Just as you keep tabs on your competitors’ products, pricing strategies, and unique selling points, their SEO playbook should be on your radar too. And learning how to find competitors’ keywords is a cornerstone of a successful content marketing strategy.
Your competitors have already invested time and resources into finding profitable keywords and building their search presence–why not learn from their success?
Analyzing competitor keywords isn’t just about playing catch-up; it’s a smart way to uncover untapped opportunities where you can outrank them and capture valuable search traffic.
Want to turn your competitors’ keyword strategy into your competitive advantage?
We’ll walk you through a practical 5-step plan to uncover your competitors’ most valuable keywords and show you how to use 6 different keyword research tools that make this process a breeze!
What Are Competitor Keywords?
Competitor keywords are the terms, phrases, and inquiries your rival businesses use to improve their search engine rankings and drive traffic. Imagine it as reverse-engineering your competitors’ winning SEO strategies piece by piece, spotting the gaps or opportunities in them, and using these findings to build your own improved strategy.

Armed with these insights, you can develop content that climbs above theirs in search rankings.
You’ll also discover which keywords your rivals are chasing but haven’t managed to rank well. This valuable intel helps you avoid walking down the same unsuccessful paths they did.
What Are the Benefits of Finding Competitor Keywords?
Analyzing your competitors’ keywords gives you the intel you need to shine in search results. Here’s what you can achieve by finding out what search terms they’re targeting:
- Stay ahead of market trends: Get insights into emerging market trends and shifts in consumer behavior. Use this information to adjust your strategy and seize opportunities before others do.
- Understand customer intent: Learn what your target audience is searching for and how they interact with content. This helps you create more relevant content that addresses their specific needs and interests.
- Fast-track SEO efforts: Instead of starting from scratch, you’ll discover keywords that already work for your competitors, saving countless hours of research and testing.
What Can You Do After Finding Your Competitors’ Keywords?
With the keywords on hand, study their offerings, strategy, and target audience. Then compare them with your own website. There are several effective ways to use competitor keyword research to your advantage:
- Discover content gaps: Compare your keyword strategy with competitors to identify topics you haven’t covered yet.
- Beat your competitors: Gain insights into your competitors’ search engine rankings and identify opportunities to surpass them.
- Steal performing keywords: Take over high-performing keywords from your competitors to improve your own search result rankings.
- Uncover hidden opportunities: Explore and capitalize on previously overlooked keyword possibilities to expand your online presence.
5-Step Plan to Select SEO Keywords for the Most Impact
Unlike traditional keyword research that focuses on your own site, competitor keyword analysis requires a broader view of your entire competitive landscape. This 5-step process reveals your rivals’ keyword strategies so you spend less time wondering and more time taking action.
Step 1: Create a List of Your Top SERP Competitors
Identifying the right competitors is a crucial first step because it ensures that you can gain valuable information that directly impacts your market position. Moreover, you avoid wasting time and resources on competitors who don’t share your objectives or target audience.

To maximize efficiency and effectiveness, concentrate on selecting 3 to 5 key competitors who excel in your industry. When narrowing down your list, prioritize competitors who:
- Target the same customer demographic as your business.
- Provide products or services closely aligned with your offerings.
- Frequently come to mind as industry leaders or direct competitors.
If you’re finding it challenging to pinpoint your main competitors or want to validate your selections, consider these additional strategies:
- Conduct online searches using your primary keywords and product categories. Note which companies consistently appear at the top of search results.

