One of the Seo strategies that many sites use is competitor keyword analysis. Many SEO gurus agree that it helps them uncover low-competition keywords they can easily rank for. It’s also one of the easiest and fastest ways of uncovering high-intent keywords that can easily convert.
But with so many sites and keywords to analyze, it can be hard to determine where to start on competitor keyword analysis. Fortunately, this article will provide easy tips on effective competitor keyword analysis.
What is Competitor Keyword Analysis?
Competitor keyword analysis involves analyzing other sites in your niche to determine the keywords that your competitors are ranking for. After this, you can reverse engineer what they are doing to outrank them. You can do competitor analysis for PPC and organic ranking too.
How Competitor Keyword Analysis Can Improve Your Seo
Studies indicate that only 0.63% of search engine users click on the second page of Google. This means that ranking on the first page of Google is important to the success of your website. You will need to choose the right keywords to rank better.
You might think it’s OK to find and target your own keywords. While nothing is wrong with that, you will shoot in the dark. You can even go through a few hit-and-miss before getting keywords you can rank for.
Competitor keyword analysis can help you understand your competitors’ keywords and how they use them. You can then create content that can compete with them and outrank them.
How to do an Effective Competitor Analysis
There are several tips to do competitor analysis. You can use them to find high-volume and high-intent keywords that your competitors are ranking for. These include:
Understand Your Customer’s Search Intent
A common mistake that people make in SEO is to go after high-volume keywords. One of the downsides of this strategy is that it doesn’t translate into higher conversion.
For instance, ranking for a keyword like Seo strategies might bring visitors to your site, but it may not translate into conversion. People searching for such a phrase are only trying to find the seo strategies and aren’t looking to hire an SEO guru.
This is why it helps to determine what your customers are searching for. To understand this, you need to determine:
- The questions they asked
- Their goals
- Problems they are struggling with
When you understand this, it can help you find keywords that will help to improve your conversion.
Determine Your Competitors
When you understand what your potential customers search for on Google, the next step is understanding your top competitors. There are hundreds or thousands of businesses that provide services similar to yours. But since you don’t have the time to look at all of them, you can look at the top 3 options.
How do you determine your top 3 competitors? These are the sites that:
- Target the same customers
- Sell the same products or services
- Are ranking well on SERPs
Use A Keyword Research Tool
There is no easy way of analyzing your competition without the best keyword research tools. But with so many tools out there, your choice of a competition keyword analysis tool will determine the success of your strategy. Remember that these tools aren’t created equal, and some are more effective than others.
I recommend using the most reputable tools, such as Ahref and Semrush, as their data is more accurate. Google Search Console and Google Analytics can provide insights on the keywords you are doing well but will not provide much data on your competition.
Analyse Your Competitor’s Url
In the second step, you choose three sites you consider your top competitors. You will now need to use your chosen tool to analyze your competition. Doing that is easy as you only need to enter the URL of the three sites you picked and their URL in the tool. If using Ahref, click on Site Explorer before entering the URL. In a few seconds, the tool will provide you with details such as:
- Organic keywords your competitor is ranking for
- Number of backlinks on the site
- Ranking
You can also use the content gap feature on AHREF to compare the competitors to your site.
Determine Your Golden Keywords
No matter your choice of tool, your goal should be to determine the keywords your competitors are ranking for. You should ensure that you choose keywords to create better content than your competitors to outrank them.
The keywords should also have a considerable search volume to make them worth going for. If your goal is to sell, you should go for keywords in the last stage of the sales funnel. Once you find keywords worth going after, you can organize them in a Google sheet. You can use different metrics to organize them, such as:
- Search volumes
- Competition
- Search intent
- Stage of the sales funnel, etc
Take time to check the keywords on Google, as some keywords may look good but will not outrank brand names. Avoid just checking the keyword difficulty, as it only considers the number of links to a particular keyword.
You may also want to look at the top results’ domain authority and domain rating. If you find that the site ranking the keyword has a low DR, like 20, this can indicate that the keyword is easy to rank for.
Final Thoughts
Competitor keyword analysis can help you easily find the top keywords in your niche. Remember that the quality of the keyword matters, as getting the right traffic is better than getting a lot of traffic.
By following the above guidelines, you can beat your competitors in their own game and provide Google with the answers they are searching for. You will also provide Google with the answer they are searching for, improving your chances of ranking highly on the search engines.
