The brewing competition in the digital marketing field has led nearly all organisations or businesses to try to know each other’s secrets. Google Ads analysis could be a good start to analyse competitors’ business activities to beat them. This is because all online business uses Google Ads to gain their visibility and higher rank on the search engine page.
In Google Ads, there are various elements which are optimised by competitors to gain a competitive advantage. One of them is choosing the right keywords for Ad promotion. The ability to identify these secret keywords which helps their Google Ads to rank and use them in your favour could leverage your business.
So, here is a discussion of the tools and techniques to identify the secret of the competitor keyword analysis process for Google Ads.
1. Overview of Competitor Keyword Analysis
Competitor Keyword Analysis is the approach of discovering the main keywords used by the competitor in ranking their Google Ads and content. It is to gain information about the specific keywords to be used to outrank the competitors on the search results page which is a key part of SEO strategy.
Keyword competition is a major factor for Google Ads ranking for any business as the greater the competitiveness of a keyword, higher the difficulty to rank on them. Sometimes you will find the competitors and you are using the same popular keyword to rank your business. In this condition, you are required to understand the supporting keywords to be used to help retain a better ranking on SERP than your competitors. This is not as easy as it seems and requires systematic steps to be followed to know competitor keywords for Google Ads.
2. Unrevealing Secrets of Competitor Keyword Analysis for Google Ads
A business always needs to remain one step ahead of its competitors. Unravelling the secret keywords used by competitors for their Google Ads helps you strategize your next best move. This is because you develop the strength to determine the best actionable phrases and keyword matches for your Google Ads to rank better on the SERP (search engine result page).
2.1 Identify Your Competitors
One of the basics for competitor keyword analysis regarding Google Ads is identifying your competitor.
You may consider a certain brand to be your competitor because they are performing far better than you. In the process, you ignore the other immediate brands that are next in rank on the SERP (search engine rank page). A detailed research is required to identify your key competitors for the products and services to be advertised by you on Google Ads.
In selecting your competitors, look for brands that are selling same or similar products and targeting similar audiences. Understanding the competitor business landscape in the digital field is essential to identify relevant competitors to follow.
2.2 Overview of Competitor’s Google Ads
Do not search for only recent Google Ads set by your competitors and be involved in detailed research. You need to go through major Google Ads displayed by your competitors in the last three to six months on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and others.
Use Google Ads Transparency Centre which provides information regarding the advertisement run by the competitors in relation to specific regions or locations. It also offers information about the add format and the last date it is updated. It shows details about the target audience and paid sponsors used for the ads.
2.3 Execute Detailed Keyword Research
A detailed keyword research is essential for finding tricks used by them to get their Google Ad ranked at the best. For this purpose, knowledge of the best tools to be used is essential.
Google Keyword Planner is the first and foremost tool to be used in performing competitor keyword analysis for Google Ad. This is because it is directly linked with the Google Ads account which helps in easy identification of the competitor keywords. A detailed idea regarding its use and some additional tools is provided below.
2.4 Analyse the Identified Keywords
After generating the competitor keyword list through analysis of Google Ads, it is time to analyse and understand their contribution to the competitor’s business ranking.
Initially look for the search volume of the keywords used by competitors. It would help you understand which high-ranked keywords are strongly used by the competitors in influencing increased impressions for their Ad. This is because high-ranked keywords help in generating increased leads and traffic to the website as they relate to the search intent of the audience.
You need to determine the keyword difficulty from the identified keyword list of your competitor’s Google Ad. This is because it would allow you to understand which keywords will be hard for you to be used to rank your Ads in a similar way to your competitors. The best approach will be to find high search volume keywords with low difficulty. This is because they would be easier to use for ranking your Ad similar to your competitors.
Also look for the relevance level of the keywords used by the competitors for their Google Ads. It would help to understand which keywords from the list are to be targeted by you. Do not randomly select keywords from the competitor list to rank your ad as it would be useless. Focus on analysing the search intent of your audience and accordingly set the keywords.
3. Examine Creative Ad Approaches
The identification of the main keywords used by competitors to rank their Google Ads is not only part of competitor keyword analysis. You need to also review their ad copy to determine the way identified keywords are strategically placed to attract the target audience.
Review the headlines, meta-tags, SEO tags, descriptions and call-to-action used by the competitors in their Google Ads. It is to identify their strategic action in including the keywords and creativity to promote their Ad. This data will help you understand the way to modify your existing Google Ads to remain at par with your competitors.
You know the process of generating a competitor keyword list for Google Ads, but knowledge of the best tools to be used to generate competitor keyword list is equally important. Your idea cannot only beat the competition. You need to have valid evidence and resources to work on which could be generated through one or any of these tools.