- Perform market research to identify businesses offering products with similar functionalities to yours.
- Consult your sales team about competitors frequently mentioned during client interactions.
- Gather feedback from your customers about other brands they considered before choosing your product.
- Explore social media platforms to identify competitors with strong online presence and substantial follower bases.
Step 2: Find Competitor Keywords That Match Your Strategy and Business Focus
After pinpointing your top competitors it’s time to dig into their keyword rankings, especially where they’re beating you at your own game.
Make a big list of all the keywords they’re ranking for and figure out if you can realistically outdo them. Keep things tidy by giving each competitor their own tab in your analysis spreadsheet.
Using SEO keyword research tools is definitely the way to go here. You’ve got options ranging from basic tools that spit out simple keyword lists to fancy ones that dive deep into your competitors’ best-performing pages and their keywords. 💅
Unlike your regular keyword research for content, you don’t need to do this competitor analysis all the time. If you’re on a budget, hop on the Search Atlas’ free trial, it’s a smart way to do a thorough job without breaking the bank.
Step 3: Analyze your Competitors’ Keywords to Find Market Penetration Points
Once you’ve got my hands on the competitors’ keywords, it’s time to gun for a better position on those keywords’ SERPs and outdo the competition.
So, how do you do that?
Pinpoint the specific keywords your competitors are ranking for that you are not, and which of their pages are hitting those rankings. Trust your instincts here–you might already have a hunch that you’re not ranking for certain terms.
Keep an eye on metrics such as:
- Search intent: Understand the search intent behind each keyword (i.e., what the typical searcher is looking for).
- Search volume: The average number of monthly searches a keyword receives.
- Keyword difficulty: Measures how hard it’ll be to earn a high organic ranking for a given keyword.
- Cost per click (CPC): Although it shows how much you’d have to pay when users click on your ad, it also indicates how valuable the keyword is.

Don’t forget that your chosen keywords should align nicely with your content and what your business offers. If they don’t, you might end up attracting the wrong crowd or struggle to rank for those terms at all.
Sort through the keyword data you uncovered to select the most suitable targets. If you really want to analyze your competitor keywords properly and remove the noise, try to:
- Eliminate irrelevant keywords: Remove terms unrelated to your products, customers, or competitor brands.
- Filter out challenging keywords: Exclude highly competitive terms or those with insufficient search volume.
- Identify opportunities: Look for keywords where your competitor is underperforming or hasn’t targeted yet. These could be areas where you can create better content and outrank them.
- Focus on low-hanging fruit: Prioritize keywords that offer a good balance of relevance, search volume, and achievable ranking potential.
Step 4: Create Audience-centric and SEO-optimized Content
Discovering competitor keywords can breathe new life into your content optimization or creation process. The goal here is to use competitor insights as a foundation for developing superior content.
Start brainstorming ideas for new content to outrank your competition. Some examples of content include:
- Blog posts
- Landing pages
- Product pages
- Ebooks
- Case studies
Consider these strategies to improve both SEO performance and engagement:
- Titles and headlines: Experiment with keyword variations to create compelling headlines that grab attention while maintaining readability. Remember, a balance between keyword optimization and user appeal is key.
- On-page strategy: Weave the keywords naturally into headings, subheadings, body text, and image alt tags.
- Create better content: Go beyond basic info and add unique insights that make readers think “wow, this is exactly what I needed!”
Step 5: Track Your Competition’s Performance to Always Be a Step Ahead
Your competitor keyword analysis may be complete, but some of the biggest SEO mistakes revolve around ongoing surveillance. Regularly monitor your competitors’ monthly search volume, newly targeted keywords, and backlink profiles.

This continuous monitoring ensures you stay ahead of the curve and aren’t caught off guard by their rivals’ evolving SEO strategies.
You’ll also find valuable insights into industry trends, emerging opportunities, and potential threats. Enabling you to proactively adjust your strategy and maintain a competitive edge.
6 Tools to Easily Find Competitors Keywords
While various SEO tools are available, the core process of competitor keyword analysis can be performed using any of them. Some tools require investment, but this cost is often justified by the time saved compared to manual research.
Choose a tool that fits your needs and budget to streamline your SEO strategy effectively.
1. Search Atlas

Search Atlas offers a tool to compare keyword rankings against top competitors and identify more ranking opportunities for clients
You can compare up to 5 competitors to see which keywords they’re ranking for, see where your competitors are ranking, what content they create, and reverse-engineer their keyword strategy to deliver similar results for your clients.
Search Atlas offers a robots keywords analysis, allowing users to find different types of keywords and study thoroughly how they interact and compete. The best part is that it’s all easy to understand and interpret. Even new users or those without extensive experience will be able to leverage all of its capabilities.

