Guide · Keyword Research
Competitor Keyword Research: How to Find — and Win — the Keywords Your Rivals Rank For
Competitor keyword research is the fastest way to build a keyword list that actually brings customers. Instead of guessing what people might type into Google, you look at what your competitors already rank for — and you already know those searches attract buyers. You can do the whole process by hand with free tools, or let an AI agent like Votrix AI run it for you automatically. This guide walks through both, step by step.
It works because your competitors have already done the hard part. They spent time and money figuring out which searches bring in customers. Every keyword they rank for is a proven demand signal. The #1 result on Google gets about 27.6% of all clicks, and results on page one together capture the overwhelming majority (Backlinko, 2022). If you take a keyword your rival currently owns, you are not testing demand — you are taking their traffic.
Definition
What Is Competitor Keyword Research?
Competitor keyword research means finding the keywords that websites competing with you rank for in Google, then using those keywords to plan your own content. It is the same as normal keyword research, except you start from a competitor's domain instead of a blank page.
People search three main things around this topic:
competitive keyword research
— usually someone learning the method.
competitor keyword research
— usually someone looking for a tool or service to do it.
keyword research competitor analysis
— usually someone comparing how tools handle competitor data.
The Method
Why Start With Competitors Instead of a Blank Page
Starting from your competitors' keywords saves time and lowers risk in three ways.
You skip the guessing.
A keyword with high search volume is not automatically good. If nobody in your market ranks for it, the volume may be fake, too broad, or made of people who will never buy. If three competitors all rank for it, real customers are searching it.
You can see the difficulty before you invest.
When you pull a competitor's keywords, most tools also show how hard each keyword is to rank for and how strong the competitor's website is. That tells you which keywords to fight for now and which to park for later.
You find content gaps, not just keywords.
Looking at a rival's full keyword list shows you the questions they answer badly — thin pages, outdated guides, topics they cover in one paragraph. Those weak spots are often the easiest wins.
Do customers buy from it?
Step 1
Find Your Real Competitors
Your real SEO competitors are the websites that rank for the searches your customers use — not necessarily the businesses you think of as rivals.
A local plumbing company's biggest SEO competitor might be a national directory like 
Angi, not the shop across town. An online course seller may be competing with YouTube channels and free blogs for the same searches.
How to find them:
List 5–10 searches your customers would type before buying from you.
Google each one and write down which websites appear on page one again and again.
Ignore huge sites that only touch your topic in passing (Wikipedia, Reddit, major news). Focus on sites that sell something similar to you or answer the same questions for the same audience.
A quick way to check: paste your own domain into a tool like 
Semrush or 
Ahrefs and look at the "organic competitors" report. It lists sites that share the most keywords with you. Those shared keywords are exactly where you compete.
Step 2
Pull the Keywords They Rank For
Once you have 3–5 true competitors, get their keyword lists. There are two routes: free and paid.
Route A
The free route (Google only)
- Google autocomplete and "People also ask": type your main topic into Google and note the suggestions. These reflect real searches.
- "Related searches" at the bottom of results pages gives more phrasings.
- Site search: search Google for
site:competitor.com/blogplus a topic word to see every article they published on it. - Google Keyword Planner (free with a Google Ads account): enter a competitor's landing page URL and it suggests keywords found on that page, with rough volume ranges.
Route B
The tool route (faster and more complete)
Tools like Semrush, Ahrefs, SpyFu and Ubersuggest let you enter a competitor's domain and get every keyword they rank for, with search volume, ranking position, and difficulty. SpyFu goes back up to 12 years of keyword and ad history for a domain (SpyFu, 2026). Most paid tools cost between $30 and $130+ per month. Ubersuggest and Wordtracker have free tiers if you want to test before paying.
Semrush
Ahrefs
SpyFu
Ubersuggest
Wordtracker
| Free (manual) | Paid tools | |
|---|---|---|
| Cost | $0 — Google only | $30–$130+ per month (free tiers on Ubersuggest and Wordtracker) |
| Data depth | Suggestions, related searches, and rough volume ranges from Keyword Planner — no rankings or traffic estimates | Every keyword a competitor ranks for, with volume, position and difficulty — SpyFu adds up to 12 years of history |
| Time needed | Hours of manual searching per competitor | Minutes: enter the domain, export the list |
| Best for | A first look on a small budget, or checking a single page | Building the shortlist you actually act on, across 3–5 competitors |
Step 3
Pick the Keywords You Can Actually Win
A competitor ranking for 10,000 keywords does not mean you should chase all 10,000. Filter the list down to a shortlist worth writing about. Score every keyword on four things:
Relevance: Would someone searching this realistically buy from you, or at least join your audience? A bakery should skip "history of sourdough" even if it gets traffic.
Search volume: Enough people search it to matter, but don't over-weight volume — one good buyer-intent keyword can beat ten informational ones.
Difficulty: Tools score this 0–100. If your site is new, start with keywords scored under ~30 where competitors are weak or the pages ranking are forums and thin articles.
The competition itself: Open the search results. If page one is all Reddit threads, outdated posts from 2019, or pages that barely answer the question, you can beat them with a genuinely good page even if the difficulty score looks high.
Sort your shortlist into three buckets:
| Keyword | Monthly searches | Difficulty | Competitor weakness | Action |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| gluten free birthday cake | 1,900 | 24 | Thin page, last updated 2019 | Steal now |
| custom birthday cakes for kids | 480 | 31 | Gallery page, no ordering info | Build toward |
| history of sourdough | 2,400 | 65 | Strong page — and no buying intent | Ignore |
Example shortlist for a bakery: low-difficulty, buyer-intent keywords get written first; informational keywords with big brands ranking get parked or skipped.
