Your competitors are vying for rankings. They can take away many of your potential customers if you don’t know how to outwit them. But here’s the truth: you can steal competitors’ keywords and direct that traffic to your own website if you figure out what your competitors are doing and then do it better.
This piece shows you how to analyze competitors’ website traffic, uncover their marketing strategies, identify competitors’ traffic sources, and use those insights to outrank them. Ready to turn your competitors’ success into your advantage? Let’s get started!
Identify Your Real Competitors and Their Keywords
Find Who’s Ranking for Your Target Keywords
You need to know who you’re competing against before you can steal competitors keywords. Your real competitors aren’t always the businesses selling similar products. They’re the websites ranking for the same search terms you want to target.
Business competitors sell the same products or services as you. Your customers compare them to you before making a purchase. Search competitors rank for your target keywords but may not share your business model. They could be blogs, publishers, SaaS tools, or directories.
Use Ahrefs Site Explorer and go to the Organic Competitors report if your site already has some SEO performance. The bubble chart reveals which competitor bubbles are:
- Higher than yours (they get more traffic)
- Further to the right than yours (their traffic holds more value)
You can also apply the date comparison filter to spot quick-growing competitors. The dotted circle shows their past performance, while the whole circle displays current performance. Look for competitors with a gap between circles where the dotted circle sits on the left. These emerging threats could take your SEO visibility.
Start with an existing keyword list from your Google Ads strategy or keyword research you’ve already completed for new sites without much visibility. Add these keywords into Ahrefs Keywords Explorer and check traffic share by domain to find the top sites getting visibility for your target terms.
Use Keyword Research Tools to Find Competitor Keywords
Finding their organic keywords becomes straightforward once you’ve identified your competitors. Search each competitor in Ahrefs Site Explorer and review the Organic Keywords report. The report displays competitor keywords driving the most traffic at the top.
Refine the list with filters. Exclude your competitor’s brand name and any unrelated products or topics. Set Keyword Difficulty to a maximum of 10 to surface easier keywords you could target. Combine this with the search volume filter to find keywords with high search demand and low competition.
You can also extract paid competitor keywords to reverse engineer their ad strategy. The paid keywords report shows you the keywords your competitors target with Google Ads. This list indicates revenue-generating keywords that convert well. Apply the Cost-Per-Click filter to find the cheapest keywords to bid on in your industry.
SpyFu offers another approach. Search for a competitor and download their SEO keywords to see what they rank on and how many clicks they get. The tool also reveals every keyword they’ve bought on Google and every ad test they’ve run.
Analyze Competitors’ Website Traffic and Performance
You get insight into their performance when you understand competitors website traffic. SE Ranking’s Website Traffic Checker shows how many visitors a website gets and breaks down traffic sources between organic and paid. You’ll see top-performing pages, keyword rankings, and visibility across different countries.
The tool provides third-party traffic estimates for any website and allows you to research competitors while Google Analytics and Google Search Console only show data for your own verified domains. Enter the competitor’s domain to view estimated visitor numbers, keyword rankings, traffic by country, and trends over time.
Ahrefs traffic checker lets you explore organic and paid traffic metrics with Site Explorer. The interactive graph shows how traffic has progressed both globally and locally. You can analyze competitors’ best performing content to see which pages drive the most traffic, then reverse-engineer what works for them.
Export and Organize Competitor Keyword Data
You can analyze insights in external software like Excel or Google Sheets when you export keyword data. This gives you a chance to sort, filter, and plan your keyword approach more effectively.
Export the data for further examination once you’ve compiled keyword lists. Spreadsheets enable advanced sorting, filtering, and comparison across multiple competitors or time periods. Marketing teams use this exported data to map content gaps, track keyword difficulty, and prioritize optimization efforts.
