Choosing the right keywords is essential for driving large amounts of targeted traffic to your website. Thus, using the wrong ones to rank your site is the same as flushing your ad budget down the drain.
Today, most advertisers understand the importance of proper keyword research. However, putting down a decent keyword list requires lots of time, money, and effort. And as a beginner in the niche, you may be short on these resources. So, what can you do?
A more efficient way of identifying the right keywords for your business is using your competition’s best keywords. Hence, all you have to do is ethically steal content from ‘the best ones’ in your niche.
The Importance of Your Competitors’ Keywords
Having well-established competitors may sometimes be a bit frightening. However, with the right approach, you can take advantage of their success. Most probably, they have invested a lot in their keyword strategy.
So, using your competitor’s keywords as well as back-link information can help you gain a competitive advantage in the industry. Fortunately enough, there is a way to do so. But, how exactly can you benefit from other companies in your space?
First of all, you should understand how your competitor performs in the search engines, what their capacities are, and in which areas they lack expertise. Then, you will be able to pass them by.
Next, you can discover new keywords that can assist you in ranking your content. More exactly, you may have overlooked these keywords in the past, but they can contribute to the ranking of your content.
Finally, you will be able to steal or use these keywords for your projects. You should not spend much time on your competition, but solely stay up to date with what they are trying to accomplish.
So, let’s see how you can search for or find your competitors’ keywords.
Find Your Competitors’ Keywords: Step-By-Step Guide
Of course, you can perform a manual search to find your competition’s keywords. However, nowadays, we have access to developed technology, diversified tools, and many online strategies. So, you can save lots of time and effort by using a keyword research tool to facilitate your process.
Once again, there are numerous techniques to do so but for this particular post, we will focus on using the Ahrefs tool to find the right keywords from other companies in your niche.
Below, you can find a step-by-step guide on using the Ahrefs tool.
Step 1 – Sign In
First things first, go to the Ahrefs.com tool.
Here, you have the option to sign up or start a 7-day trial, both of which are located in the top right corner. Once you fill in the required information, you will be able to start your search.
Step 2 – Enter Your Domain
To find your competitors, enter the URL of your site in the field labeled as ‘Domain or URL’ right below the menu on the Dashboard.
When you proceed, you will be taken to an analysis of your site. At this stage, you can review information related to your positioning, such as Backlinks, Traffic value, as well as Ahrefs rank for your website.
Step 3 – Find Your Competitors
To search for your competition’s keywords, select ‘Organic search’, which is positioned in line with ‘Backlink profile’ and ‘Paid search’. Here, you can find your organic traffic as well as keywords. What’s more, you can filter certain countries to further analyze your performance.
Next, scroll down to the section ‘Top 10 Competitors’ and skip the hassle of manually searching for them.
Step 4 – Analyze Your Competition
You can start with whichever website out of the ‘Top 10 Competitors’ you prefer. Click on the arrow positioned next to the competitor’s site. Then, choose ‘Organic keywords’ to get the keywords that the company is ranked for.
The competitor’s keywords are ranked according to Keyword Search Volume, Keyword Difficulty (KD), Cost per Click (CPC), and Traffic.
- The volume refers to the number of searches for the specific keyword in a given time
- KD is an estimation of the difficulty to rank on the first page of Google for the specific keyword, measured on a scale of 1-100, the latter being the hardest to rank for
- CPC refers to the estimated bid for the specific keyword in Google Adwords, expressed in US dollars
- The traffic value refers to the amount of organic search traffic your target website, subfolder or URL gets monthly
Usually, advertisers use Traffic for the analysis. This number shows how many of the total searches produced traffic on the site. However, it’s entirely up to you whether you will use ‘Volume’ or ‘Traffic’ to choose the keywords you are willing to steal from your competition.
Step 5 – Exceed Your Competition
At this stage, you have identified your competitors and the top keywords that bring traffic to their sites. However, you did nothing to improve your content or to rank higher in the niche.
The bottom line is that you have to provide something better than your competitors to exceed their performance. For example, you can use their keywords to generate traffic. But you must also provide superior content or advertise.
To do so, click on the ‘URL’ of one of your competitors on the Organic Keywords list. Then, you can analyze their content, such as the types of articles, to develop a further understanding of the company.
The best companies in the niche always perform a thorough analysis of everything they post. Due to their experience, they can identify what appeals to your particular target audience. And all you need to do is simply watch and learn.
For instance, if your competitor provides how-to-guides of approximately 2000 words, you should aim for nothing less. Try to exceed this quality by gathering more information on the same topic, and provide your readers with an article of at least 2300 words or more. Furthermore, you can add pictures, videos, or any other type of media that your competitor has overlooked.
Conclusion
As mentioned before, competitors’ keywords are of great importance for your business and the ranking of your site. To ‘steal’ keywords takes little time and effort and is a more efficient and quick way to bring traffic to your website.
It’s not enough to identify your competitors and their top keywords. You must also provide content of better quality in order to surpass their ranking. In other words, you should show your target audience why your website is better than your competitors, even though you use the same keywords for ranking.
Also Read: How Your Keyword Choice Affects Your Website’s Rank?