Competitor Keyword Analysis: The Ultimate Guide

Selecting high-value keywords unlocks unprecedented online success in the digital landscape. Understanding competitor keyword analysis and harnessing the power of relevant, high-traffic terms can significantly elevate your online presence and drive results.

Let's delve into keyword discovery, equipping you with the knowledge and tools necessary to identify and leverage high-value keywords effectively.

In this ultimate guide, we will explore:

High-value and low-value keywords
How to find the right keyword
How to optimize high-value keywords in content

What Are Keywords?

Keywords can be a single word or more that users type to find information on the search engines. These are also known as "search queries", "keyphrases", or "SEO keywords".

Search engines use keywords to search for information in their own database, which they have stored by crawling and indexing. When people search for a particular keyword, search engines look through its own database and display the most relevant results. It is why in SEO (Search Engine Optimization), keyword research is one of the most crucial steps to improve website ranking and attract traffic.

In SEO, keywords rank at the top of Google search results for that particular keyword. The higher the website ranks in search results, the more traffic it receives. And the right keywords contribute to better visibility and attracting potential customers.

Whether a single word or a long phrase, it is still considered a "keyword". Keywords fall into two categories: short-tail keywords and long-tail keywords.

Short-tail keywords: consist of one or more words or terms
Long-tail keywords: consist of three or more words or terms

Keywords can also be differentiated by search intent: informational, navigational, commercial, and transactional.

Informational

Users use informational keywords to find something that they want to learn. They usually take the question form of "what", "how", "why" and more.

These types of keywords most likely contain featured snippets to provide quick answers to the search queries.

Navigational

Navigational keywords are what people use if they want to find specific websites or pages online. When users type in a brand or a website into the search engine, they do a navigational search.

Users behind these searches already know the product or brand and want to find the correct website or physical store. For example, "Youtube" and Facebook login page".

Commercial

Commercial keywords are used by people researching a specific brand, product or service to eventually complete a transaction. It can be comparing products or services to other brands or companies, checking reviews or looking for discounts.

Keywords with commercial intent usually contain qualifiers such as "discount," "deals," or "best".

Transactional

Transactional keywords are the highest intent keywords, portraying actions like purchasing a product. It usually includes phrases like "buy now", "order", or "subscribe".

They are typically used by customers who have already completed their research and are ready to purchase.

Choosing the right keywords is fundamental to success in the digital landscape. 53% of buyers research online before making a purchase. So, by incorporating the right keywords that connect the intentions of your audience, you can increase your chances of conversion.

Not all keywords are created equal, so it's essential to distinguish between high-value keywords and low-value keywords. Understanding the difference and effectively targeting high-value options can elevate a brand's online presence and return on investment.

Understanding the Difference between High-Value and Low-Value Keywords

Keywords can be categorized as high-value or low-value. Determining keyword value is based on various factors such as search volume, competition, relevance, traffic and conversion. For marketers and content creators, the selection of keywords can greatly affect the visibility of content and the effectiveness of marketing campaigns that will lead to the business' success.

High-value keywords have a high search volume, high relevance, high SERP ranking, high competition, high traffic, high conversion, and high revenue potential. Examples of high-value keywords include "best smartphones," "cheap flights," and "luxury hotels."

On the other hand, low-value keywords are those that have a low search volume, low relevance, low SERP ranking, low competition, low traffic, low conversion, and low revenue potential. Examples of low-value keywords include "how to tie a tie," "DIY home decor," and "healthy breakfast ideas."

Here are the key differences between high-value and low-value keywords in terms of characteristics, search volume, relevance, SERP ranking, competition, traffic, conversion, and revenue:

Now that we've identified the differences between high-value and low-value keywords, let's explore strategies that can assist you in identifying keywords that not only attract more visitors but are likely to convert leads into customers, ultimately impacting your bottom line.