Most SEO tools offer export functionality. Go to the Keywords report within the Organic Traffic Research section in SE Ranking’s Competitive Research. The table contains all identified keywords with metrics including keyword difficulty scores, search volume, search intent, and SERP features triggered by keywords. Export this list and apply filters to select the most suitable keywords for your strategy.
Analyze Which Keywords Are Worth Targeting
Not every keyword your competitors rank for deserves your attention. Some keywords might have massive search volume but competition that’s impossibly high. Others could be easy to rank for but bring minimal traffic. The key lies in finding keywords that balance chance with effort.
Check Keyword Search Volume and Difficulty
Search volume represents the number of times people search for a keyword within a set timeframe, which is a month. This metric shows keyword popularity and helps you estimate potential traffic. High search volume keywords have stronger demand, but their broad and competitive nature makes them difficult to target. Low search volume keywords are more narrow and niche-specific. They’re less competitive and easier to target due to their more defined intent.
Keyword difficulty estimates how hard it will be to rank on the first page of search results for a specific keyword. This metric shows how competitive a keyword is and how challenging it might be to outrank other websites with a new page. Scores range from 0 to 100, with higher numbers that indicate more competitive keywords.
Ahrefs calculates keyword difficulty by analyzing the number of referring domains the top 10 ranking pages have. The scale is not linear. Each value corresponds to the estimated number of referring domains a page needs to get to the first page of search results. If you’re targeting a keyword with difficulty 40, you’re going to need approximately 56 referring domains to get into the top 10 search results.
Balance your keyword selection based on your website’s current authority. Newer websites should focus on keywords with difficulty scores under 30 to gain quick wins. Your site’s authority grows through improved content quality and backlinks, and you’ll become more capable of ranking for competitive keywords.
Understand Search Intent Behind Competitor Keywords
Search intent represents the main goal of a consumer at the time they use a search engine. Google’s algorithm boosts its ability to identify what searchers truly seek for each unique query. You understand this intent, and it helps you optimize your website’s user experience and reduce bounce rates.
Search intent falls into four categories: informational, navigational, commercial and transactional. Identifying which type lines up with your content remains critical in selecting the right keywords. Note that selecting the appropriate page type for each keyword based on the specific intent that the keyword reflects prevents mismatched experiences.
Analyzing the actual search results is the most reliable way to understand intent. Google’s results page is one of the clearest sources of information you have. The page features guides and how-to articles, and the intent is informational. You see reviews and comparisons, and that suggests commercial investigation. Product pages dominate, and that signals transactional intent.
Query language also shows intent, with long-tail keywords containing terms like “who,” “what,” “how,” “best,” “affordable,” “buy,” “learn,” “easy,” or “quick”. The order of words matters because different arrangements show very different intents. “Ingredients for dog food” suggests users want homemade ideas, while “dog food ingredients” shows users want to learn what ingredients are used in commercial products.
Find Keyword Gaps in Your Content Strategy
Keyword gap analysis finds keywords your competitors rank for that your domain doesn’t rank for. This strategy reveals topics where competitors outperform you and shows chances to improve visibility for keywords your shared audience searches.
Ahrefs Content Gap tool checks what organic keywords other websites rank for that your target website does not. Enter your target domain and up to 10 competitor URLs to generate the Compare Gap report. The tool provides filters for specific position ranges that either the target or competitor URLs rank for.
Semrush Keyword Gap tool lets you compare keyword profiles of up to five competitors side by side. You enter the domains you want to analyze, and you’ll get a report showing top chances for each site and the overlap in common keywords used by all sites. This data allows you to see where an SEO campaign will affect most.
Organize found keywords into categories: shared keywords that all domains rank for, missing keywords your competitors rank for but you don’t, weak keywords where competitors hold better positions, strong keywords where you hold better positions, and unique keywords only your domain ranks for. Prioritize optimizing existing content by introducing missing or weak keywords on relevant pages, or create new pages where needed.
