How to Find and Use Competitor Keywords

Competitor keywords are the keywords your rivals fertile for successful Google’s hunt results. They whitethorn fertile organically oregon wage for Google Ads to fertile successful the paid results.

Knowing your competitors’ keywords is the easiest signifier of keyword research. If your competitors fertile for oregon people peculiar keywords, it mightiness beryllium worthy it for you to people them, too.

There is nary mode to spot your competitors’ keywords without a instrumentality similar Ahrefs, which has a database of keywords and the sites that fertile for them. As acold arsenic we know, Ahrefs has the biggest database of these keywords.

How to find each the keywords your rival ranks for

1. Go to Ahrefs’ Site Explorer
2. Enter your competitor’s domain
3. Go to the Organic keywords report

The study is sorted by postulation to amusement you the keywords sending your rival the astir visits. For example, Mailchimp gets astir of its integrated postulation from the keyword “mailchimp.”

Since you’re improbable to fertile for your competitor’s brand, you mightiness privation to exclude branded keywords from the report. You tin bash this by adding a Keyword > Doesn’t contain filter. In this example, we’ll filter retired keywords containing “mailchimp” oregon immoderate imaginable misspellings:

If you’re a caller marque competing with 1 that’s established, you mightiness besides privation to look for fashionable low-difficulty keywords. You tin bash this by mounting the Volume filter to a minimum of 500 and the KD filter to a maximum of 10.

How to find keywords your rival ranks for, but you don’t

1. Go to Competitive Analysis
2. Enter your domain successful the This people doesn’t fertile for section
3. Enter your competitor’s domain successful the But these competitors bash section

Hit “Show keyword opportunities,” and you’ll spot each the keywords your rival ranks for, but you don’t.

You tin besides adhd a Volume and KD filter to find popular, low-difficulty keywords successful this report.

How to find keywords aggregate competitors fertile for, but you don’t

1. Go to Competitive Analysis
2. Enter your domain successful the This people doesn’t fertile for section
3. Enter the domains of aggregate competitors successful the But these competitors bash section

You’ll spot each the keywords that astatine slightest 1 of these competitors ranks for, but you don’t.

You tin besides constrictive the database down to keywords that each competitors fertile for. Click connected the Competitors’ positions filter and take All 3 competitors:

1. Go to Ahrefs’ Site Explorer
2. Enter your competitor’s domain
3. Go to the Paid keywords report

This study shows you the keywords your competitors are targeting via Google Ads.

Since your rival is paying for postulation from these keywords, it whitethorn bespeak that they’re profitable for them—and could beryllium for you, too.

You cognize what keywords your competitors are ranking for oregon bidding on. But what bash you bash with them? There are fundamentally 3 options.

1. Create pages to people these keywords

You tin lone fertile for keywords if you person contented astir them. So, the astir straightforward happening you tin bash for competitors’ keywords you privation to fertile for is to make pages to people them.

However, earlier you bash this, it’s worthy clustering your competitor’s keywords by Parent Topic. This volition radical keywords that mean the aforesaid oregon akin things truthful you tin people them each with one page.

Here’s however to do that:

1. Export your competitor’s keywords, either from the Organic Keywords oregon Content Gap report
2. Paste them into Keywords Explorer
3. Click the “Clusters by Parent Topic” tab

For example, MailChimp ranks for keywords similar “what is integer marketing” and “digital selling definition.” These and galore others get clustered nether the Parent Topic of “digital marketing” due to the fact that radical searching for them are each looking for the aforesaid thing: a explanation of integer marketing. You lone request to make 1 leafage to perchance fertile for each these keywords.

2. Optimize existing contented by filling subtopics

You don’t ever request to make caller contented to fertile for competitors’ keywords. Sometimes, you tin optimize the contented you already person to fertile for them.

How bash you cognize which keywords you tin bash this for? Try this:

1. Export your competitor’s keywords
2. Paste them into Keywords Explorer
3. Click the “Clusters by Parent Topic” tab
4. Look for Parent Topics you already person contented about

For example, if we analyse our competitor, we tin spot that 7 keywords they fertile for autumn nether the Parent Topic of “press merchandise template.”

If we hunt our site, we spot that we already person a leafage astir this topic.

If we click the caret and cheque the keywords successful the cluster, we spot keywords similar “press merchandise example” and “press merchandise format.”

To fertile for the keywords successful the cluster, we tin astir apt optimize the leafage we already person by adding sections astir the subtopics of “press merchandise examples” and “press merchandise format.”

3. Target these keywords with Google Ads

Paid keywords are the simplest—look done the study and spot if determination are immoderate applicable keywords you mightiness privation to target, too.

For example, Mailchimp is bidding for the keyword “how to make a newsletter.”

If you’re ConvertKit, you whitethorn besides privation to people this keyword since it’s relevant.

If you determine to people the aforesaid keyword via Google Ads, you tin hover implicit the magnifying solid to spot the ads your rival is using.

You tin besides spot the landing leafage your rival directs advertisement postulation to nether the URL column.

Learn more

Check retired much tutorials connected however to bash rival keyword analysis:

• Keyword Competitive Analysis: How to Find Your Competitors’ Keywords
• How to Do a Content Gap Analysis [With Template]
• How to Do an SEO Competitor Analysis