Performing Competitor Keyword Analysis

Many businesses might fail to achieve their online potential because they overlook the importance of high-value keywords or don't focus on utilizing them. They miss out on the crucial aspect of turning one-time visitors into loyal customers.. It's not just about traffic; it's about relevant traffic that converts.

Why High-Value Keywords Matter

High-value keywords also have a higher commercial intent, meaning they are closely related to products and services offered by a business. It makes it easier for businesses to target their ideal audience and promote their offerings effectively.

Finding the right keywords involves thorough research, analysis and utilization of several tools and techniques. The following strategies can help you find or identify high-value keywords.

1. Define Your Content Goals and Objectives

Content goals and objectives before starting your keyword research cannot be overstated. It aligns the process with the end objectives, ensuring that the keywords you target will effectively contribute to your business objectives, such as driving traffic, increasing conversions, or building brand awareness.

For example, if you aim to increase your product sales, you should focus on transactional keywords that indicate purchase intent. On the other hand, if you want to establish leadership in your industry, you should target informational keywords relevant to your expertise and resonate with your audience's quest for knowledge.

2. Identify Your Target Audience

Understanding your target audience directs your content to resonate with the right people. Crafting funnel content that is not only found but also truly valuable to your target audience increases engagement, fosters trust and turn casual visitors into loyal customers.

To profile your target audience effectively, consider demographic information (age, gender, occupation, and education level) and psychographic factors (values, hobbies, and lifestyles).

Understanding your target audience helps identify your target audience's search patterns, which uncover the keywords they are likely to use when searching for information online. Recognizing their words and phrases allows you to tailor your keyword strategy more effectively.

3. Competitive keyword analysis

When you research keywords, you need to consider search volumes, competition, and You must consider search volumes, competition, and relevance when researching keywords.

Again, not all keywords are equal. While some may have high search volumes, they can be extremely competitive and challenging to rank for, while others may have low competition but low search volumes as well.

Relevance is a thing you need to keep in mind in your research. Your keywords must align with your content and business offerings; otherwise, you may attract the wrong audience or fail to rank for those terms.

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4. Check the Keyword Difficulty (KD)

Keyword difficulty indicates the difficulty of ranking high for a specific keyword in Google’s organic search results. It is expressed in percentages, with 100% as extremely competitive and difficult to rank for on Google’s first page.

A low KD indicates that there is a higher chance of ranking well due in part to fewer competitors targeting these terms. Conversely, high KD keywords can be resource-intensive and require significant effort to achieve high rankings.

The acceptable value of keyword difficulty for identifying high-value keywords is subjective and depends on your SEO strategy. A general guideline is to target keywords with a low to moderate keyword difficulty score, which is typically considered to be between 0-30 or 0-40, depending on the tool used.

Tools available to measure keyword difficulty (KD) include:

Ahrefs: A popular SEO tool that provides accurate and reliable search rankings. It calculates KD by looking at the number of websites linking to the top 10 ranking pages for a given keyword.

SEMrush: Another popular SEO tool that provides a keyword difficulty score based on various parameters, including the Authority Score of top-ranking URLs, the search volume of the keyword, and the presence of SERP features.

Moz Keyword Explorer: A tool that provides a proprietary Keyword Difficulty score based on the Page Authority (PA) and Domain Authority (DA) scores of the first page of Google result ranking for a given query.

Google Keyword Planner: A free keyword tool providing keyword ideas, search volume, and competition data.

BuzzSumo: A powerful tool that helps marketers analyze which keywords are driving engagement and traffic for their closest competitors.

5. Use Keyword and Competitive Research Tools

Keyword research tools help businesses understand what people are searching for, why they are searching, and the terms they use. These tools provide insights into relevant search terms and help identify high-value keywords that can drive high-quality traffic to your website. By understanding the keywords that align with user intent, businesses can create content that meets the needs of their target audience. These keywords can be used to create content that meets their needs by hiring writers directly or using content writing services.

With the valuable keywords discovered through keyword research tools, businesses can improve their ranking position in search engines, attract more organic search traffic, and ultimately increase sales.

