There are two basic approaches to finding competitors’ keywords:
- Manual research
- Keyword tool
Manual research
There are some limited ways how to find what keywords your competitor ranks for.
If the content is focused on a specific keyword, the best practice is to use this keyword in the:
- Heading
- First paragraph
- Title
- Description
Select a specific post or page by your competitor and check the heading and the first paragraph.
What do you feel is the keyword that would describe the article the best? If it is obvious, you’ve probably found the target keyword.
You can check the source code of the page too (right click – “View page source”) to lok at the title and description.
You’ll see something like this:
Search for “title” and “description” to see the title tag and meta description of the page.
In the example, it is quite clear that the website is trying to rank for “best coffee grinder”.
The Google search results page confirms this:
Congratulations!
You’ve found the keyword your competitor rank for in the first SERP!
Rinse and repeat.
Keyword tool
Now let’s take a look at the less complicated way.
There are many keyword research tools that also include the competitor-based keyword research feature that allows you to enter the domain or a specific URL of your competitor and see what he rank for.
I recommend KWFinder, especially because it is very easy-to-use and offers great value for money.
All you need to do is to enter your competitor’s domain or URL.
As a result, you’ll see what they rank for to get some inspiration for your own content:
I’ll conclude with my favorite definition of keyword research by Copyblogger:
At the deepest level, keyword optimization has nothing to do with SEO. It’s about knowing your audience so well that you learn which words will grab their attention, earn their trust, and persuade them to buy your products or services in the future.
Competitor keyword research can definitely help you in achieving this.
I hope my answer helped. Good luck!
