Researching your competitors is the most important thing you can do for your marketing campaigns, whether they are online or offline.
In the online world, competitor research means identifying keywords that help tap the target market and get your products in front of the right audience.
In this blog, we will help you understand how you can analyze your competitor’s website to find keywords to use in your content marketing strategies.
What is website keyword search
Website keyword search is the process of looking for words or phrases that your competitors are using to rank higher in search engines and make their products and services more visible.
Why should you search for keywords on a website?
Well, of course, the primary objective is to outrank your competition on the SERPs.
Keyword research is the basis of creating successful digital marketing strategies. Whether you are publishing a blog or an ad, knowing the right keywords to target will help you focus your efforts in the right direction.
When done right, this research reveals high-value terms that your target audience uses to find your competitors online. This knowledge will help you develop marketing campaigns with higher chances of success.
7 Ways to search keyword on a webpage
While there are many ways you can search for keywords on a website, here are some of the most dependable methods of doing so.
1. Use the Site:Search command on Google
Google is the most popular search engine in the world. If there is a website on the internet, chances are that it has been indexed by Google. Therefore, the search engine offers the most comprehensive catalog of websites for every topic.
The site:search command is one of the most used methods by marketers.
The process is simple —
- Go to Google search
- Type site:competitor.com “primary keyword” and search.
The results will give you a detailed list of every webpage on the website that contains the keyword.
Once you know that a web page contains similar keywords to yours, the next step is to analyze every webpage for different variations of the keyword.
You can either do this by manually visiting every webpage and reading through the text, making notes about various keyword combinations you find, or using the Ctrl+F search for every webpage.
2. Use Ctrl+F to search in HTML site
Remember how we used to find and replace words in Microsoft Word? This method is similar. The CTRL+F hotkeys help you scan the text and code of a webpage and find the words you are looking for.
To find keywords using the Ctrl+F search in HTML, follow these steps:
- Visit a webpage from your competitor’s website.
- Right-click anywhere and select “View Page Source.”
- Press Ctrl+F to open a search box for the webpage and search for your primary keyword.
The results will highlight all the occurrences of the word along with a number for the times the word occurs on the webpage.
This method also helps you identify the keywords that your competitors are using in their meta descriptions, URLs, titles, and headings. Simply change the search to meta, URL, title, H1, H2, and H3, respectively.
Note: This method only helps you analyze the keywords present in the HTML code of a web page and not the entire website.
Used in combination with the first method, these two form a solid approach for finding keywords on a website.
3. Use website search bar
Many websites include a search bar in the main navigation menu to help visitors easily find what they are looking for.
If your competitor has such a search bar, you can use it to your advantage.
Just search for the main keyword, and the site will sort its content and show you a list of web pages that contain that word or search phrase.
Once you have a list of web pages with the target keyword, use the Ctrl+F method to find keyword variations, title tag keywords, URL slug keywords, and the keywords used in headings.
4. Use Screaming Frog to search keyword
Screaming Frog is a free website crawler that helps SEO strategists analyze websites and find technical on-page issues with web pages. It is a desktop application that offers free scans for 500 URLs.
To search for keywords on a website using Screaming Frog, do the following:
- Download the desktop application from the Screaming Frog website and install the software.
- Enter your competitor’s URL at the top and click on ‘Start.’
You'll get a thorough analysis of all the web pages (up to 500) as a result. Screaming Frog gives you detailed information about the URL slugs, page titles, meta descriptions, meta keywords, H1, content, images, and other technical on-page SEO factors.
What you have to do is simply go to these tabs and find topic-related terms that they are using in their titles, H1, H2, meta descriptions, and meta keywords.
5. Use keyword planner to search for keywords on the webpage
Another reliable method to find the keywords that a website is ranking for is the Google Keyword Planner. This is a business tool that is available to all businesses with a Google Ads account.
If you don’t have one, you can easily sign up within a few minutes.
Once you have created a Google Ads account, follow these steps:
- Open the Google Keyword Planner
- Select ‘Discover new keywords’.’
- Select the ‘Start with a website’ option.
- Copy-paste your competitor’s URL and choose whether you want Google to search the entire site or just the URL. You can also select a target location.
- Click on ‘Get Results,’ and Google will produce a list of keywords from the website or webpage.
You can download the results as a .csv file or directly export the results as a Google Sheet to your drive.
The Google Keywords planner is a great way to find keyword ideas from your competitors' websites. The results will give you additional statistics about search terms, such as average monthly searches and the level of competition.
6. Use Ahref to search keywords
Ahref is by far the most advanced tool for keyword research. But users have to pay for a paid plan if they want to look at keywords and backlinks on competitor websites.
Once you are on a paid plan, all you have to do is copy and paste the competitor’s URL in the search box at the top and press enter.
Ahref will analyze the URL and give a comprehensive report of the backlink profile, organic search statistics, and paid search statistics.
To find the most relevant keywords, head over to the ‘Organic keywords’ tab in the ‘Organic search’ section.
The page will show a list of all the keywords for which the URL is ranking organically.
To identify the paid keywords the website uses in its online ads, simply click on the ‘Paid keywords’ tab in the ‘Paid search’ section.
If you aren’t sure about investing in a paid Ahref plan, you can use the free version to track how well your website content is doing.
7. Use IM Ninja keyword tool
Internet marketing Ninja’s keyword density analysis tool is another useful method of competitive research. Users can use the tool to analyze a web page and find all the keywords on it.
Here is how to use this tool:
- Visit the IM Ninja Keyword Density Analysis Tool website.
- Copy-paste your competitor’s web page URL into the search box at the top.
- Click on ‘Ninja Check’
The tool will do a thorough analysis of the URL and divide the keywords into anchor texts that are linked and those that aren't. It will further classify those keywords into one-word keywords, two-word phrases (short-tail keywords), and three-word phrases (long-tail keywords).
This is a free tool that you can use for any number of URLs. The reports from the keyword density analyzer include the total number of words, the number of links, and unlinked words.
These tools are the best way to do competitor websites research. If you are looking for more generic research, check out our list of best keyword research tools.
Finding the right keywords or search terms is tricky. There is no easy way to look for keyword ideas; it requires time and effort. If you want to rank on the first page of search results, it is important that you identify specific keywords that your competitors are using.
Most of the tools and methods mentioned above are free. We hope the above information answers questions like how to find keywords on a website, how to find keywords on a page, and how to find what keywords a website is ranking for.
You can also refer to this step-by-step guide to learn how to do keyword research for SEO and PPC.
Let’s wrap it up
To succeed in your content marketing campaigns, it is important to know what keywords are working for your competitors. This knowledge will help you plan effective campaigns and drive better results.
We hope the methods mentioned above help you create the best content marketing strategies that outrank the competition and bring your brand to the top of SERPs.
About Scalenut
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