Some popular organic research tools for finding golden keywords include:

Moz Keyword Explorer
Google Keyword Planner
Ahrefs
Semrush

These tools provide the competitive analysis data needed to optimize content and outperform real online competitors by focusing on the most profitable relevant search terms.

6. Choose Keywords by User Intent

Search intent is why a user types a particular query into a search engine. It has four types: informational, navigational, commercial, and transactional.

Informational Keywords: These are used when searchers seek information or answers to questions. They are often formatted as questions or phrases beginning with "how to," "what is," or "guide to."
Navigational Keywords: Searchers use these to find a specific website or page.
Commercial Keywords: These show that a searcher is looking for information to make a purchase decision but is not quite ready to buy. They might include words like "review," "best," or "top 10."
Transactional Keywords: When a searcher is ready to purchase, they use transactional keywords. These often include words like "buy," "deal," "discount," or specific product names.

To rank in Google and attract high-quality traffic, ensure your content addresses the intent behind the search queries you're targeting. Whether users are seeking information, exploring their options, or ready to buy, tailoring your content to meet their intent improves the user experience and increases the likelihood of conversion. This relevance also helps outperform top organic competitors in search results.

7. Consider Long-Tail or Low-Hanging Fruit Keywords

Long-tail keywords are specific, longer phrases people use to search for information. They are less common than short-tail keywords and have lower search volumes.

Long-tail keywords attract more targeted traffic that is more likely to convert. They are also less competitive, making ranking them in search engines easier.

Long-tail keywords take up 70% of all search queries. They have higher conversion rates than generic keywords. You can use the following tools to find them:

StoryChief’s AI Keyword Generator: Automate keyword research, competitor keyword analysis, and get actionable suggestions to optimize new and existing content for SEO.
HubSpot Content Strategy Tool: This tool overviews the top 100 sites that rank for a term and shows search volume data over the last 12 months.
Semrush: Semrush offers the Keyword Magic Tool, which generates thousands of long-tail keywords in seconds, and the Topic Research Tool, which helps find specific topics closely related to a keyword. For competitor keyword analysis, insert the top three competitors and their competitors URLs to discover rival sites' keywords and their Google search volumes. You can also analyze your backlink profile.
AnswerThePublic: This tool visualizes search questions and suggests long-tail keywords based on the seed keyword.
Ubersuggest: Ubersuggest provides search volume data and SERP analysis for long-tail keywords.

“Low-hanging fruit” is a metaphor referring to a task or goal that can easily be achieved with a little time, effort and resources to complete. In SEO, low-hanging fruit keywords are relatively easy to rank for, as they are less competitive and often have a lower search volume.

Low-hanging fruit generally appear on the second or third page or even at the bottom of the first page. Most competitors overlook them because they are too focused on the highly competitive, high-volume keywords.

Low-hanging fruit keywords contribute to high-value keywords by offering opportunities to rank quickly and drive business value. It helps achieve your organic traffic goals and improve your SEO performance.

8. Organize and Choose Your Topic Clusters

Topic clusters are groups of webpages used to establish authority around a particular subject, particularly in the eyes of search engines. Each topic cluster includes a pillar page that provides a broad overview of a topic. This pillar page links to (and is linked from) cluster pages that cover associated subtopics.

Organizing content into topic clusters involves grouping similar keywords based on search intent and building out each of the core topics with subtopics using keyword research. It creates a structured network of interlinked pages that enhance the user experience by making information more accessible and logically organized. This model also enables search engines to crawl through a site more efficiently and recognize topic authority, thereby potentially improving the website's ranking for specific keywords.

9. Execute Keyword Competitive Analysis

Conducting competitor keyword analysis involves finding and analyzing the keywords your competitors target and rank for. It can help you gain insights into the search intent of your competitors' audiences, identify gaps in your competitor strategy, create better content, and target top keywords.