Create Better Content Than Your Competitors
Once you’ve identified valuable keywords, stealing competitors keywords requires producing content that search engines and users prefer over existing results. Analyzing what currently ranks gives you the blueprint for success.
Study Top-Ranking Pages for Each Keyword
Type your target keyword into Google and get into the top 10 results. Search engines already determined these pages best satisfy user intent. Look at the content format dominating results. Guides and how-to articles appear when the intent is informational. Reviews and comparisons suggest commercial investigation. Product pages signal transactional intent.
Check the SERP features present for your tracked keywords and identify how many your competitors own. Nine SERP features exist where target website presence gets tracked: image pack, sitelinks, featured snippet, shopping ads, top ads, bottom ads, top stories, videos, and thumbnail. Understanding which features appear helps you optimize for those opportunities.
Study the content length and depth of top-ranking pages. Note how they structure information, what subtopics they cover, and how well they address the query. This research reveals the baseline quality standard you need to meet before attempting to surpass it.
Identify Strengths to Copy in Competitor Content
Get into what makes competitor content successful. Strong content typically has external links to studies and statistics, which showcase issue severity while building credibility and trustworthiness. Look at their use of examples, case studies, and real information that connects with readers and demonstrates expertise.
Check their content organization. Well-performing pages divide content into clear sections with subheadings, organize sections in logical order, use succinct paragraphs and sentences, and format key points in bold. Review their use of visual elements like infographics, images, and videos that break up text and improve engagement.
Analyze their keyword usage and how terms integrate into the content naturally. Note their internal linking strategy and how they connect related content pieces. These strengths provide a framework for your own content approach.
Find Weaknesses and Content Gaps to Exploit
Competitor research reveals where others fall short. Look for outdated content that hasn’t been updated in a while. Check for incomplete answers that leave questions unanswered or topics only partially covered. Identify missing perspectives or data that would add value.
Content gap analysis identifies keywords your competitors rank for that your domain doesn’t rank for. Examine their content for shallow coverage of complex topics, lack of original research or data, missing multimedia elements, or poor readability. These weaknesses become your opportunities.
Audit their content closely to find where you can improve offerings and add more value. Pinpoint outdated content where you can find easier wins. Focus on topics competitors avoid or handle poorly.
Optimize Your Content Structure and Format
Structure your content for easy navigation and understanding. Break up long content into paragraphs and sections. Provide headings to help users guide through pages. Write content that’s well written, easy to follow, and free of spelling and grammatical mistakes naturally.
Match your content format to search intent. Informational keywords work best with how-to guides, list posts, and step-by-step tutorials. Use subheadings to allow visitors to see at a glance whether your content answers their questions.
Incorporate multimedia elements to make pages more engaging and help content compete in search results that prioritize alternative formats. Add images, videos, infographics, and other visual creative to improve readability and keep visitors on your site longer.
Add Unique Value That Competitors Miss
Original content starts with understanding your audience and offering insights they cannot find anywhere else. Listen to your customers and use questions from sales calls, support tickets, and search data to guide content topics. Share your experience by explaining how your team approaches challenges and what you’ve learned from past projects.
Use your own data when possible. Build content around that information if you have access to internal reports, customer surveys, or campaign performance insights. Original data makes content more credible and helps it stand out in search.
Add a clear point of view and don’t be afraid to say what you believe. Link to relevant resources because links connect users and search engines to other parts of your site or relevant pages on other sites. External links to authoritative websites for sourcing purposes show your content was created with accuracy and credibility in mind.
Steal Competitors’ Backlinks to Build Authority
Backlinks remain one of Google’s top three ranking factors. Sites with high-quality backlinks rank better in search results and appear as cited sources in AI-generated responses. Building these links from scratch takes time, but analyzing competitors’ traffic sources reveals established websites already linking within your industry.
