How to find your competitors' keywords?

In brief: the method comes down to five steps: identify the domains that compete with you on Google, extract keyword gaps, choose the level of comparison, filter, then qualify intent before writing. It ends with validation against your own data.

Retrieving a competitor's keywords takes a few minutes. Knowing which ones deserve a page on your own site takes far more judgement. In the projects we support, the most common mistake is not a lack of tools, but analysing the wrong sites and then treating every line of an export as a promise of traffic. This tutorial walks through a chronological process, with an end-to-end example.

Commercial competitors or SEO competitors: who should you really analyse?

An SEO competitor is a site that appears for the same searches as you in Google's organic results, that is, excluding ads. It may be very different from the ones you mention in sales meetings.

Commercial competition

Your commercial competitors sell a comparable offer to a comparable customer base. You already know them: they are the ones your prospects mention or compare you with. Yet their site is not necessarily the one outranking you on Google, especially if it publishes little content.

Organic competition

Organic competition is measured by the keyword overlap between your domain and theirs in Google's results. A media outlet, a comparison site or a news site can therefore compete with you for rankings without selling anything similar. For content research, these are often the most instructive: they show what Google considers useful for your topic.

The method follows this logic: identify domains, extract the gaps, filter, qualify intent, then validate with your own data.

Step 1: identify your organic competitors

Action: enter your domain in an organic competitors report. The details depend on the tool, but the principle remains the same: the tool compares your keywords with those of other sites.

Run the report

The example documented here is Semrush. Its report lists competing sites based on the shared keywords that appear in Google's organic top 20. The result depends on the market and the database you select, so choose France if your target audience is French.

Build the shortlist

Domains are ranked by level of competition. Keep a handful of relevant sites for a portfolio comparison, that is, a comparison of all your topics against theirs. Rule out off-topic domains, such as general directories or encyclopaedias: they rank for everything and skew the comparison. These domains can then be compared using the keyword gap tool.

Check the SERP

The SERP is Google's results page. For your strategic topics, type the main query into Google, then note the domains that keep coming up. This manual check complements the report: it reveals a media outlet or forum that the tool may have ranked too low, and confirms that the listed sites really occupy the same place as you in Google's eyes.

Step 2: extract keyword gaps

Action: open a content gap report, then enter your domain followed by your competitors. The documented example is Ahrefs' Content Gap, found under Competitive Analysis, in the version described in the documentation published on 3 September 2026.

Enter your domain and competitors

Choose the Keywords option, enter your domain or target URL, then the competitor domains or pages selected in step 1. Select the location you want before running the report. You get the keywords for which competitors rank while your site does not.

Semrush offers an equivalent process with Keyword Gap, which lets you compare the domains identified in step 1 directly.

Read the list of opportunities

This list is not an editorial plan. It is more of a raw inventory, drawn from the rankings the tool has observed.

Watch out

A gap proves that a competitor ranks where you do not. It does not prove that the topic fits your offer, or that the search intent is compatible with what you can provide.

Step 3: choose the right level of comparison, domain or exact URL

Action: decide whether you are comparing entire sites or specific pages before running the analysis. The comparison can cover a whole domain or an exact URL, and Ahrefs lets you compare up to ten competitors. These two levels do not serve the same need.

Compare at domain level

This level answers the question: which topics do these sites cover that I don't? It helps you spot entire families of topics. It is useful at the start of a project or during a redesign, when the site structure is still to be decided.

Compare URL against URL

Here, you pit your page against comparable competitor pages, of the same type and on the same topic. The resulting gap is far more precise: it shows what they cover and you don't. The selection criterion is simple: to create, compare domains; to optimise, compare URLs.

Step 4: filter and prioritise opportunities

Action: apply the report's filters before reading the rows one by one. Gap results must be filtered before any prioritisation, otherwise every competitor query becomes an equivalent target, which they are not.

Market and period

Restrict the location to your target country: France if your SEO target is French. Also set the period so you don't work from outdated rankings. A wrong country alone is enough to make the whole list unusable.

Difficulty and estimated traffic

Tools provide a difficulty index (KD), which estimates how hard it is to rank, and an estimated traffic figure per keyword. Isolate the queries where a competitor has demonstrated visibility and whose difficulty or estimated traffic matches your capabilities. A new site does not have the same resources as an established player.

Please note

KD and estimated traffic are selection indicators for sorting. They are neither guarantees of traffic nor promises of rankings.

