Performing competitor keyword research is one of the best ways to boost your organic search optimization game. If you can figure out your competitor’s keywords, you can use that insight to guide your own SEO marketing strategy and potentially gain a competitive edge in the search results.
In this post, we will explore how to see your competitors’ keywords, know all that they are ranking for, the associated search volume and understand how to use that information effectively. Plus, you’ll also learn how to use AI to spy on your competitors.
What is Competitor Keyword Research?
When we talk about a competitor’s keywords, we’re typically referring to both the keywords that your competitor ranks well for in search results, as well as the keywords your top competitors are targeting but has failed to rank well for.
Both categories can inform your SEO keyword strategy. The first shows you where they’re winning. The second? Where you might sneak in and take the lead.
But before you dive into tools and data, here’s an important distinction: Direct Competitors vs. SERP Competitors.
Your direct competitors are the brands you lose customers to. You know them. You probably keep an eye on them already.
SERP competitors, on the other hand, are the sites that rank beside (or above) you in search results. They may not sell what you sell. But they’re still eating your traffic.
So yes, that blog about “10 DIY Plumbing Fixes” might be stealing clicks from your professional plumbing business. Welcome to search.
Additionally, not all keywords carry the same weight. Here’s how to think about them:
- Branded Keywords: These include the company’s name, products, or signature phrases. Think “Nike Air Max” or “HubSpot blog strategy.”
- Non-Branded Keywords: These are the broader terms that don’t mention the company directly, such as “running shoes” or “content marketing tips.” Often, these are more competitive and offer higher reach.
- Informational vs. Commercial Intent: Informational keywords attract people who want to learn something, for instance, “how to unclog a drain.” Commercial intent keywords target users ready to buy, like “best plumber near me” or “buy SEO software.”
- Gap or Missed Keywords: These are the golden nuggets. Keywords your competitors should rank for but don’t. Either they haven’t targeted them well, or the content just doesn’t hit the mark. Your chance to move in quietly and grab market share.
Think of competitor keyword research as a window into what’s working and what’s not in your niche. It’s not about copying. It’s about spotting openings others haven’t used well.
Benefits of Competitor Keyword Research
Ranking on Google is a race you didn’t sign up for, but you’re already running. Competitor keyword research gives you a map of the track. Without it, you’re just guessing which direction to sprint.
Why go through the effort? Because done right, this research shows you where competitors win and it shows you how they win. And more importantly, where they fumble. Here’s what you stand to gain:
Outranking Competitors in the SERPs
There’s no sugarcoating it. Beating someone in the search results feels good. But it’s more than bragging rights. If your competitor ranks for a high-value keyword, that means people are searching and clicking.
Use this insight to:
- Study their top-ranking pages.
- Build something better, clearer, and more useful.
- Take their spot. Politely, of course.
Discovering Hidden Long-Tail Gems
Not every win comes from head terms like “marketing” or “shoes.” Sometimes the real traffic sits in longer phrases like “best digital marketing tools for startups” or “waterproof trail running shoes under $100.”
These long-tail keywords:
- Face less competition.
- Attract high-intent searchers.
- Often lead to higher conversion rates.
And the best part? Most competitors overlook them.
Identifying Content Opportunities
Ever looked at a competitor’s blog and thought, “That’s it? That’s what’s ranking?” Happens more often than you’d think.
Keyword research helps you:
- Spot content gaps they haven’t filled.
- Find related questions their articles leave unanswered.
- Create content that fills those holes—and wins trust in the process.
Optimizing PPC Spend
Paid search gets pricey fast. But if you know which organic keywords are already working for your competitors, you can:
- Bid more strategically.
- Avoid wasted spend on irrelevant terms.
- Align paid and organic efforts around proven phrases.
It’s like using their homework, but rewriting it in your own words before the test.
Strengthening Topical Authority
If Google sees your site covering a subject thoroughly, it starts treating you like an expert. It’s an important part of how modern algorithms judge relevance.
Competitor keyword data helps you:
- Understand which subtopics matter most in your space.
- Build a content ecosystem, not just isolated posts.
- Earn trust over time, one well-placed article at a time.
Four Ways to Use Competitor Keyword Research:
Let’s walk through four practical, high-impact ways to put that research to work.
1. Outrank Your Competitor’s Top Keywords
Let’s start with the obvious one: beating them at their own game.
If a competitor ranks well for a keyword that matters to your business. Someone typed in a search. Google served them. And your competitor caught the click.
Your job? Catch the next one.
How to Do It:
- Find keywords with decent search volume and manageable difficulty.
- Review the top-ranking competitor content. Note the format. Skim the structure. Pay attention to visuals and tone.
- Build something better. Not just longer, but sharper. More helpful. Easier to skim.
- Answer related questions directly to aim for featured snippets. Short sentences help here. Bullet points too.
