Everyone who owns a website has a common goal: increase traffic to get more conversions.
Bringing visitors to your site requires time and investment in an SEO strategy.
Also, to reach the top search results you will inevitably, at some point, need to surpass your competitors. To do that, it's crucial to have information about their SEO techniques.
Analyzing the keywords used by your competitors will allow you to develop your own strategy and identify the resources you'll need to outperform them. Now let's look at the different steps to follow to identify competitive keywords.
Identify your competitors
It's obvious: there's no point doing a competitive analysis if you don't know who your competitors are. So if you run an e-commerce site, you should consider large brands like Amazon as competitors.
Start by doing a simple Google search for the keywords you want to rank for. This reveals the brands playing on the same playing field as you, and lets you see their positions.
Big companies often dominate the top rankings, both in organic and paid results. So if your domain doesn't yet have much authority, it may be more reasonable to target weaker competitors.
You can also use SEMrush to identify your competitors.
To do this, simply enter your URL then scroll down to the "Top organic competitors" section. By clicking "View detailed report" you get access to the full list of your competitors.
You can in particular view the level of competition as well as the traffic to their website.
Find your competitors’ keywords
Now that you've identified the competitors you want to beat, it's time to take a closer look at their SEO strategy, and that starts with identifying their keywords.
Keywords are the key to traffic on your site, so you must choose the ones you want to rank for. Even if you use Google's Keyword Planner, you should take competition into account.
This strategy allows you to use keywords that are already driving traffic to your competitors. It’s then up to you to use them wisely to redirect users to your own site.
On SEMrush, enter a competitor’s URL, then go to "Domain Overview" and then "Organic Research" from the left-hand navigation bar.
From the "Positions" tab, you can export the list of keywords used by the brand.
The list of keywords is likely large. Eliminate those that are not relevant to your product or service.
Tools to find competitors’ keywords
Here is a list of 6 tools to know to highlight competitors' keywords.
1. Google Keyword Planner
When it comes to conducting keyword research, Google Keyword Planner is an interesting tool to know because it is comprehensive and, above all, free. Indeed, a Google account is enough to access it since it is integrated with the AdWords advertising platform.
For find keywords of competitors, just enter their site’s URL and click on "Get ideas". In a few seconds, Google Keyword Planner will provide a list of the keywords associated with the page.
It's up to you to use this data wisely.
2. Majestic SEO
Here is another particularly relevant tool for understanding your competitors' SEO strategy.
Majestic SEO it relies more on links and the anchors used. Anchors most often correspond to the keywords the company aimed to target.
Therefore, by analyzing the most-used link anchors, it's easy to identify a competitor's keywords.
3. SEMRush
Those who take a close interest in SEO know how powerful the tools provided by SEMRush are effective. However, to take full advantage of all features, the cost is high.
However, if you only want to get your competitors' keywords, enter the URLs of your rivals' sites and you will get a list of them with the number of visits each managed to generate.
You will also get the results page on which your competitor's site appears for the different keywords.
This is relevant data to analyze so you can, in turn, make the right SEO decisions.
4. SpyFu
Particularly easy to use and free, SpyFu allows you to very easily obtain the keywords your main competitors are ranked for.
To do this, simply enter their URL into the tool. It will scan the sites and present you with a list of keywords.
It's then up to you to make good use of the information obtained.
5. Yooda Insight
For keywords in French, Yooda Insight it certainly offers one of the best databases on the web. That's why we recommend this tool even though it doesn't have the reputation of some others presented here.
If it lets you easily obtain your competitors' keywords, it also lets you "test" keywords. Enter a query you want to rank for and you'll quickly know whether your main competitors are well positioned for it or not.
One drawback is that this tool is limited to the first page of Google results, but it's worth checking out nonetheless.
6. Keyword Spy
Let's finish our list of SEO tools with Keyword Spy. Available in a free version — although incomplete — this software can help you identify your competitors' strategic keywords and find out how they perform on them.
Once again, you'll have relevant data to analyze to implement an SEO strategy that lets you outrank your rivals online.
SEO content strategy and competitor audit
Redacteur.com offers 3 SEO Content Strategy packages to provide you with a turnkey service.
The audit in the most ambitious package includes a semantic SEO audit of your main competitors to detect the keywords they rank for and to propose relevant content to help you rank for these competitive searches.
The semantic audit of your site and your competitors detects the best keywords to design content topics. An SEO expert handles this and submits them to you for approval. Finally, the content is written, optimized for organic search, and delivered to you in HTML format so you can quickly and easily integrate it into your website.
Redacteur.com's packages are designed to let you set up a professional turnkey SEO content strategy in a short time. You gain visibility while saving time on content production.
Contact a project manager without delay to find the package that best matches your editorial maturity !
Create groupings
Your list should normally contain generic keywords. For example, if you own a hair salon you will likely have terms such as "hairdressing", "hairdresser", "haircut", etc.
It is often very difficult to beat your competitors for these kinds of keywords. They are extremely competitive.
The ideal is therefore to group the keywords combine generic terms with other, more specific terms in order to obtain keyphrases that are more specific and better suited to your target.
Explore paid keywords
By doing some searches on Google you may notice that your competitors use ads to boost their traffic.
Even if you don't want to invest in such campaigns, it is recommended to identify the keywords brands use in those ads. You can then target them through your SEO to give yourself more credibility.
Also read: Semantic SEO: how to properly use secondary keywords?
To go further…
Creating a keyword list and targeting them organically is not enough to outperform your competitors. In fact, that list gives you access to many other pieces of information that you should exploit.
By performing a search for each keyword on your list, you can identify the quality and relevance of the content associated with it.
You can also assess the user experience of the sites that rank in the top positions. Thanks to the tool Google Mobile-Friendly you can test responsiveness. For loading time you can use PageSpeed Insights.
By identifying, as you go, the weaknesses of each of your competitors, you can improve your site and your content so you don’t repeat the same mistakes.
If you want to learn more, download our free white paper on content marketing.
Our tip
Analyzing your competitors’ keywords lets you know what is truly relevant to your target audience. Instead of guessing their queries, you know the searches they are likely to perform.
Once you have decoded how they rank and the strengths and weaknesses of their SEO, you will be able to make the right decisions to become number one on the Internet. Don’t forget that this keyword analysis strategy should be accompanied by an analysis of the marketing strategies deployed by your competitors.
Being well positioned in Google’s results is essential for a business. So, before carrying out any SEO strategy, take the time to use the different tools that we presented to you and, if necessary, to call on a freelance web copywriter.