Find Which Sites Link to Your Competitors
Semrush Backlinks tool displays an overview of your competitor’s backlink profile. This includes the number of referring domains and total backlinks. Enter a competitor’s domain and go to the Backlinks tab. You’ll see details like Authority Score, linking page titles and URLs, anchor text, and target URLs. The tool also identifies domains that link to multiple competitors but not to you. These make ideal outreach targets.
Ahrefs Free Backlink Checker provides a quick overview of competitor backlinks. Moz Link Explorer offers Link Intersect functionality that compares up to five backlink profiles. You can find gaps in your strategy this way. These tools reveal which pages receive the most backlinks and help identify content opportunities.
Focus on high-quality backlinks from authoritative sites rather than chasing quantity. Backlinko found that the number of domains linking to a page has the strongest correlation to higher rankings on Google. The number-one ranking page gains 5% to 14.5% more do-follow backlinks from new websites each month.
Reach Out to Get Backlinks from the Same Sources
Replicating competitor backlinks means getting links from the same domains that link to your rivals. Find your competitors’ highest-quality backlinks by sorting referring domains by Authority Score. Look for resource pages and industry directories. Guest post sites and podcast interviews work well too.
The average response rate for backlink outreach emails sits around 8.5%. Research shows a single follow-up can increase link acquisition by 40%. Engaging with prospects on LinkedIn or Twitter before emailing builds trust and familiarity. This leads to 22% more links per month.
Broken link building involves finding content that links to your competitors’ broken pages. You then convince creators to link to your pages instead. Filter for broken pages with active backlinks, then reach out to suggest your content as an alternative.
Create Link-Worthy Content That Earns Natural Backlinks
Reverse outreach flips traditional link building by having bloggers and journalists come to you. Target journalist keywords that content creators search for when researching articles. To cite an instance, a page optimized around the journalist keyword “social media usage” attracted 11.5K total backlinks. 95% came from reverse outreach.
Create stats pages around trending topics without easy-to-find data sources. Find data through Statista and company job listings where businesses share user numbers and revenue growth. Quarterly reports from public companies work well. Google News provides press releases and industry publications. Format stats with subheadings optimized around journalist keywords, then provide short answers below each subheading. Pages show up in Featured Snippets with this snippet bait approach.
Visuals make stat pages more credible. They give bloggers assets they can use in their content with attribution links back to you.
Optimize Your Site to Outrank Competitors
Technical optimization is the foundation you need to outrank competitors. You can steal keywords through superior content or build backlinks, but without fast load times and proper technical setup, even the best content won’t rank well.
Improve Page Speed and Loading Time
A fast-loading website provides a better user experience and search engines favor it. The ideal load time is within 3 seconds. Google’s Core Web Vitals measure specific metrics: Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) should occur within 2.5 seconds of the page starting to load, Interaction to Next Paint (INP) should happen in less than 200 milliseconds, and Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) should stay under 0.1.
Compress images before you upload them. This reduces file size without sacrificing quality. Enable browser caching so files store locally and don’t re-download on every visit. Minify JavaScript and CSS files to streamline page rendering. These changes directly affect how search engines review your site and how users experience it.
Ensure Mobile-Friendly Responsive Design
Mobile search volume surpassed desktop in 2016 and continues growing. Google uses mobile-first indexing. The mobile version of your site serves as the primary source for crawling, indexing and ranking. Implement responsive design with fluid grids, flexible media and CSS media queries. This ensures cross-device compatibility.
Use Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test to identify areas that need improvement. A responsive design adapts your pages to different screen sizes. Users get uninterrupted experiences whether they access via phone, tablet or desktop.
Fix Technical SEO Issues
Install an SSL certificate to secure your website and protect user data. This positively affects search engine rankings. Create and submit an XML sitemap to help search engines understand your website’s structure and content. Optimize your robots.txt file so search engines can crawl and index your website’s content effectively.
Optimize On-Page SEO Elements
Use your target keyword in the first 100 words of your article. Google puts more weight on terms that appear early on your page. Wrap your keywords into H1 tags to help Google understand page structure. Include keywords in your URL as a lightweight ranking factor. Add internal links from high-authority pages to pages that need a boost.