This isn’t about copycatting. It’s about delivering more value on the same search page.
2. Find Hidden Keyword Opportunities
Sometimes, your biggest wins come from keywords your competitors haven’t figured out yet.
These “missed” opportunities exist in the white space. They’re not flashy. They’re not always obvious. But they quietly pull in traffic from searchers with clear intent.
How to Do It:
- Use content gap tools to compare your site with 2–3 competitors.
- Filter for keywords they rank for that you don’t—but also scan for ones none of you have touched.
- Look for low-competition terms that still show steady monthly searches.
- Stick with topics that actually connect to your offer. Random traffic doesn’t pay the bills.
3. Capture Long-Tail Search Intent
Long-tail keywords can feel awkward. “Best organic dog food for puppies with allergies near me” isn’t exactly poetic, but sometimes, it’s exactly how people search.
These longer, more specific queries usually mean the person is closer to taking action. That makes them gold.
How to Do It:
- Pull these phrases from your competitors’ FAQs, blog comments, and product pages.
- Watch for clues like “best,” “vs,” “how to,” and “near me”. They suggest urgency or decision-making.
- Organize similar queries into groups. Each group can become a blog post, guide, or even a landing page.
You’re not just chasing volume here. You’re chasing intent. And that’s what drives conversions.
4. Analyze Why Competitors Beat You
Sometimes, the other guy wins. But instead of just wondering why, break it down.
Keyword rankings don’t exist in a vacuum. They reflect content quality, page structure, user experience, and dozens of subtle signals that search engines weigh.
How to Do It:
- Open your page and theirs side-by-side. Seriously, tab for tab.
- Look at headline clarity, subhead organization, load speed, internal links, and readability.
- Evaluate how well each page addresses the search intent. Do they go deeper? Are they easier to follow? Do they back things up with stats, visuals, or trust elements?
You don’t need to obsess over every detail, but you do need to know why they rank and you don’t.
Free & Manual Methods to Discover Competitor Keywords
Don’t feel like shelling out for SEO tools just yet? That’s fair. While premium platforms offer depth, there’s still plenty you can do with what’s already at your fingertips. Free tools, manual digging, and a little curiosity.
Here’s how to uncover competitor keyword opportunities without spending a dime.
Manual HTML Inspection
In your Internet browser, go to your competitor’s website and choose a page to look for keywords in. Then, right-click on the page to open the “page source”. A window should pop up displaying the HTML source code of the page. Look in the code for the keywords in the title tag, the meta description, the optional keywords tag, and any image title tags or alt tags. (Not all websites use the keywords tag, but it’s worth checking.)
Google Autocomplete & People Also Ask
Sometimes, Google hands you keyword ideas before you even hit enter.
How to do it:
- Start typing your competitor’s brand name or core offering into Google.
- Look at the autocomplete dropdown. Those suggestions reflect real searches.
- Scroll through the “People Also Ask” box for common questions.
- Don’t skip the “Related Searches” at the bottom either.
Each of these surfaces what users want to know about your competitor, their products, and the space you both share.
Google Search Operators
Want to peek inside your competitor’s site without actually going in? Search operators can help you do that. Below are some useful commands you can put into the search box.
Useful commands:
- site:competitor.com – Shows all indexed pages.
- intitle:keyword site:competitor.com – Finds pages with a keyword in the title.
- inurl:keyword site:competitor.com – Reveals URLs that include the keyword.
- “exact phrase” site:competitor.com – Tracks exact terms they use in content.
Take note of what Google surfaces. Titles, snippets, and even URLs reveal how your competitor is positioning their content.
Google Ads Keyword Planner
All you need is a free Google account to access the Google Keyword Planner Tool in the Google AdWords interface.
- Log into AdWords, navigate to the Keyword Planner, and locate the “Find new keywords” option.
- Then, select “Search for new keywords using a phrase, website or category”.
- Once you’ve opened the form, click on the text field under “Your landing page” and enter your competitor’s URL, and then click “Get ideas”.
- Google will now take a moment to crawl that URL and generate a list of keywords related to both the page and the website as a whole.
- When Google finishes and displays your results, click the “Keyword ideas” tab below the graph to see your list of competitor keywords.
Using Google Trends for brand/topic comparison
Trends helps you compare how interest shifts over time. It’s not keyword research in the traditional sense, but it gives you valuable signals.
What to try:
- Enter your competitor’s brand name and stack it against your own.
- Add related products or topics for context.
- Watch the graphs for seasonal peaks, regional hotspots, and rising search terms.
This tool reveals what’s gaining traction and whether you’re riding the same wave or missing it entirely.
Top SEO Tools for Competitor Keyword Research
You’ve done some manual digging. You’ve explored search operators and scanned page source code. Now it’s time to let some real tools do the heavy lifting.
