So in this post, I’m going to be teaching you the exact method that we use at KonvertLab whenever we take on board a new client and are researching their competitors.
This brief guide will outline part of our keyword research strategy and with this, you’ll be able to make sure you’re targeting only the best keywords for your business. After all, targeting the wrong key phrases could result in your budget being wasted.
This is not rocket science, but there may be something here that you havenʼt tried yet.
Introducing Google Keyword Planner
Everyone already knows about Google Keyword Planner. If you donʼt: Google Keyword Planner is a free tool provided by Google to all Google Ads users.
With it, you’re able to view important bidding data about various keywords you can target with your ads. You can also discover new keywords that might not have crossed your mind.
Useful information you’ll find when doing keyword research includes:
- Average monthly searches
- Competition
- Low & high bid ranges
- More keywords that you may have missed
Now the cool thing about Google Keyword Planner is that you can actually pop your competitor’s website URL into the keyword planner. In return, it will give you a list of all the relevant keywords that are on their site.
Now, this is great and all, but letʼs take it one step further. Google’s free tool is fantastic, but it’s not the only way to go about keyword research.
Other Keyword Research Tools
Another tool that we use is called Spyfu. This tool gives us all of the keywords that competitors are ranking for along with all of the keywords they’re bidding on through Google AdWords.
It’s safe to assume that if they’re paying for each click in Google Ads, they must have some idea of what they’re doing (or maybe they’re taking shots in the dark, but this is rarely the case).
What I typically do is first run a competitor through Spyfu to get a nice big list of all their main keywords, and then I will put those into Google Keyword Planner to get even more keyword ideas.
Next, I’ll put all of the keyword data into Google Sheets and split them up into tabs based on keyword category. It pays to be organized with this stuff, you’ll see why soon enough.
Another tool that we can use is called Ahrefs.
So with the help of these tools, we can actually see where your competitors are getting most of their traffic from.
The only thing about these tools is that theyʼre not 100% accurate and thatʼs why I highly suggest “tall stacking” in this scenario.
Google Keyword Planner is going to be the ultimate reliable source, these other tools are really to just generate ideas around your competitors and their niche that you may not have thought of otherwise.
Organize Your Research, it’s Worth it
Using Google Sheets is completely optional but it really helps out a lot when youʼre trying to sort the keywords by opportunity.
What I usually do is format the spreadsheet so that it is conditionally formatted and the most expensive keywords are highlighted in the darkest color of red, while the cheapest keywords are highlighted in the lightest color green.
On top of that I also highlight keywords based on search volume from white to green to get an idea of overall opportunity, and then I create more filters base on the competition level. Now you can quickly visually sort through everything and start numbering the keywords 1 to 10 (or 20, however many keywords you decide to target) based on what you think is the best opportunity for your SEO or pay-per-click initiatives.
Itʼs very obvious when keywords are not worth your time with this coloring and category grouping tactic
This is why it pays to be very organized with your keyword research because now you have clear color-coded tabs with individually marked keywords based on their opportunity, split into subcategories which makes it easy to see which ones to target.
Now feel free to go and start tackling those opportunities with the list of keywords you have.
