How do I discover competitor keywords?

Start with the right goal: “competitor keywords” means different things in SEO vs. paid search

Separate organic opportunity from paid auction reality

When people say “discover competitor keywords,” they’re usually trying to answer one of two questions. In SEO, the question is: “What queries send traffic to competitor pages that I should also earn visibility for?” In Google Ads, the question is: “What searches am I actually entering auctions for, and which advertisers show up against me in those same auctions?” Those sound similar, but the best discovery methods differ because organic rankings and paid auctions run on different systems and have different data limits.

As a practical rule, treat competitor keyword research as an intent-mapping exercise, not a scavenger hunt for an exact list. Your real win comes from identifying the themes (problems, product categories, comparisons, “best” lists, alternatives, pricing, local modifiers, use cases) that competitors cover well and you don’t, then turning those themes into pages (SEO) and tightly controlled ad groups/landing pages (paid search).

Choose the right “competitors” before you choose keywords

The most common mistake is using brand competitors (companies you compete with in the real world) instead of search competitors (domains and advertisers that consistently appear for the same queries you want). Your search competitors might include marketplaces, directories, resellers, review sites, and content publishers—even if they’re not who your sales team thinks of as a competitor.

Once you’ve listed your likely search competitors, you’re ready to pull keyword ideas from three places that are consistently reliable: your own organic query data, Keyword Planner website-based discovery, and Google Ads auction/search-term reporting.

Use first-party organic data to spot where competitors are winning (then turn that into a keyword list)

Mine Search Console queries to reveal “keyword gaps” competitors are capturing

If you have Search Console set up, the Performance report is your fastest way to find high-signal competitor opportunities because it shows the query strings that users searched (non-anonymized queries that returned your site). The trick is to stop looking at it as a reporting tool and start using it as a competitive diagnostics tool.

Here’s the pattern I look for: queries with meaningful impressions where your average position is not strong (or is volatile), and your click-through rate is underwhelming. In plain English, that’s often where competitor pages are earning the click even when you’re showing up.

To make this actionable, use filters aggressively. You can filter by multiple dimensions (for example, combining country and device), and you can filter queries/pages using “contains” rules or a custom regular expression when you need to group many variations together (such as “pricing,” “cost,” “rates,” “fees,” etc.).

Compare time periods to catch competitor moves (not just your own trend lines)

Competitors don’t stand still. A page refresh, a new category page, or a surge in ad spend can change what you see. The Performance report supports comparisons between two time periods (for example, this week vs. last week), and when you compare a metric the table can show a Difference column. Sorting by difference is a clean way to surface queries that suddenly dropped—often a sign that someone else improved, or that the results page changed in a way that now favors a different type of content.

When you spot a meaningful drop, your next step isn’t to panic; it’s to classify the query by intent and decide what the best “right to win” asset is: a product page, a category page, a comparison page, a how-to, a local landing page, or a troubleshooting guide.

Turn organic findings into a competitor keyword “map,” not a flat list

As you export your query set, organize it into clusters that mirror how people decide. A simple structure works: problem/use-case keywords, solution/category keywords, comparison keywords (alternatives, vs.), evaluation keywords (best, top, reviews), and transaction keywords (pricing, quote, near me). This turns “competitor keywords” into a content roadmap and a landing-page roadmap, which is where the ROI actually comes from.

Discover competitor keyword themes quickly with Keyword Planner (using competitor websites)

Use “Start with a website” for competitor-led keyword discovery

Keyword Planner is still one of the most practical ways to discover competitor keyword themes at scale because it can generate ideas from website content. In the “Discover new keywords” workflow, you can start with a website by entering any site and generating keyword ideas related to the content on that site. One important nuance: linked-page content (the contents of hyperlinks) isn’t used to generate keyword ideas, so you’ll usually get better results by testing specific competitor URLs (like a category page or a high-performing product page) rather than only the homepage.

If you want the output to stay relevant to your business model, add your own domain in the flow so the system attempts to exclude ideas that don’t match what you actually offer. Done correctly, you’re using the competitor site to expand the universe, and your own domain to keep it commercially aligned.

Validate and prioritize with forecasts (without treating them as “truth”)

Once you’ve collected ideas, move them into a plan and use forecasts to sanity-check scale and prioritization. Forecasts refresh daily and are based on recent data (with seasonality adjustments), which makes them directionally useful for prioritizing themes and timeboxing tests. They are not a promise of performance; the output is still highly dependent on your targeting, bids, budgets, ad quality, and landing-page relevance.

Also plan for gaps: keywords with very low volume or keywords considered sensitive may not be discoverable or forecastable. If you hit that wall, widen the seed (use broader category phrases) and then narrow using filters and your clustering approach.