These SEO platforms offer deeper visibility into your competitors’ keyword strategies. What they’re ranking for, how they’re doing it, and where the gaps might be. Whether you’re just getting started or refining an existing strategy, these tools can help you work smarter (and faster).
1 - Ubersuggest
Simple. Affordable. Surprisingly helpful. Ubersuggest gives you a snapshot of what’s driving traffic to your competitor’s site without overwhelming you with data.
Key Features:
- Enter any domain to see keyword rankings.
- Get estimates on traffic volume, backlinks, and top pages.
- Use keyword suggestions and content ideas to guide your own planning.
- Bonus: Its free tier makes it beginner-friendly.
If you’re just getting your feet wet, this one won’t scare you off.
2 - SpyFu
Think of SpyFu as your digital magnifying glass for both SEO and paid ads.
What It Does:
- Reveals both organic and paid keywords your competitor uses.
- Tracks historical ranking performance. Great for spotting long-term patterns.
- Shows shared keywords between your site and theirs.
- Highlights opportunities where they’re ranking but you’re not (yet).
It’s ideal if you want to see the full picture, not just where your competitors are now, but where they’ve been.
3 - Similarweb
While others zoom in on keywords, Similarweb zooms out to show you broader traffic behavior.
What You Can Learn:
- Which sources (search, social, direct, etc.) send traffic to your competitors.
- Which pages perform best on their site.
- Where that traffic comes from by country, device, or referrer.
- Rough audience demographics and browsing patterns.
If you’re curious about how people are finding your competitors and what they do afterward, this tool gives you a peek behind the curtain.
4 - Keyword Surfer (Chrome Extension)
Sometimes, you just want a quick look, without logging into a dashboard or exporting a CSV.
Why It’s Useful:
- View keyword volume directly inside Google Search results.
- See estimated traffic and content length of top-ranking pages.
- Check keyword density while reviewing competitor content.
It’s lightweight, fast, and great for spot checks during live research.
5 - Moz Keyword Explorer
Moz takes a slightly different approach, blending keyword data with practical prioritization.
Features to Explore:
- Enter a competitor’s domain or a specific keyword for insights.
- Get metrics like keyword difficulty, expected CTR, and a “priority score.”
- Compare your site’s keyword footprint against theirs.
It’s a great fit for content teams who want to plan smarter without drowning in metrics.
6 - SEMRush
SEMRush has a fabulous organic keyword tool which can show the ranking terms for just about any domain. It’s as simple as inputting your competitor’s website and looking at the list which SEMRush provides.
But on top of that, the SEMRush tracker also provides the URL which ranks for each term, which further allows you to understand what pieces of their content marketing are working especially well for your competition.
An example of all the useful keyword data which SEMRush provides, using the V9 site as an example. This same competitor research data can be gathered for any website or landing page.
7 - Ahrefs
Ahrefs offers one of the most complete keyword visibility tools on the market.
What Sets It Apart:
- Site Explorer shows every keyword a domain ranks for.
- Top Pages view helps you see what content actually drives clicks.
- Content Gap tool compares your site with multiple competitors at once.
- Drill down into historical rankings and backlink strength for context.
It’s a favorite among SEO pros for a reason: what you see is what ranks and why it ranks.
8 - SurferSEO
If content optimization is your focus, Surfer deserves your attention.
How It Helps:
- Analyzes competitor pages for structure, length, and keyword usage.
- Uses NLP to surface semantically related terms that top pages include.
- Offers a content editor that helps you mirror high-performing formats.
Want to write a better blog post than your competitor? Surfer shows you the bones of theirs.
9 - BuzzSumo
BuzzSumo adds a very cool twist to the competitive keyword process, by looking at the thing from a social and sharing aspect. In so doing, it has a way of ‘reversing’ the competitive keyword research process. Here’s how it works:
Instead of thinking about your competitors’ keywords first, with BuzzSumo, you can start with known keywords that matter to you to see who also ranks for those terms. BuzzSumo will show you some of the most shared, liked, and socially distributed content for any given keyword.
For example, in this case, we can see all of the most socially shared content for the start keyword, “Denver SEO”.
Using AI to Spy on Your Competitors
Manually dissecting every competitor’s SEO strategy can feel like trying to read through a forest with a magnifying glass. AI helps you trade that magnifying glass for a drone.
Modern AI tools automate data collection, recognize patterns, surface missed opportunities, and give you insights that would take hours (maybe days) to spot manually.
Here’s how you can use AI to analyze your competitors more efficiently and with far more depth.
Generative AI for Competitor Content Analysis
Sometimes, the simplest approach works best. AI writing tools like ChatGPT or Claude can act as lightweight SEO consultants. But you need to feed them the right inputs.
