positions column indicates a SERP feature.
Advertising Research:
Check which keywords are triggering a competitor’s search ads using the Advertising Research tool.
Check PLA keywords for a competitor’s site to see which keywords are triggering Google Shopping ads using the PLA Research tool.
PLA Research:
Enter a competitor’s domain, select the target location, and click Search.
To find top Google Shopping competitors, enter the domain into the PLA Research tool and consult the PLA Competitors table.
Utilizing Insights:
After completing the keyword competition analysis, learn how to choose the best keywords for the marketing strategy.
The Sem rush competitor keyword finder tool provides access to important data, and if need additional insights into a specific search term and access to the SERP, click on the keyword to open it in the keyword overview.
By following these steps, effectively analyze competitor keywords and refine the SEO and PPC strategies to gain a competitive edge.
Analyzing Search Intent
To create content and ads that perform well and appeal to the target audience, it’s crucial to understand the search intent behind each keyword.
This means grasping what the typical searcher is looking for.
When conducting SERP analysis, consider the following questions:
Types of Content Ranked:
What types of content are dominating the SERP? Is it educational content, product pages, or ads?
Does the resulting traffic contribute to my business goals? This helps determine if the site is a good fit for the keyword and vice versa.
Examining Search Volume:
Search volume is the average number of monthly searches for a keyword. Higher volume indicates higher potential reach.
While high search volume is important, don’t ignore lower-volume keywords. Search demand can be higher than the volume suggests, and high-volume keywords often come with strong competition.
Keyword Difficulty (KD%):
KD% measures how hard it will be to achieve a high organic ranking for a keyword, which is a crucial SEO metric.
The top organic result typically gets over 25% click-through rate (CTR), but this drops to less than 6% by position 7.
Semrush measures KD% on a scale of 1 to 100, with higher scores indicating more competition. This metric correlates with search volume and purchase intent behind the keyword.
4. Personal Keyword Difficulty (PKD%):
PKD% measures how hard it will be for the specific website to rank in the top 10 search results for a keyword.
Calculated using an advanced AI algorithm, PKD% takes into account the website’s relevance to the keyword, competition for that topic, and a comparison to domains currently ranking on the SERP.
Find PKD% in Semrush’s Keyword Magic Tool and Keyword Overview Tool.
Cost per Click (CPC):
CPC indicates how much is paid when a user clicks on an ad. Semrush’s CPC estimates help determine which competitor keywords fit within the PPC marketing budget.
CPC is also useful in SEO, as it shows the value of a keyword. Advertisers tend to spend money on keywords that generate profit.
Evaluating Competitive Density:
Semrush’s Competitive Density metric measures how popular a keyword is among search engine advertisers on a scale of 0 to 1. Values above 0.80 indicate high competition.
In PPC, high Competitive Density means tougher advertising competition on the SERP. In SEO, it means competing against many ads.
Steps to Perform Search Intent Analysis
Identify Topic and Keyword Clusters:
Use competitor keywords to group terms into topic clusters, which include a main page (pillar page) on a broad topic and subpages on more specific topics. This builds topical authority.
Study Competitors’ Content:
To outperform competitors, create content or ads that are superior to theirs. Start by evaluating who are competing against.
When searching for a competitor keyword in the Keyword Overview tool, examine the highest-ranking organic results in the SERP Analysis section.
By analyzing search intent and evaluating these metrics, refine the SEO and PPC strategies to better meet the business goals and attract the target audience.
Analyzing Content Quality
Evaluate the quality of the content by asking questions like these:
Readability and Clarity:
Is the content easy to read and understand?
Accuracy and Timeliness:
Is it accurate and up-to-date?
Coverage of Subtopics:
What subtopics are covered in the content?
Word Count:
How many words does it contain?
Structure and Format:
Are HTML heading tags used to structure the page?
What format does the content follow?
Keyword Usage:
How are relevant keywords used on the page?
Internal and External Links:
Are there internal links to other pages on the site?
Are there external links to useful resources?
Multimedia Elements:
Has the creator used bullet points, images, charts, videos, etc. to help users absorb information more easily?
Is there a better way to present this information?
SEO Elements:
Do the title tag (the page title) and meta description (summary that may appear in search results) contain keywords?
How to make the result stand out in the SERPs?
E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authority, Trustworthiness)
Does the content demonstrate experience, expertise, authority, and trustworthiness (E-E-A-T)
This type of analysis helps identify strengths to emulate and weaknesses to exploit.
For more tips on creating high-ranking content, check out our guide to quality content.
Evaluating Paid Results:
Analyze Ad Performance:
*For terms to use in paid search, enter a competitor keyword into the Ad History tool to see which search ads rank well in the target location.
*Visit the ad’s landing page directly by clicking the blue link to get more inspiration for the own campaign.
Resources for High Ad Rankings:
*For more information on achieving high ad rankings, check out our guides on quality scores and keyword bidding.
*For help setting up the first paid search campaign, use the Ads Launch Assistant, a free app from Semrush.
Tracking Rankings
Publish and Track Performance:
*After publishing the content or launching the ads, track rankings with the Position Tracking tool to see how performance compares to competitors.
Setting Up Position Tracking:
*Follow Position Tracking configuration guide to add the competitor keywords and create the tracking report.
*Once ready, click the “Add” link at the top of the “Landscape” report to add or select the domains of up to 20 competitors.
Comparing Performance:
*Go to the “Overview” report and select up to four competitors using the “Add domain” dropdown.
*Use the various charts at the top of the report to compare overall performance and see if the competition is better placed and in which direction each website’s rankings are trending.
Improving SEO Rankings:
*It’s normal for positions to fluctuate, so take time to improve SEO rankings.
*Identify the keywords the competition is targeting and may have missed.
*Use our AI-powered Keyword Strategy Builder to plan the pages and search campaigns.
By following these steps, effectively analyze content quality, evaluate paid results, and track rankings to outperform the competition.