After inserting your and your competitors’ domains in the keyword gap tool, you’ll receive the following insights:
- Keywords Gap: Shows the keywords all your competitors rank for, but your site does not.
- Keywords in Common: The keywords that all domains (you and competitors) rank for.
- Keyword Opportunities: These are the keywords one or more competitors rank for, but your site does not.
- Unique Keywords: Shows the keywords your website ranks for, but your competitors don’t.
- All Keywords: All of the keywords that any of the websites (you and competitors) rank for.
Search Atlas basically does the job of analyzing and identifying opportunities for you, making the process easier and improving your whole workflow.
Pros
- Wide variety of analyses and all of them are easy to understand and read, even for new users
- Get exact keyword metrics for specific geographic locations
- Provides other competitors’ analysis tools such as site explorer (shows overall performance) and link gap analysis
Cons
- No free version of competitor analysis, but offers a free trial
- The plans lacks personalization, but the pricing beats other tools in the market for all the tools you receive
Pricing
All plans grant access to all competitors’ analysis tools (and other advanced features). You receive different quota according to the plan:
- Starter plan: $99 monthly
- Growth plan: $199 monthly
- Pro plan: $399 monthly
- Enterprise: Custom
2. SEMRush

SEMRush has a Keyword Gap tool that helps you identify specific keywords your competitors are outranking you for, up to 5 competitors any domains, subdomains, folders or exact URLs.
Pros
- Offers some free features with a max of 10 requests per day
- The tool offers many report options
Cons
- The tool is not the most user friendly and might overwhelm new users
- Really expensive pricing compared to other competitive keyword research tools
Pricing
The competitor analysis tool is available on the pro plan or above, starting at $139.95 monthly. You can acquire their 24/7 competitor tracking for an additional $289 monthly per user.
3. Ahrefs

Ahrefs offers a competing domains tool to identify SERP competitors, a content gap analysis to see where you’re lacking, and a rank tracker tool for tracking competitors in SERPs.
Pros
- There’s extensive filtering to find or exclude keywords
- Boasts a large keyword database, which is updated frequently
Cons
- No trial subscription available
- Some users have reported that its SERP analysis is not as in-depth as it could be
Pricing
The competitive analysis tool is included in the Lite plan or above, which starts at $129 monthly.
4. SE Ranking

SE Ranking allows you to analyze a website and receive an overview dashboard with top-performing keywords, top-ranking pages, organic and paid traffic, current and historical keyword rankings.
Pros
- Entry-level allows an unlimited number of users
- Has a competitor content analysis and suggests creating content around specific keywords
Cons
- Some users says their data refresh rates is slow. You may not always have the most current data
- User interface of SE Ranking is complex, particularly for those less technically inclined
Pricing
The competitor analysis per project varies depending on the plan:
- $65 monthly: 5 competitors
- $119 monthly: 10 competitors
- $259 monthly: 20 competitors
5. Keywords Everywhere

Keywords Everywhere is a browser extension, making it easy to visualize the data on the SERP. Just like the others in this list, this tool’s competitor gap analysis allows you to analyze 5 of your competitors to see keywords that they’re ranking for, but you don’t.
Pros
- Shows you the location of your competitors’ keywords in their pages
- Customizable and straightforward interface
Cons
- Some users point out the credits may be used up quickly
- Very limited data compared to its competitors
Pricing
You can acquire credits that expire after one year. 1 credit equals 1 keyword usage:
- $18: 100,000 credits
- $80: 500,000 credits
- $150: 1,000,000 credits
- $280: 2,000,000 credits
- $760: 6,000,000 credits
- $1500: 15,000,000 credits
6. RankTracker

This tool has competitor tracking features, helping you keep an eye on how their competitors are ranking for specific keywords. The number of competitors you can track varies depending on your plan.
Pros
- Good reporting and data visualization tools
- You can see how separate web pages of the domain are ranked in Google and how they compete against each other
Cons
- Some say it can take a while to load the data
- May have a steeper learning curve due to more complex features
Pricing
- $24 monthly: 2 competitors tracking
- $59 monthly: 5 competitors tracking
- $109 monthly: 10 competitors tracking
- $209 monthly: 20 competitors tracking
Find Competitors Keywords and Outshine the Competition With Great Content
The real key to outranking your competition lies in creating exceptional content that truly serves your audience’s needs and building a strong backlink profile.
By following our 5-step process and utilizing the right tools, you’re equipped with the insights to harness the power of competitor keywords, it’s time to put your knowledge into action and climb those search rankings.
Kickstart your first step towards dominating the digital landscape with Search Atlas’ free trial!