Post: How to Do Competitor Keyword Research [Interactive Guide]

How to Do Competitor Keyword Research [Interactive Guide]

Keyword research for competitors is the method of identifying and analyzing the terms your competition ranks for in search engine results.

Competitor Keyword Research

This is a crucial procedure that will help you discover a lot about what you need to do for your site to be ranked. Knowing the keywords that your organic rivals rank for can provide you insight into the industry overall, the strategies they employ to draw customers in, and any gaps within your website’s content.

It could be daunting. However, analyzing competitor keywords can be complicated and straightforward.

Make use of the interactive guides included within this post to make the most benefit from your research on competitors, even in the event that you’ve never conducted this before.

When Should You Do a Competitor Keyword Analysis?

This is a crucial procedure that will help you discover a lot about what you need to do for your site to be ranked. Knowing the keywords that your organic rivals rank for can provide you insight into the industry overall, the strategies they employ to draw customers in, and any gaps within your website’s content.

It could be daunting. However, analyzing competitor keywords can be complicated and straightforward.

Make use of the interactive guides included within this post to make the most benefit from your research on competitors, even in the event that you’ve never conducted this before.

Using Competitor Keywords in Your SEO Strategy

First, it’s a crucial aspect to consider whenever you create the next SEO strategy for your law firm. This is the case regardless of whether it’s the first marketing campaign you’ve ever run for your company or the launch of an innovative product or service.

Examining the rankings of your competitors will give you an insight into the trends in your particular industry. It will help you comprehend the competitive landscape, the relevant terms, and the potential opportunities.

Finding Content Gaps

Keyword analysis of competitors is functional when you need to improve or expand your content. Conducting a competitor analysis will show you the terms they’re using as well as how they structure their content around these terms.

Adapting Old Content to New Algorithms

Additionally, it’s beneficial in the event that your organic traffic stagnates or falls.

A decrease in organic traffic can be an indication that the intent of search has changed for specific keywords you previously ranked for. A study of competitive keywords could provide new insights into the strategies used by competitors in order to adjust to algorithm change.

Whatever your reason for conducting keyword research on competitors, The process is always similar. The steps listed in the following sections will guide you on how to carry out the task yourself.

Find Your Competitors

It might sound like a simple concept, but the primary stage of SEO competitive analysis is to determine your business’s online competitors.

This may be more challenging than it appears.

You may think of the business nearby as your primary rival since you compete with them for the same customers. But, they might not always be the most appropriate source for your research on keywords.

Think Local, Plan Global

If your local rival has yet to invest in SEO or SEO, they could not be your competition on Google.

If you’re a company that makes software, it’s likely to make sense. Your brand is international and serves a global crowd of users. However, many companies that have regional or local elements, such as law firms, fail to recognize this crucial aspect.

The most relevant competitors you can find on Google typically go beyond your area of residence.

If you conduct a study of competitors, look for websites that focus on terms that have a national appeal rather than concentrating on local terms. They are often ranked higher for keywords with more excellent value than ones that solely focus on local phrases. They can also be highly ranked even after Google localizes its search results.

An easy way to identify competitors’ keywords is by using advanced search engines on Google.

“related:” or the “related:” advanced search operator displays other websites that Google believes are similar to yours. It’s similar to asking Google to locate pages that are in the same category as the one you’ve chosen.

The following walkthrough will teach you how to perform this kind of analysis.

This advanced search is a great option, to begin with when you have a large website.

Google might not be able to assess your site with other sites, especially in the event that your site is small or brand new. The search engine might lack sufficient information about the site’s size to offer a list of pages that are related to it.

How to Narrow Down Your Keyword Competitors

You can do the “related:” search for the top companies in your field to discover their competitors. The problem is the competitors of your competitors may not be identical to your own. This could cause your keyword research to be less accurate at the conclusion of your research.

The most reliable method to identify your competition is to use an instrument that compares the terms you are ranked for with websites that have similar keywords.

Using Ahrefs Site Explorer for Competitive Keyword Research

There are many search engine optimization and research software that bring up competitors in this method. We suggest using Ahrefs to accomplish this. It’s an industry-standard tool for SEOs and also has other helpful tools that are handy in different areas of research on keywords.

If you are already registered with an Ahrefs account, log in and sign up for the Site Explorer login for your domain. Follow the steps below.

The report on organic competitors will provide you with a list of the websites that are most closely related to yours through keywords that overlap.

But, some important insights might be lacking.

For instance, Ahrefs only showed other law firm websites as rivals for forthepeople.com. Websites of law firms aren’t the only kind of websites that are ranked for legal keywords. It’s worthwhile to check out these sites, too.

Use High-Level Search Terms

You can determine the strength of your competition by studying which domains receive the highest visitors from specific search terms.

Begin by coming up with some broad keywords for your field. For instance, an attorney who wishes to win more accident cases could employ the following words to figure out which competitors receive the highest number of site users from their sites:

  • car accident lawyer
  • car accident lawyers
  • car accident attorney
  • car accident attorneys
  • car accident settlement

You can then enter your top-level keywords into Ahrefs Keywords Explorer. This guide will show you how you can make use of Ahrefs to determine which sites have the highest traffic for the terms you choose to use.

You can build a comprehensive list of your competitors employing these strategies.

A lawyer, for instance, might choose one from the law company sites discovered in the organic competitors report. This includes Nolo.com as part of the share report by keyword report.

Once you’ve got the list of your competitors, you’re ready to start discovering the keywords they rank for.

Run a Content Gap Report

Searching for keywords from your competitors is much simpler than determining which websites you should investigate.