Practical workflow: competitor page in, landing-page plan out

• Start with a competitor’s highest-intent URL (category/pricing/comparison page) to generate keyword ideas that reflect buying language.
• Refine by theme and intent so you don’t mix “research” queries into “ready to buy” landing pages.
• Create a one-to-one relationship where possible: one primary intent cluster per SEO page, and one primary intent cluster per ad group/landing page in paid search.

Use Google Ads data to uncover competitor pressure and the real searches you’re entering

Auction Insights: identify who you actually compete with in paid search

Auction Insights is your clearest view of paid-search competitors because it compares you with other advertisers participating in the same auctions. It’s available for Search, Shopping, and Performance Max campaigns, and you can run it at different levels (such as campaign, ad group, or keyword for Search). The key is to interpret it as “competitive pressure by theme,” not as a keyword list.

Metrics like overlap rate (how often they show when you show), outranking share (how often you beat them or show when they don’t), and top-of-page/absolute top-of-page rates tell you whether a competitor is aggressively present and whether they’re consistently above you. One operational detail that matters in the real world: Auction Insights won’t show insights when impression share is under 10%, so if you’re running tiny tests, you may need more volume (or a longer date range) before you’ll see meaningful competitor visibility.

Search Terms report: pull the closest thing to “real keyword truth” you can get

If your goal is to find the actual searches triggering your ads (which often includes terms you didn’t explicitly add as keywords, depending on match types and automation), the Search terms report is where you’ll live. It shows how ads performed when triggered by searches, but only includes terms with sufficient volume (“a significant number of people”), which means it will never be a complete list.

Use it as a feedback loop. The “Keyword” column (which you can add) tells you which keyword matched to which search term, and the match type column helps you understand how tightly or loosely your targeting is behaving. This is where you discover the competitor-adjacent queries you’re inadvertently paying for, and where you’ll often find profitable expansion ideas that competitors are likely already bidding on.

Search Terms insights: see themes even when individual queries aren’t shown

When you need the bigger picture, Search terms insights groups searches into intent-based categories and subcategories and can include aggregated visibility into searches that aren’t exposed as individual queries due to privacy thresholds. It’s available for Search, Shopping, and Performance Max, and it’s especially useful when you’re trying to understand emerging demand or find new angles for ad copy, landing-page messaging, and feed text. You can view it for custom date ranges going back to March 2023, which is helpful for seasonal competitor analysis (for example, comparing the same month year over year).

One important interpretation tip: category labels are system-generated and may include brand-like labels that don’t necessarily reflect a single literal query. Always expand a category before you make budget decisions, and treat categories as direction for testing, not a final taxonomy.

Brand and competitor keywords: stay compliant while you test

Many advertisers discover competitor brand terms during research and wonder what’s allowed. From a policy standpoint, using a competitor’s trademark as a keyword is generally not restricted. Where advertisers get into trouble is using a trademark in ad text in ways that are confusing or misleading, and direct competitors may be restricted from using that trademark in ad copy after a complaint process. If you plan to test competitor brand campaigns, keep your ad copy clean, avoid implying affiliation, and make sure your landing page clearly represents who you are.

Put it all together: a tight, repeatable competitor keyword discovery system

• SEO signal: Use Search Console queries to find high-impression opportunities where you’re not earning the click, then cluster by intent.
• Expansion engine: Use Keyword Planner “Start with a website” on competitor URLs to generate additional theme coverage, then filter and organize into clusters.
• Paid reality check: Use the Search terms report and Search terms insights to confirm which searches you’re actually matching and which themes are scaling.
• Competitive pressure: Use Auction Insights to see which advertisers consistently overlap and outrank you, then decide whether to respond with bidding/budget, improved ad relevance, better landing pages, or a different keyword focus entirely.

To discover competitor keywords, start by separating what you’re trying to learn for SEO (queries that send traffic to competitor pages) versus paid search (queries where you actually meet competitors in auctions), then identify your “true” search competitors by looking at who consistently shows up on the SERP and in Google Ads Auction Insights rather than just your usual business rivals. From there, use Google Search Console to spot high-impression queries where your average position or CTR suggests competitors are winning the click, cluster those queries by intent (use-case, category, “vs/alternatives,” “best/reviews,” “pricing/quote”), and expand each cluster by plugging high-intent competitor URLs (pricing, category, comparison pages) into Keyword Planner’s “Start with a website,” validating priority themes with forecasts. On the paid side, round it out with your Search terms report and Search terms insights to see what people actually typed and what themes are emerging, and use Auction Insights as a “pressure gauge” to decide where it’s worth responding with better ads, landing pages, or budgets—if you want help turning that repeatable workflow into concrete actions inside your account, Blobr connects to Google Ads and can run specialized agents like Keyword Ideas Finder (to generate relevant keyword ideas using performance data, landing pages, SERPs, and Keyword Planner) and Keyword Landing Optimizer (to align keywords and ad groups with the most relevant landing pages using Search Console and Ads data), so competitor research becomes an ongoing system rather than a one-off spreadsheet.