How To Do Competitive Keyword Research in Under 5 Minutes

Understanding your competitors’ keyword strategies is an important step in building a comprehensive SEO strategy

Competitive keyword research is the process of examining which keywords your competitors are ranking for and targeting in their content. When armed with this information, you’ll unearth a host of valuable, traffic-driving keywords that you might have been missing.

You’ll also identify untapped opportunities, see where your competitors are outperforming you, understand where to focus your SEO efforts and spark new content ideas to drive better results. What’s not to love?

Even better, we’ve got a way to do this all in the blink of an eye, thanks to Similarweb.

Here’s our four-step flow for how to do a competitor keyword analysis in under five minutes:

1. Identify your search competitors

You probably already know who your business competitors are. But, do you know who your search competitors are? While there is always crossover, companies you compete with from a business perspective aren’t always the ones you come head-to-head within the SERPs.

You don’t always grapple with every competitor for the same keywords or organic search traffic. To make things more complicated, sometimes even your search competitors can change depending on location and focus.

So to find your true search competitor you need a helping hand. Here’s how Similarweb can help.

Let’s say you are the song lyrics company, Genius. Our Organic Competitors tool uses actual traffic data (not just Google ranking) to understand who your true search competitors are. To find them, simply:

• Navigate to the Website Analysis Tool
• Enter a website
• Click “Organic Competitors” in the navigation under the ‘Search’ section

From this view, we can see that AZLyrics has the highest Search Overlap Score with Genius, which is a 0-100 metric calculated based on both the number of overlapping keywords and how closely they rank.

You can adjust the time period and country filters to see how it changes the results. Or, you can try entering a competitor’s website instead of your own. Also, the “Rising Competitors” and “New Competitors” filters often reveal key insights on companies you need to keep an eye on.

Choose two to four search competitors to focus on for now, and move to the next step.

2. Search for related Keyword Phrases

Start strong with Similarweb’s Keyword Phrases feature. Here, you can enter in one or more of your search competitors to see an overview of their high-traffic keyword phrases.

It’s a great way to find topics of interest that you may be missing, and from there discover a wealth of related keywords to target for your list.

There’s also the option to refine the keyword length by selecting between 1-3 words. Choose the ‘3 word’ option to see your competitors’ most valuable long-tail keywords. Long tail keywords, while having lower search volume, can be easier to rank for and could potentially drive more targeted organic traffic to your website.

Click on the drop-down to the left of each keyword or ‘topic’ to check the traffic share across the competitors. When you’ve decided which to investigate further, click directly on each keyword/topic of interest.

This will take you to the ‘Keywords’ page where you will see a full list of related keywords for you to analyze in more detail. Here, the keyword topic ‘lyrics’ has been selected as an example:

3. Discover your keyword opportunities vs. a search competitor

Find even more missed opportunities by entering your search competitors into Similarweb’s Keyword Gap Tool (Keyword Opportunities > Keyword Gap). This will generate a Venn diagram to illustrate where you overlap with your competitors.

Click on “Opportunities” to see only the keywords which competitors are getting traffic from, but Genius is not currently:

Use the table at the bottom to select high-traffic keywords of interest, such as “to the window and the wall,” which is driving 40.85K monthly visits to AZ Lyrics.

Then click “Create New List” to add these keywords to a Keyword List so you can analyze and monitor them further. You can also change the time period and country filters again to discover even more opportunities.

4. Uncover top keywords for your competitors’ high-ranking pages

We also recommend taking a page-level approach to understand your competitors’ top keywords. For this, we’ll use our Organic Pages Tool (Organic Website Analysis > Organic Pages).

Simply pick a competitor, and get the full list of pages that they receive website traffic from over the given time period. Let’s look at AZ Lyrics in August 2023, filtering on “Newly discovered” – pages that started bringing them traffic during the last month:

You’ll notice that the lyrics for Miley Cyrus’ recent hit ‘Used to be Young’ and new country anthem, ‘Rich Men North of Richmond’ are driving a lot of traffic to AZ Lyrics in the last month.

When comparing with Genius’ top organic pages, we can see the Genius content team has those songs covered, but you’ll spot a few that they haven’t jumped on to yet, like Guns N’ Roses’ “Perhaps” (number six on the list by traffic) and Tom MacDonald’s “Black and White” (number seven).

Click the down arrow on ‘All Keywords’ next to each URL to see the full list of keywords driving traffic to a particular page. Then, if relevant, select which keywords to add to a keyword list:

Once you’ve completed these three steps, you will have lots of juicy new keywords saved to your keyword list. Open up your full Keyword List and start comparing key metrics:

Then, click on each keyword for a full analysis to qualify them further:

And you’re done!

You’ve now created a keyword list ripe with opportunity, all derived from your competitors’ biggest traffic wins.

Thanks to Similarweb, competitive keyword research has never been so seamless or speedy ⏰. You’ve now got the tools you need to outpace the competition, drive better results and win a bigger share of traffic in just a few minutes.

FAQs

What is competitive keyword research?

Competitive keyword research is the process of analyzing and identifying the keywords your competitors are targeting and ranking for in their content to inform your own SEO strategy.

Should I do competitive keyword research?

Conducting competitive keyword research is crucial as it helps in identifying untapped keyword opportunities, refining SEO strategies, and revealing areas where competitors are outperforming you, helping you optimize for better results in search results.

How do I find who my search competitors are?

You can find your search competitors by using tools like Similarweb’s which provides insights based on actual traffic data, revealing both organic and paid competitors in your niche or market.

How do I find what keywords my competitors are using?

Use Similarweb to discover keyword opportunities with the Keyword Gap Tool, analyze top keywords on competitors’ high-ranking pages with the Organic Pages Tool, and explore targeted long-tail keyword phrases.

by Limor Barenholtz

Director of SEO at Similarweb

Limor brings 20 years of SEO expertise, focusing on Technical SEO, JavaScript rendering, and mobile optimization. She thrives on solving complex problems and creating scalable strategies.