You can see your competitors’ keywords using a mix of free tools, browser extensions, and manual inspection of their web pages. Some methods cost nothing and take minutes, while dedicated SEO platforms offer deeper data like search volume, ranking position, and traffic estimates for every keyword a rival site targets. Here’s how each approach works so you can pick the one that fits your budget and goals.
Inspect Competitor Pages Manually
The simplest way to find competitor keywords requires nothing more than a browser. Visit a competitor’s homepage, main product or service pages, and top blog posts, then look for repeated terms in the places where site owners deliberately place their target keywords:
- Page titles and H1 headings. These are the largest, most prominent text on a page and almost always contain the primary keyword the page is trying to rank for. You can see the page title in your browser tab or by right-clicking and selecting “View Page Source,” then searching for the
<title>tag. - Subheadings (H2, H3). These break content into sections and usually target supporting keywords or variations of the main term.
- Meta descriptions. In the page source, look for the
<meta name="description">tag. This snippet often includes the keyword the page is optimized for, since it’s what shows up in search results. - URL structures. A page at
/best-running-shoes-for-flat-feetis clearly targeting that phrase. - Image alt text. Right-click any image, choose “Inspect,” and read the
altattribute. Many sites pack keyword variations into alt text. - First and last paragraphs. SEO best practice puts the target keyword near the top and bottom of body content, so scanning those sections reveals what the writer was aiming for.
This method is free and works immediately, but it only tells you what keywords a competitor is trying to rank for, not whether they actually rank or how much traffic those terms bring in. It’s most useful when you want a quick read on a handful of direct competitors rather than a comprehensive keyword list.
Use a Free Browser Extension
Browser extensions let you pull keyword data without leaving the page you’re visiting. Ubersuggest’s free Chrome extension is one of the most accessible options. After installing it, click the “U” icon while on any competitor’s site and you’ll see domain-level metrics including the number of organic keywords the site ranks for, estimated organic traffic, a domain authority score, and backlink counts.
The extension also surfaces two especially useful tables: top pages by country (showing which of your competitor’s pages get the most traffic) and top keywords by country (showing the specific search terms driving visitors to that site). You can use these to quickly identify the keywords that matter most to a competitor without running a full audit.
When you search on Google with the extension active, it displays traffic estimates beneath each URL in the results and shows the average domain authority and backlink count of the top 10 results in a sidebar. This helps you gauge how competitive a keyword is before you decide to target it yourself.
The free version has daily data limits, so it works best for spot checks on a few competitors rather than exhaustive research across dozens of sites.
Run a Keyword Gap Analysis
A keyword gap analysis compares the keywords your site ranks for against the keywords your competitors rank for, then highlights the gaps: terms they’re capturing traffic from that you’re missing entirely. This is where you find the biggest opportunities, because these are proven keywords with real search demand that your content simply doesn’t address yet.
Most SEO platforms (Semrush, Ahrefs, Moz, BrightEdge) offer a gap analysis tool. The general workflow is the same across all of them:
- Enter your domain and one to four competitor domains.
- The tool pulls the full keyword profile for each site and cross-references them.
- Filter the results to show keywords where competitors rank but you don’t, or where competitors rank significantly higher than you.
- Sort by search volume or traffic potential to prioritize which gaps to close first.
Once you have that list, you can hand it to your content team as a roadmap. Each missing keyword suggests either a new page to create or an existing page to strengthen. Focus first on keywords with meaningful search volume where multiple competitors rank, since that pattern signals consistent demand rather than a fluke ranking.
Check Google Ads Auction Insights
If you’re running Google Ads, the Auction Insights report shows which other advertisers are competing in the same ad auctions as you. It won’t give you a list of the exact keywords your competitors are bidding on, but it reveals how often you overlap and how your ads compare to theirs.
To access the report, go to the Campaigns, Ad groups, or Search keywords section in Google Ads. Select the campaign, ad group, or keyword you want to analyze by checking the box next to it, then click “Auction insights.” You’ll see several metrics for each competitor appearing in the same auctions:
- Impression share: The percentage of eligible impressions you actually received. If a competitor’s impression share is much higher than yours for a given keyword group, they’re likely outbidding you or have a higher quality score.
- Overlap rate: How often a competitor’s ad appeared alongside yours. A high overlap rate means you’re regularly going head to head on the same searches.
- Outranking share: How often your ad appeared above a competitor’s, or showed when theirs didn’t.
- Position above rate: How often a competitor’s ad appeared in a higher position than yours when both ads showed.
- Top of page rate and absolute top of page rate: How often each advertiser’s ad appeared above organic results, or in the very first ad slot.
The report only generates data when your impression share is at least 10%, and keywords need a minimum threshold of activity to qualify. While it doesn’t hand you a competitor’s keyword list directly, it tells you who you’re competing against most aggressively on paid search, which helps you decide where to increase bids or improve ad quality.
Use a Dedicated SEO Platform
For the most complete picture, paid SEO tools like Semrush, Ahrefs, or Moz let you enter any competitor’s domain and pull their entire organic keyword profile. You’ll typically see each keyword the site ranks for, its current ranking position, estimated monthly search volume, the specific URL that ranks, and an estimate of how much traffic that keyword sends to the site.
These platforms also let you filter by keyword difficulty (how hard it would be to rank for a given term), sort by traffic value (what that organic traffic would cost if you had to buy it through ads), and segment by content type or subdirectory. If a competitor runs a blog at /blog/ and a product section at /products/, you can analyze each section separately to see which strategy drives more keyword visibility.
Most of these tools offer limited free tiers or trial periods. If you only need a one-time snapshot of a competitor’s keywords, a trial may be enough. For ongoing monitoring, where you want to track how a competitor’s keyword rankings shift month to month, a paid subscription is typically necessary. Plans generally start around $99 to $129 per month for individual users.
Turning Competitor Keywords Into Action
Pulling a list of competitor keywords is only useful if you do something with it. Start by categorizing the keywords into groups: branded terms (their company name, which you can’t realistically compete for), informational queries (questions and how-to searches), and commercial or transactional terms (keywords with buying intent). Focus your energy on informational and commercial keywords where you can create content that’s genuinely better or more complete than what currently ranks.
For each target keyword, look at the page your competitor ranks with. Note the content format (listicle, guide, comparison, tool), the word count, and how deeply they cover the topic. Your goal isn’t to copy their page but to identify what they missed, what could be explained more clearly, or what angle they ignored. Build your content to fill those gaps, and you’ll have a realistic shot at outranking them over time.