Monitor Your Rankings and Adjust Your Strategy
A keyword ranking today doesn’t guarantee visibility tomorrow. Search algorithms move, competitors adjust their strategies, and new threats emerge without warning. Consistent tracking reveals these changes before they damage your traffic.
Track Your Keyword Rankings Over Time
Position tracking monitors where your pages appear for target search terms. Track major keywords daily to detect sudden ranking moves, review SERP features weekly to spot opportunities like featured snippets, and analyze historical data monthly to understand long-term trends. This organized approach prevents you from missing critical changes.
55.2% of consumer clicks go to the top three organic search results. A drop from position 3 to position 4 means you lose more than half your potential traffic. Set up rank tracker notifications that alert you when critical position changes require action.
Analyze Competitors’ Traffic Sources Regularly
When you understand a competitor’s website traffic, you reveal where they allocate resources and which channels deliver results. Organic search accounts for 17% of website traffic on average. Social media contributes between 5% and 15% of total traffic.
Monitor competitors monthly to adapt to new tactics they test or changes in their spending. Regular monitoring can improve your marketing ROI and operational efficiency by 20-30%.
Keep Improving Content Based on Performance Data
Content that ranked last year won’t stay competitive without attention. Revamp underperforming pages that rank between positions 11-30 by updating title tags, meta descriptions and expanding content depth. Match search intent by tweaking content to arrange with dominant SERP formats when keywords rank well but show low CTR.
Conclusion
You now have a complete roadmap to steal competitors’ keywords and claim their traffic as your own. Identify who competes for your target terms, then analyze their keyword strategies to find gaps you can exploit. Create content that outperforms what currently ranks, replicate their backlink sources and optimize your technical foundation.
Note that SEO isn’t a one-time effort. Keep tracking your rankings and monitoring competitor moves while you refine your approach based on performance data. Competitors won’t stay still, so neither should you.
Apply these strategies consistently, and you’ll climb past your rivals in search results. Your competitors’ keywords are waiting to be claimed.
FAQs
Q1. What’s the best way to discover which keywords my competitors are ranking for? Use keyword research tools like Ahrefs Site Explorer or SpyFu to analyze competitor domains. These tools reveal the organic keywords driving traffic to competitor sites, along with metrics like search volume and keyword difficulty. You can also check their paid keywords to identify high-converting terms they’re bidding on in Google Ads.
Q2. How do I know which competitor keywords are actually worth targeting? Focus on keywords that balance search volume with keyword difficulty. Newer websites should target keywords with difficulty scores under 30 for quicker wins. Also analyze search intent by examining the actual search results—if guides dominate, the intent is informational; if product pages appear, it’s transactional. Choose keywords that match your content capabilities and business goals.
Q3. What strategies help outrank competitors for the same keywords? Create superior content by studying top-ranking pages and identifying their strengths and weaknesses. Add unique value through original data, updated information, and better content structure. Build backlinks from the same sources linking to competitors, optimize your site’s technical performance including page speed and mobile responsiveness, and ensure your on-page SEO elements are properly optimized.
Q4. How can I replicate my competitors’ backlink strategies? Use tools like Semrush or Ahrefs to identify which authoritative sites link to your competitors. Reach out to these same domains with relevant content or resource suggestions. Look for broken link opportunities where competitors’ pages no longer exist, and create link-worthy content like statistics pages that naturally attract backlinks from journalists and bloggers.
Q5. How often should I monitor my keyword rankings and competitor activity? Track major keywords daily to catch sudden ranking changes, review SERP features weekly to spot new opportunities, and analyze historical data monthly for long-term trends. Monitor competitors’ traffic sources and strategies monthly to quickly adapt to their new tactics, as consistent tracking helps you maintain and improve your search visibility over time.
