When it comes to SEO and driving traffic to your website, finding the right keywords to target is crucial. But doing your keyword research from scratch can be daunting and time-consuming. A shortcut is to analyze your competitors' websites to uncover keywords and opportunities they may be missing.
Studying how your rivals optimize their content and site for keywords gives you an SEO blueprint to model. You can then target similar search terms in your content to siphon away searches and traffic.
In this article, I'll walk through 13 different methods to thoroughly research keywords on any website. Whether it's analyzing source code, leveraging tools, or good old manual searches - these tactics will uncover the terms your competitors rank for. You can then use these proven keywords to optimize your pages and content like an SEO pro.
The meta description and keyword tags on a webpage contain useful clues about the main keywords targeted on that page.
To view the meta tags on a website:
This method gives you a quick glimpse of the keywords the website is trying to rank for. The site owner manually specifies these keywords, so they indicate what terms are important for that page.
Google's free Keyword Planner tool lets you see keyword statistics like average monthly searches.
To use it to find competitors' keywords:
This reveals valuable data like high-traffic keywords you can also target in your content to siphon away searches from competitors.
A website's HTML source code often contains keywords hidden in the content that aren't visible on the live page. Searching through the source code can uncover the terms and phrases the site is optimizing for.
To view a website's source code:
Digging through the source code exposes specific keyword-targeting choices made by the site owner. This info isn't available otherwise.
Specialized keyword research tools like SEMrush, Ahrefs, SEOToolsPark, and Moz Keyword Explorer can analyze a website's content and identify keywords driving traffic to it.
To use them:
These powerful tools provide rich keyword data not available through other free methods. They give you full visibility into your competitor's SEO strategy.
You can search for specific keywords directly on a webpage using Ctrl+F find search.
To search keywords on a page:
This simple trick lets you instantly see how many times important keywords appear on a page. More mentions often indicate what terms the site is targeting.
A sitemap lists all the pages on a website and is a goldmine of keyword data. It contains keywords and phrases used across the entire site structure.
To leverage a site's sitemap:
Analyzing a competitor's sitemap uncovers the site-wide keywords and phrases they want to rank for in search engines.
Plugging a website URL into SEO software gives you complete keyword data in one dashboard. Tools like Semrush, Ahrefs, and Moz provide:
The detailed keyword analysis exposes both obvious and hidden keyword opportunities to target in your content.
Dig deeper by analyzing keyword density on important pages like the home page, product/service, about us, and blog.
This helps uncover specific keywords targeted on money pages. Tactics include:
Analyzing key pages separately provides more fine-grained intel into the terms targeted on high-value areas of the site.
Use browser developer tools to inspect a site's HTML code for keyword placement and density.
This reveals keywords directly embedded in page code, helping expose the full scope of the website's SEO strategy.
A website's internal links provide SEO signals by passing authority between pages. The anchor text contains keywords they want to be associated together.
To extract keywords from internal links:
Analyzing internal link anchor text reveals connected keywords the site wants you to associate together in your content.
The anchor text used in external links also contains relevant keywords. Site owners optimize this anchor text for SEO.
To gather keywords from outbound links:
The terms used in outbound link anchors indicate what concepts the site is trying to be associated with.
Google search operators like related: and info: reveal competitor keyword data right in Google itself.
Examples:
Google search operators provide quick easy access to view keywords and concepts connected to a website.
The anchor text used in backlinks pointing to a website provides insight into keywords for which the site ranks well.
Use tools like Ahrefs and Semrush to:
Leveraging competitor's backlink anchor text gives you proven keywords that already drive traffic for the site from Google.
A: Use the Ctrl + F keyboard shortcut to open the browser's find search box. You can quickly type in keywords to see how many times they appear on any page. This handy shortcut allows you to search keywords in under 60 seconds!
A: Type "site:yourcompetitor.com" into Google search. This displays related keywords and search terms that the website ranks for. You can now target these same keywords in your SEO and content!
A: Google's free Keyword Planner allows you to view keywords driving traffic to a competitor's site. Just enter their URL to see monthly searches, competition data, and other useful keyword intelligence.
A: SEO tools like Ahrefs and SEMrush reveal the most common anchor text used in your competitor's backlinks. These are keywords they already rank well for. Target these terms in your content to steal their traffic!
A: Copy and paste any page content into a free text analysis tool like TextAnalyzer. It will quickly show keyword density and frequency to uncover secret optimization opportunities.
Searching for the right keywords is essential to increase your website's findability in search engines. Analyzing your competitor's website and content using the tactics outlined in this article will uncover valuable keyword opportunities to target in your own SEO and content strategy.
Focus on integrating keywords like "SEO", "keyword research", "backlinks", "keyword density" and other terms you discover during your analysis to boost your search rankings and siphon traffic away from competitors.
Mastering competitor keyword research will give you a proven set of high-value keywords to fuel your own content creation and SEO success.