Positions

Set the position ranges for the target site and the competitors. Exclude less relevant positions, for example those where the competitor appears only very far down the results. This keeps the keywords where it is genuinely visible and where you are not yet present.

To sort what remains, a three-criteria grid is enough:

• Relevance to your offer: does the topic genuinely serve your business?

• Demonstrated competitor visibility: does it rank well, and visibly so?

• Achievable difficulty: can you reasonably aim for that position?

Step 5: qualify intent before creating or optimising a page

Action: for each priority keyword, review the ranking competitor page and the SERP. This is the step most often skipped, yet it prevents the most wasted content.

Open the ranking page

The report can show the competitor page that ranks for the keyword you are studying. Open it: what type of page is it (guide, product page, comparison, category)? What does it contain that you don't offer?

Read the SERP

Next, type the keyword into Google, using the right country. Determine the dominant intent: informational (understanding), commercial (comparing before buying), transactional (buying) or navigational (finding a specific site). Also note the expected format, as Google shows what it considers suited to the query.

Decide: create, enrich or ignore

Don't create a page just because a competitor ranks. Your offer, the intent and your ability to produce a better answer must all be compatible. Three decisions are possible:

• Create a page if the topic is absent from your site and consistent with your offer.

• Enrich an existing page if it already targets this intent without covering it fully.

• Abandon the keyword if the intent or the offer does not match.

A worked example: from a competitor's domain to a list of content to produce

A fictional case, presented as such: a gardening advice site aimed at the French market, with no online shop. No real search volumes are quoted here; only the decision logic matters.

The starting point

The site's domain is entered into the organic competitors report, French market. Three domains are selected: another advice site, a non-commercial gardening magazine and a garden equipment retailer. The magazine sells nothing, yet it ranks for the same questions. It is precisely an SEO competitor that is not a commercial competitor. An online encyclopaedia, also surfaced by the tool, is set aside.

The decisions made

The content gap analysis is run with the three domains, filtered to France, with a difficulty level that is reasonable for a small site and with competitors' positions visible. Two ranking pages are opened. Three keywords illustrate the decisions:

• When to prune roses: the SERP shows practical guides, and the site has nothing on the topic. Decision: create a page.

• How to mulch a vegetable garden: an article on the site already touches on the subject. Decision: expand that page, adding materials and common mistakes.

• Buy compost in bulk: the SERP displays commercial pages, whereas the site sells nothing. Decision: rule it out, as the transactional intent is incompatible.

The final list

The sorting produces a short list of editorial priorities:

1. Create the guide on pruning roses.

2. Expand the article on mulching the vegetable garden.

3. Rule out the compost purchase queries and document why.

Each line rests on an explicit reason, not merely on a competitor ranking for the keyword.

Common mistakes to avoid

• Confusing commercial and organic competitors: you end up analysing sites that do not share your Google results. Start again from the organic competitors report.

• Copying the entire gap list: without a filter, queries of very uneven value end up on the same footing.

• Treating metrics as guarantees: KD and estimated traffic help you choose, nothing more.

• Creating content without checking intent: open the ranking page and the SERP before writing.

• Neglecting manual verification: for strategic topics, the SERP remains the reference.

• Forgetting to set the country in the tool: an analysis of the wrong market skews everything else.

Validating with Google Search Console and practical tips

Action: compare the priority list with what your site already does in Google. This method is part of a broader approach to competitor analysis SEO, but validating against your own data is its most reliable step.

Cross-checking with your own data

In the Google Search Console Performance report, you can see the queries and pages that are already visible, with clicks, impressions, CTR (click-through rate) and average position. Filter by query, page, country and period. Look for queries with high impressions, a low CTR or a position that could be improved: they often point to a page to optimise rather than a new page to create.

Search Console's limitations

Search Console does not provide the search data of a competitor's domain. Its reports cover only the verified property, and third-party sites are not accessible. For competitors, rely on observing the SERP or on an SEO data provider. Anonymised queries and some rows may also be missing or truncated in the interface.

Tips for the long term

• Repeat the analysis regularly, because positions change.

• Document your decisions in a tracking table: keyword, competitor page, intent, decision, reason.

• Keep a short list of competitors, which is easier to monitor.

• Start with a topic cluster, a set of pages on the same theme, rather than the whole site.

A well-run competitor analysis is recognisable as much by what it rejects as by what it creates: every keyword retained has passed the filter of your offer, the intent and your own data.