Your competitors in search are not always the businesses you think of as competitors. They are the sites that rank for the keywords you want. Studying which keywords bring them traffic is one of the fastest ways to find proven topics, spot gaps in your own content and understand what it takes to compete. This guide shows how to do it with free tools.
This guide is WriterFlowLab's editorial advice. Traffic and keyword figures in SEO tools are estimates from third-party data, not the competitor's real analytics. You can analyze any domain with our free competitor analyzer.
Step 1: Find your real search competitors
Start with the keywords you care about most. Run two or three of them through the SERP checker and note the domains that keep appearing. Those are your search competitors for that topic, even if they sell something different from you.
You can also enter your own domain (or a known competitor) into the competitor analyzer. Its organic competitors list shows other domains that rank for many of the same keywords, with the number of shared keywords.
Aim for a shortlist of three to five sites that are realistic comparisons: similar size, similar audience, similar topics. Comparing a small blog with a household-name publisher tells you little you can act on.
Step 2: See which keywords bring them traffic
Enter each competitor's domain into the competitor analyzer. You will see:
- Estimated organic traffic and the number of keywords the domain ranks for in the selected country.
- Top ranking keywords, with each keyword's position, search volume, estimated traffic and difficulty.
- Top pages, showing which URLs bring the most estimated organic traffic.
- Search intent of the top keywords listed.
Treat the numbers as directional. They are calculated from rankings and keyword search volumes in the provider's database, so they are useful for comparing sites and spotting patterns rather than as exact counts.
Step 3: Look for patterns in their top pages
The top pages list often says more than the keyword list. Ask:
- Which topics or formats bring them the most traffic: guides, templates, tools, comparisons?
- Are their best pages recent, or old pages that have kept ranking?
- Do several top pages target a theme you have not covered at all?
Step 4: Find keyword gaps
A keyword gap is a keyword your competitors rank for that you do not. To find them without a paid tool:
- Note down the top keywords for each competitor.
- Compare them with the keywords your own pages rank for. Google Search Console's Performance report shows the queries your site already appears for.
- Highlight keywords that appear for two or more competitors but not for you. Those are strong signals of topics your audience searches for.
Step 5: Qualify each opportunity
Not every gap is worth chasing. For each candidate keyword:
- Relevance: does it fit your audience and what you offer?
- Difficulty: check it with the keyword difficulty checker. Our guide to keyword difficulty explains how to read the score.
- Intent and format: check the live results with the SERP checker to see what kind of page you would need.
- Your angle: can you make something genuinely better or different, not just a rewrite of the competitor's page?
Step 6: Understand why they rank
When a competitor ranks for something you want, look at what supports that page. Check how many sites link to it with the backlink checker, and read the page itself: depth, structure, examples, freshness. Our guide to referring domains and backlinks explains the link metrics.
Step 7: Turn findings into a content plan
Group the opportunities into topics, decide which existing pages to improve and which new pages to create, and prioritise the ones that are relevant, achievable and match a clear intent. Revisit the analysis every few months, because rankings and competitors change.
What to avoid
- Copying competitors. Use their keywords as research, not their content. Publishing near-copies rarely helps and adds little for readers.
- Reading estimates as facts. Estimated traffic is not a competitor's real visitor count.
- Chasing every keyword. Stay focused on topics your audience actually needs.
Next steps
Pick one competitor, run their domain through the competitor analyzer, and list five keywords they rank for that you do not cover yet. Then research each with the keyword research tool.
Sources
- Search Console Help: Performance report (Search results).
- DataForSEO API documentation: Ranked Keywords and Competitors Domain.