To conduct a keyword competitive analysis, you must identify your primary competitors and use online tools like WordStream, Google Keyword Planner, SE Ranking, Ahrefs, or Semrush to find their keywords. Take note of all the main keywords, their search volume and rank, and put together all of this information in one place, like an Excel sheet or online doc.

Keep track of your competitors' ranking changes and adjust your strategy accordingly.

10. Calculate Keyword Value

To assess the value of a keyword, you should consider various factors that help you prioritize and choose keywords for your SEO strategy.

Search Volume: This metric indicates the average number of monthly searches for a keyword. Higher search volume means more potential traffic if you rank well for that keyword.
Keyword Difficulty (KD): KD measures how difficult it is to rank for a keyword. A lower KD indicates that it may be easier to rank for the keyword, while a higher one suggests it will be more challenging.
Search Intent: Understanding a keyword's intent helps meet user expectations and ranks well. Keywords can have various intents, such as informational, navigational, or transactional.
Conversion Potential: This metric reflects how likely a web user is to perform a desired action, such as purchasing or signing up for a newsletter, after clicking on a search result. You can estimate conversion potential by looking at a keyword's cost-per-click (CPC).
Relevance: Ensure your content is keyword-relevant and meets the searcher's needs. Relevance is critical in ranking well and providing a positive user experience.
Competition: Analyze the top-ranking pages for a keyword to understand the competition level. It will help you determine if it's worth targeting the keyword and how much effort you'll need to create content that outranks the competition.
Keyword Variants: Consider using keyword variants, which are similar but not identical to your main keyword. It can help you rank for a broader range of related terms and avoid keyword stuffing.

By evaluating these metrics, you can prioritize and choose keywords and create an actionable plan to achieve your SEO objectives and improve your user experience.

11. Track Keyword Performance

After implementing targeted keywords, you should monitor their performance to know their impact on your search engine rankings and website traffic. It helps you identify which keywords drive results and which may fall short of expectations.

By identifying this, you can optimize high-performing keywords and make necessary changes to underperforming ones. It ensures that your website always ranks for the right keywords, bringing in more relevant traffic.

Optimizing High-Value Keywords in Content

This guide does not stop after identifying high-value keywords. There is still one more step to take - optimizing these keywords in your content. Having the right high-value keywords isn't enough; you must know how and where to use them properly.

Incorporate High-Value Keywords in Title/Meta Description

The title and meta description are the first things that users see when they search for something on search engines. You should include high-value keywords in them to increase the chances of your content being clicked on.

Make sure that the title and meta description are compelling and accurately reflect the content of the page.

Incorporate High-Value Keywords in Header Tags

Header tags help search engines understand the content's hierarchy and each section's importance. A quick scan of these tags provides a clear understanding of the scope of the content for search engines and users.

Incorporate High-Value Keywords in Image Alt Tags

Use High-Value Keywords Naturally Throughout the Content

Integrating high-value keywords into your content should be natural. Keyword stuffing, the practice of overloading your content with keywords in an unnatural way, negatively impacts the readability of your text and may lead to search engine penalties.

Instead, aim to create high-quality, user-centric content that thoughtfully includes these keywords where they are contextually relevant to retain the interest and trust of your readers.

Concluding Thoughts on How to Find a High-Value Keyword

In the digital world, the significance of high-value keywords cannot be overstated. High-value keywords are the foundation of an effective online strategy, influencing search engine ranking, organic traffic, and overall digital visibility.

However, it's important to recognize that high-value keywords are not a one-time solution. Instead, they require ongoing monitoring and optimization to maintain effectiveness and keep pace with the ever-evolving digital landscape.

Continuous tracking and analysis of high-value keywords ensure that they remain impactful and aligned with current trends and consumer behavior. Regular monitoring allows businesses to adapt to shifts in search patterns, capitalize on new opportunities, and refine their online presence for maximum impact.

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The Ultimate Guide to Uncovering High-Value Keywords Your Competitors Overlook