How to use it:
- Gather a few top-ranking URLs from your competitors.
- Ask the AI to analyze:
- Target keywords and related terms.
- Heading structure and layout.
- Use of internal links.
- Whether the content feels informational, transactional, or somewhere in between.
- Weak spots: shallow sections, outdated stats, or unclear value propositions.
The result? A fast, readable breakdown of how they structured the piece and how you can do it better.
AI-Powered Content Auditors
Platforms like SurferSEO, Clearscope, and MarketMuse take things a step further. These tools measure and compare.
What they help you see:
- Keyword placement and density across the page.
- Semantic gaps (terms your competitors use that you’ve skipped).
- Content structure, reading level, and formatting decisions.
What to do with it:
- Drop in a competitor URL.
- Let the tool assess its optimization strength.
- Use the output as a guide to refine your own content.
You’re not trying to mimic here. You’re looking for blind spots they missed.
AI-Based Keyword Clustering and Gap Discovery
Keyword research gives you the data. Clustering tools give you the strategy.
Tools like KeywordInsights and LowFruits take raw keyword exports from platforms like Ahrefs or SEMrush and group them by topic and intent.
Why it matters:
- You don’t just get a giant list—you get context.
- Clusters show you themes your competitors touched lightly (or skipped altogether).
- You can prioritize long-tail keywords with clear intent and little competition.
Here’s how it works:
- Export your keyword data.
- Run it through the clustering tool or prompt an AI model to group it by topic.
- Look for underserved areas where your voice could actually stand out.
How to Take Advantage of Competitor Keyword Research
Ok, let’s say that you have looked at your competitor’s site, used a cool keyword research tool, explored what’s working socially, and now you have a great list of the keywords used by competitors. What’s next?
There are many different ways to use the competitive analysis and Google search intel that you’ve gathered. To start to put it to work, a few good next steps could include:
- Use the terms for competitive benchmarking purposes and to see how you stand up. This can be especially useful over time to see how you’re growing against the competition. Don’t forget to also check out backlink data for your organic competitors.
- Look for gaps in your own content and keyword portfolio. This can also help with your social media strategy.
- Let your competitors’ keywords inspire you to target new terms and develop appropriate content for those. This is probably the single best thing you can be doing for your website.
- Review the terms to gain insights into the types of things your audience really cares about online for your marketing campaigns.
- Find new competitors you may have not considered. It’s crucial to understand everyone ranking against you in the search engine results pages (SERPS).
What to Do With the Data: Turning Research into Action
So, you’ve gathered the data. You’ve studied keywords, analyzed your competitors’ strengths, and spotted more gaps than a poorly edited article.
Now comes the part that actually moves the needle: what you do with all of it.
Create Content That Fills the Gaps
Those keywords your competitors missed? They’re waiting for you.
- Write blog posts that address overlooked questions.
- Build landing pages around low-competition, high-relevance terms.
- Use content formats they skipped: videos, interactive guides, or tools.
Don’t overthink it. Start with what’s missing and show up where they didn’t.
Strengthen Internal Links Around Winning Themes
Got a few blog posts performing well? Great. Now build around them.
- Link newer posts to those core articles to pass authority.
- Use descriptive anchor text that supports your keyword strategy.
- Create content clusters to signal depth and relevance.
Think of internal linking like guiding visitors through your site, but with SEO benefits baked in.
Repurpose What’s Working—for You and Them
Your competitors’ top content doesn’t have to stay theirs alone.
- Identify high-ranking pages that get traffic but lack depth or clarity.
- Create better versions that go deeper, explain clearer, or solve faster.
- Add visuals, case studies, or first-hand insights they skipped.
Or repurpose your content across formats. A blog post can become a checklist. A guide can become a webinar. Reuse with purpose.
Use PPC to Test Organic Keyword Potential
Not sure if a keyword is worth chasing with long-form content?
- Run a small paid search campaign targeting that term.
- Monitor click-throughs, conversions, and engagement.
- Use the data to guide future content investments.
It’s a shortcut to validation before you commit time to ranking organically.
Build Topical Authority (One Topic at a Time)
Google favors experts, but you don’t have to shout to be heard.
- Cover a subject from multiple angles: how-tos, comparisons, FAQs, thought pieces.
- Link these pieces together into a logical hub structure.
- Stay consistent. Over time, your site signals depth in that topic. Authority and trust will follow.
And if you’re thinking about EEAT (Expertise, Experience, Authoritativeness, Trust), this is how you earn it.
What’s Next?
If this sounds like too much of a chore or you’re not sure what to do with your competitor site and organic traffic keywords, Volume Nine can help you make the most out of the competitive intelligence via content optimization or development. Contact us today with questions, or leave your thoughts below in the comment section. And if you have any other ways to perform SEO competitor keyword research, please share them!