The most effective way to discover keywords used by competitors and then compare them to your website is to conduct a gap analysis of your content. Ahrefs comes with an integrated Keyword gap report that will assist you in finding the information you need. Check out the video below to begin.

With this report, you’ll be able to identify instances where the majority of your competitors are ranked on a particular topic, yet your site is unable to be discovered. This is clear evidence that your website should likely cover the same subject.

Once you have your exported and filtered list of keywords, it is time to begin evaluating every keyword to determine whether it’s appropriate as a subject for your website.

Assess the Keywords You Discovered

Only some of the keywords your competitors rank for will be beneficial to you.

Before you can begin creating content based on any keywords, it is necessary to evaluate the effectiveness of each keyword. There are three essential aspects for assessing each keyword’s potential:

  • Relevance and value to business: Does the keyword have relevance to your site and business?
  • Your potential to rank for the term: Do the keyword indicators (such as the volume of searches, traffic potential keywords’ difficulty, and backlinks) suggest that your website is able to rank for the phrase?
  • The intention of the search for the subject is what people are looking for when they search for the subject. Are you able to create a piece of content that fulfils the purpose?

Valuable keywords will fulfil all these criteria. You can evaluate any potential keyword opportunities from your report on content gaps that you believe are worth pursuing using this lens. Ahrefs Keywords Explorer tool can aid you in determining the relevant metrics for your targeted keyword. It can also assist you in identifying the intent behind the search and whether the phrase is of business significance.

Start by visiting Ahrefs Keywords Explorer and then enter your keyword. This walkthrough will help you evaluate the keyword.

Another aspect to be considered when evaluating keywords is their similarity. Google group-related keywords in topic clusters. Two keywords that appear different from afar may actually be part of the same.

This might seem like a minor thing; however, ignoring it could impact the performance of your site.

Suppose you create two blog posts that target two keywords that form part of the same cluster. In that case, you can result in a cannibalization concern if Google’s algorithm is able to see two different websites that discuss the same topic but are unable to decide which to rank; in the majority of cases, the two pages won’t be able to get the first-page ranking.

If you come across two keywords that could be related, You should look into their similarities prior to creating a new webpage.

You can test the similarity by entering both words into Google using separate tabs. You can then look at the results of search engine webpages (SERPs) to determine whether the results are identical. This can be extremely tedious.

You can instead use a SERP Similarity function within Ahrefs by following the steps below.

Once you’ve confirmed that two relevant keywords are related to different subjects, you’re ready to begin developing a fresh article.

Running Page-Level Competitor Gaps

Keyword research for competitors is more comprehensive than just generating new pages. It can also be helpful in improving the content of your website.

As an example, suppose that you’re a personal injury attorney with a webpage on typical compensation for injury claims. The page was created some time ago; however, it hasn’t taken off. It is currently at the lower end in the organic results.

It is possible to use the gap report of competitors to find out if your website could be missing something that top-ranked competitors could have done.

In the beginning, you must identify the top competitors for the term you want to target.

Note down the URLs of the pages of your competitors and also your site’s URL. After you’ve completed this, follow the steps to run your page gap report.

The gap information for competitor keywords can assist you in identifying any gaps on this particular page. Refreshing your site to fill in those gaps can boost your ranking on search engines.

PPC Keyword Research

Keyword research is the basis of your PPC-based marketing campaigns. A clear understanding of the words your potential clients are entering into the search box could mean the difference between your advertisement attracting interest or fading into the digital black hole.

Finding the most lucrative keywords in Ahrefs is achievable using these steps:

  1. Begin by selecting the “Site Explorer’ option from the Ahrefs dashboard.
  2. Enter your website’s URL or, if you want to conduct a competitor analysis, enter a URL from a rival website.
  3. Once the results are loaded, go to the “PPC ads report’ on the left-hand side menu.
  4. This report lists all of the top keywords paid for that the website is bidding on.
  5. Then, select “Paid keywords” from the menu dropdown.
  6. From this page, you can find a comprehensive listing of every keyword that the website bids on.
  7. Find the keywords.
  8. Keyword information can be organized according to the number of clicks, traffic (Cost per Click), volume, CPC (Cost per Click), and KD (Keyword Difficulty). It is expected that they will be sorted according to traffic in order to determine the most lucrative keywords and generate the highest amount of traffic.
  9. Examine the measurements.
  10. Examine the CPC on each key phrase as well as the amount of traffic it gets to determine the efficiency of the keyword.

Incorporating Keyword Research Into Your Google Ads Campaigns

Once you have your list of keywords prepared and organized, start creating an effective Google Ads campaign. Create your ad groups based on the keywords you have identified. Make sure the content in your ads is pertinent to the keywords and the type of information users are searching for.

Incorporating Keyword Research Into Your Google Ads Campaigns

Analyzing competitor keywords is a crucial element of any research procedure. It helps you to understand the strategies of your competitors to connect with your ideal customers. It’s an excellent instrument for creating new content as well as making changes to existing pages.

However, it’s not the silver solution to SEO achievement.

Being aware of the strategies used by your competition is only the beginning of an extensive search engine optimization checklist. You must know how to write content that is suited to your visitors’ demands. Also, you must know how to maintain a well-optimized website.

If you require help achieving this, think about reaching out to one of the SEO agencies.

With Casewise Partners, we help top attorneys gain access to their market by utilizing SEO. We understand what it takes to assist your law firm in not only matching the competition but surpassing them. Contact us now to discuss what we can do to take your firm’s legal practice to the next step.

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