Step 4
Study How They Rank, Not Just What They Rank For
Knowing a keyword exists is not enough. You need to know why your competitor beats you on it, because that tells you what to build.
Check three things for each target keyword:
Their content: How long is the page? Does it answer the question fully, with tables, examples, and images? Where is it thin?
Their backlinks: Backlinks — links from other websites to theirs — are a major ranking factor. Tools like Ahrefs and Semrush show which sites link to your competitor's page. If they have 40 backlinks and you have 2, you'll need to build links before you can outrank them on a competitive keyword.
Their technical health: Slow pages, missing titles, and broken links cost rankings. If a rival's page is slow and messy, a fast, clean page on your side has a real edge.
This is the step most people skip, and it is why so many "steal their keywords" projects stall: you publish a page for a keyword, and nothing moves, because the competitor has links you don't.
Automation
How to Automate the Whole Process With Votrix AI
Doing all four steps by hand is honest work: pulling keyword lists, checking difficulty, reading competitor pages, auditing backlinks, writing the content, then doing it again next month. For a founder or a one-person marketing team, that competes with actually running the business.
Votrix AI is a fully automatic SEO and GEO agent that does this work for you. Here is how it maps to the four steps above:
Keyword research and competitor analysis
Votrix finds what your customers search on Google and ask AI assistants, how hard each search is to win, and which competitors hold those positions — then picks the keywords worth going after first.
Backlink and authority analysis
It checks your backlinks, your site's authority, and the backlink gap between you and your competitors (data from DataForSEO), so you know exactly which keywords you can win today versus which need link building first.
Writing and publishing
It writes the articles and pages for the keywords you choose, in your voice, and publishes them. It also finds pages that rank poorly and rewrites them.
Link building
It finds sites worth getting links from and sends the outreach emails itself.
Tracking results
Connect Google Search Console and you see real rankings, clicks, and impressions. It also tracks whether ChatGPT, Claude, and Google AI Overviews mention your business — increasingly important, since an AI Overview on a results page can cut clicks to the first organic result by more than half (Ahrefs, 2025).
Technical checks
It verifies Google and AI crawlers can actually read your site before any of the above matters.
You can start free within the free quota and pay by usage beyond it — no monthly contract. See the full feature list at the AI SEO Manager product page.
DataForSEO
AI visibility tracked on:
ChatGPT
Claude
AI Overviews
Watch Out
Common Mistakes in Competitor Keyword Research
Chasing volume only.
A 10,000-search keyword with no buying intent sends visitors who leave in seconds. A 200-search keyword where searchers are ready to buy often pays better.
Ignoring your own strength.
If your site is 3 months old, competing head-on with an established rival for a hard keyword wastes months. Take the easier wins first and build authority as you go.
Copying instead of improving.
If you clone a competitor's page word-for-word in structure and substance, Google has no reason to rank you higher. Beat them on something specific: newer data, clearer steps, a free tool, real examples.
Doing it once.
Competitors publish new pages and drop old ones every month. Keyword research competitor analysis is not a one-time task — the sites that win re-check their rivals' keyword positions at least quarterly.
Stopping at Google.
Customers now ask ChatGPT and Claude for recommendations. If your competitor is named by AI assistants and you are not, you lose those buyers before they ever see a search results page.
Next Steps
Go Deeper by Business Type
The method above is the same everywhere, but the details change by market. These guides cover the specifics:
B2B Keyword Research
Long sales cycles, decision-maker language, low volumes that still convert.
International Keyword Research
Picking countries, handling different markets.
Multilingual Keyword Research
Translating keywords the right way (hint: never literally).
Ecommerce Keyword Research
Category pages, product pages, and buyer-intent modifiers.
Local Keyword Research
"Near me" searches, map pack, and service-area keywords.
FAQ
Questions People Ask
What is the difference between keyword research and competitor keyword research?
Regular keyword research starts from a topic and finds related searches. Competitor keyword research starts from the domains that already rank for those searches, so every keyword you find is one your market has proven to work. Most people combine both: competitors for proven keywords, topic research for new angles.
Can I do competitor keyword research for free?
Yes, partially. Google autocomplete, "People also ask," related searches, and site: searches cost nothing. Google Keyword Planner shows keyword ideas from a competitor's page if you have a free Google Ads account. What you can't get free is full keyword lists with rankings, difficulty, and backlink data — that requires a paid tool or an automated agent like Votrix AI.
How many competitors should I analyze?
Three to five. Fewer than three and you miss how the market works; more than five and the data gets hard to act on. Choose sites similar in size to yours or slightly bigger — a keyword list from Amazon won't help a small store.
How long before I see results from competitor keyword research?
Targeting keywords where competitors are weak can show movement in weeks. Competitive keywords requiring backlinks typically take months. AI agents like Votrix AI shorten this by writing, publishing, and doing outreach immediately instead of waiting on a person's schedule.
Does competitor keyword research help with AI search (ChatGPT, Claude, AI Overviews)?
Yes, indirectly and directly. AI assistants draw on pages that clearly answer questions — the same pages that rank well on Google. Votrix AI also tracks directly whether ChatGPT, Claude, and Google AI Overviews mention your business, and works on the pages those answers pull from.
Sources
- Backlinko — https://backlinko.com/google-ctr-stats (2022, checked 2026-10-31)
- Ahrefs — https://ahrefs.com/blog/ai-overviews-reduce-clicks-update/ (2025, checked 2026-10-31)
- SpyFu — https://www.spyfu.com/ (checked 2026-10-31)
- Votrix AI — https://votrixai.com/ai-seo-manager (checked 2026-10-31)