How to check your competitors keywords for free?

[Azterias]

Hi,

I have a dozen pages of competing online stores in my industry checked out. I would like to know how I can find out for free all the keywords from which they generate organic traffic and the number of hits due to these keywords for example per month by customers.
When I started this was done to me by an external company for a fee by some program. They generated a report which included a table, the keywords of a given site and the number of hits. This is how we learned which keywords are worth positioning, it was quite a long time ago and I would like to update it. Currently, I do not use external companies, I learn everything myself, optimize and position on my own.

I tried to use a keyword planner from Google but I did not get the result I wanted.

 

[fisicx]

You can’t. The company you used before couldn’t either, they just made up the numbers using an application that took a best guess.

In any case, it’s not about the number of visitors. The key metric is how many convert.

 

[gpietersz]

A client of mine had (against my advice) been paying for one of these services. They provided their estiamtes for a number of sites including his own.

When he showed me the numbers I pointed out that the numbers for his site were off by an order of magnitude, so its probable that the others were badly off too.

It used to be possible for ISPs to collect a lot of this data and I recall some providers purchasing this data (but I also recall it was still not that good, outside the US at anyrate), but the combination of more sites using https and privacy laws makes that impossible.

 

[Richard Ben]

Hi,

I have a dozen pages of competing online stores in my industry checked out. I would like to know how I can find out for free all the keywords from which they generate organic traffic and the number of hits due to these keywords for example per month by customers.
When I started this was done to me by an external company for a fee by some program. They generated a report which included a table, the keywords of a given site and the number of hits. This is how we learned which keywords are worth positioning, it was quite a long time ago and I would like to update it. Currently, I do not use external companies, I learn everything myself, optimize and position on my own.

I tried to use a keyword planner from Google but I did not get the result I wanted.

If you are interested to pay, then hire a local or best SEO agency.

 

[fisicx]

If you are interested to pay, then hire a local or best SEO agency.

How is this going to help?

The data they want has nothing to do with SEO.

 

[Clever Accounts Ltd]

Agree with the above.
Azterias, have you thought of Google and Bing's Keyword Planner tools or SparkToro?
They would usually provide far better insights about your audience.

 

[SEODEV#338055]

Let's run an independent test on a UK business website

My keyword tool says https://www.currency.me.uk receives on average approximately 935,000 visits per month from Google in the UK

(no, I don't believe it's even remotely accurate)

What does your keyword tool say?

 

[Larry Fong]

I use the keyword planner combining with the Ranker Assistant of the SEO Power-suite (the subscription fee for just the Rank Assistant is damned cheap). It is quite enough for a small scale operation.

 

[fisicx]

I use the keyword planner combining with the Ranker Assistant of the SEO Power-suite (the subscription fee for just the Rank Assistant is damned cheap). It is quite enough for a small scale operation.

Yes, but it doesn’t check your competitors keywords and traffic (which is what was asked).

 

[Fagin2021]

Although it doesn't help with traffic numbers, clues to keywords can be often be found in the 'Head' section of individual pages on competitor sites...

The title tag usually contains those words/phrases for which the competitor is hoping the page will rank.
The meta description doesn't help with ranking, but some people think it does and fill it with keywords.
Likewise, though they should know better, people still fill in the meta keywords tag.
If the head section contains any structured data it's likely to have keywords in the descriptions.

It's a bit laborious going through individual pages but sometimes worth it.

 

[NickGrogan]

Let's run an independent test on a UK business website

My keyword tool says https://www.currency.me.uk receives on average approximately 935,000 visits per month from Google in the UK

(no, I don't believe it's even remotely accurate)

What does your keyword tool say?

My keyword tool says 490k.

The only thing we can be sure of is that both are wrong.

 

[OldWelshGuy]

Hi,

I have a dozen pages of competing online stores in my industry checked out. I would like to know how I can find out for free all the keywords from which they generate organic traffic and the number of hits due to these keywords for example per month by customers.
When I started this was done to me by an external company for a fee by some program. They generated a report which included a table, the keywords of a given site and the number of hits. This is how we learned which keywords are worth positioning, it was quite a long time ago and I would like to update it. Currently, I do not use external companies, I learn everything myself, optimize and position on my own.

I tried to use a keyword planner from Google but I did not get the result I wanted.

You are not going to get anywhere near this for free sorry.

I carry out in depth competitor analysis and it uses my bespoke software, and a lot of my brain work to get what you are asking for so free AND good is not going to happen

 

[AlasterCook]

You can research your competitor by keywords analysis tools. I have been using Ahref and SemRush. These tools can help you to research your competitor keywords, traffic and keywords density as well.

 

[fisicx]

You can research your competitor by keywords analysis tools. I have been using Ahref and SemRush. These tools can help you to research your competitor keywords, traffic and keywords density as well.

These tools guess the numbers. And they are wrong.

 

[Arif Chowdhury]

Forget about the keyword analysis; the best practice is - write high-quality and valuable content regularly on your site. Trust me; your keyword analysis won't take you anywhere, don't waste time on it; instead, invest those time in writing.

 

[cts1975]

Sticking your competitors domain name in Google keyword tool may give you something for free - anything more will require a pro and some spending.

 

[OldWelshGuy]

Forget about the keyword analysis; the best practice is - write high-quality and valuable content regularly on your site. Trust me; your keyword analysis won't take you anywhere, don't waste time on it; instead, invest those time in writing.

without keyword analysis what n earth do you write about?

 

[japancool]

Find out who does the SEO for your competitors.

Sleep with them.

 

[OldWelshGuy]

Find out who does the SEO for your competitors.

Sleep with them.

That made I larf

 

[Arif Chowdhury]

without keyword analysis what n earth do you write about?

Natural writing about the topic. For example, SEO Beginner's Guide. Write naturally and your target keywords should appear naturally as well. Too many focus on keywords will only make things worse.

 

[fisicx]

Best Tools for Finding Competitor Keywords…

All you will get is a best guess. You won’t know which ones they are targeting or which get the highest conversions.

 

[Peter Morris]

In my experience, SEMrush, Ahrefs and Google Keyword Planner works best as a keyword tool for spying your competitors keywords.

 

[fisicx]

In my experience, SEMrush, Ahrefs and Google Keyword Planner works best as a keyword tool for spying your competitors keywords.

As I said above, this is just a guess. It won’t tell you what they are targeting or which ones convert.

 

[NickGrogan]

In my experience, SEMrush, Ahrefs and Google Keyword Planner works best as a keyword tool for spying your competitors keywords.

Unless you already know your competitor's keywords, you can't judge how good or bad a tool is.

What you probably mean is that these sites gave answers that you agreed with.

Run them on your own site and see how accurate they are.