Strategy overview

Why should you analyze your competitor's keywords?

Medium effort

High impact

SEO is a competition game. Before you optimize a single page, you need to know who you're up against — and where the real gaps are.

Competitor keyword analysis shows you which keywords drive traffic to competing sites, what topics they've built authority around, and where your own strategy is weak. The goal isn't to copy them. It's to understand where to invest your content efforts.

Keywords your competitors rank for in positions 4–20 are your clearest opportunities. Google already considers that topic relevant to that domain category — a better-structured page can outrank them. Topics they haven't covered well are your blue ocean.

How to do it?

How to analyze competitor keywords with SEMrush

Go to SEMrush → Competitive Research → Keyword Gap
Enter your domain and up to 4 competitor domains
Filter by "Missing" to find keywords all competitors rank for but you don't — these are your biggest gaps
Filter by "Weak" to find keywords where competitors outrank you — these are your quickest wins
Sort by search volume and look for keywords in the 100–1,000/month range with low KD (Keyword Difficulty) — easier to rank for quickly
Export the list and group keywords by topic — these become your next content priorities

How to analyze competitor keywords with ChatGPT

Use this prompt to map your competitive landscape before diving into tools:

You are an SEO strategist. I will give you my website and my main competitors. Help me identify:
1. What keyword categories are they targeting that I am not?
2. Where are they likely strong based on their content and site structure?
3. What content gaps do I have compared to them?
4. What are my top 5 keyword opportunities based on this analysis?

My website: [your URL]
Competitor 1: [URL]
Competitor 2: [URL]
Competitor 3: [URL]

Use the ChatGPT output to orient your thinking, then validate every opportunity in SEMrush before creating content.

Do's

✅ Focus on competitors ranking in positions 4–20 for your target keywords — they're beatable with better, more structured content.
✅ Analyze 3–5 direct competitors, not industry giants. Competing with HubSpot or Ahrefs on day one isn't realistic — find sites in your league.
✅ Prioritize keyword gaps in topics you already have content for — it's faster to strengthen an existing page than to build from scratch.
✅ Repeat this analysis every quarter — competitors shift their strategy, and new gaps open up regularly.

Don'ts

❌ Don't target keywords where competitors have 100+ backlinks and high Domain Rating — if your site is new, you won't win that fight yet.
❌ Don't copy competitor content. Understand what they rank for, then build something more useful, more specific, or better structured.
❌ Don't analyze just one competitor — real insights come from spotting patterns across 3–5 sites at once.
❌ Don't ignore low-volume keywords — a keyword with 50 searches/month and clear intent can drive more qualified traffic than a 5,000-volume keyword where you rank on page 5.

Tools