4. Tools for Competitor Keyword Analysis for Google Ads
4.1 Google Keyword Planner
In linking your google keyword planner for competitor keyword analysis for Google Ads, you need to log in to your account on the app. Now tap on the box “Discover new keywords”. Then tap on “Start with a website” tab after which you copy and paste your competitor’s link for Google Ads or their home page. Simply click on “Get Results” to generate a competitor keyword list.
Google Keyword Planner is the best tool to identify and filter top keywords used by competitors in ranking their content or Google Ads on the online platform. It offers you wide range of filtering options to sort out keywords used by competitors such as average monthly searches, year-over-year change, competition or popularity level and others.
The planner helps in determining the average cost of an Ad to be shown in search of specific keywords used by the competitors in ranking their Google Ads. It helps you create an estimated budget for your Ad. However, the limitation of using the Google Keyword Planner for competitor keyword analysis for free is that it provides limited volume data for keywords. It also limits to group keywords identified from competitor analysis and research based on campaigns and segments. This creates difficulty in targeting relevant keywords for specific Ads to gain a competitive advantage.
4.2 Semrush
Semrush is one of the best SEO tools and sorted applications for competitor keyword analysis. In making competitor keyword analysis, open your Semrush account. Here, you will be directed to all the organic performance of the competitor. Just enter your competitor’s Google Ad link in the “enter domain” part of Organic Traffic Insight tab and click on “Traffic Insights”. You can also select “Keyword Gap” tab to generate comparative results of the keywords not used by you, but your competitors which is helping them to rank on SERP.
Semrush helps to gather and present enough competitive information. It offers competitor keyword analysis to be made by comparing your and your competitor’s domain at the same time. It helps in identifying the keyword gap faced by you compared to your competitors in ranking your Google Ads and content.
Semrush provides an accurate idea of the difficulty of keywords used by competitors for ranking on the market. It helps you to determine your capability to rank on those keywords or chose similar ones to gain competitive advantage. Semrush is free but it is limited to 10 requests for a single account. If you are expecting to perform competitor keyword analysis free for more than 10 competitors, then you need to avail a paid plan.
4.3 Ahrefs
In Ahrefs, initially sign in and navigate to tap “Site Explorer”. Here, you need to add your URL in the text box. Later, tap on to “Content Gap” under organic search on the application. Here, you need to all your competitor’s URL. Now click on “Show keywords”.
The paid version of Ahrefs offers quality competitor keyword analysis results. It shares traffic on each keyword used by competitors on their Google Ads along with ranking gains and losses and wins of snippets. However, the limitation faced with using Ahrefs in a competitor analysis is lack of an economic plan in digging deep into the competitor profile at the initial stage.
4.4 Moz
In Moz, the competitor keyword analysis of Google Ads could be performed by using its “Ranking Keyword” feature. In the tab for “Ranking Keywords”, you are required to add your own website URL on the second field and add your competitor’s URL on the first field. It will help you generate a list and a Venn diagram to show competitor’s keywords for their Google Ads which are overlapping as well as not present with your keyword list.
The benefit of using Moz fir keyword analysis is that it helps in gathering detailed ideas regarding the competitor’s performance in all aspects. It also supports impeccable audience analysis and tracking of competitor performance. However, the limitation to be faced is limited availability of comparative keywords compared to other tools. Moz can be a bit expensive to be used by small businesses.
4.5 Spyfu
In Spyfu, open your account and put your website’s URL in the text bar. Now, click “Kombat”. Spyfu automatically chooses your competitors. In case you want to change, you can execute it from the Kombat text bar. After changing, click on “Missing keywords” and get your keyword list generated.
Spyfu helps in creating a holistic competitive keyword search for you for free. It generates the top keywords of your competitors along with their inbound links, top pages, top competitors, page-one keywords and others. However, the limitation is that it generates only 5-10 keywords from the highest rank on the competitor list in the free version. You need to get a paid version for better keyword analysis.
Conclusion
Competitor Keyword Analysis for Google Ads is essential for you to understand which keywords are to be targeted to boost your ranking. It helps you implement effective tricks and strategies to outperform your competitors for Google Ads to achieve competitive advantage in the industry. However, many struggles to decide where to start the research or analysis to know and beat the competition. I hope, after reading the blog, those issues would be resolved.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
1. How to identify competitors for business?
A thorough market research is the key to identify potential competitors for your business. You also need to identify the performance of the brand on different digital platforms compared to yours. Another way is performing analysis of the customer feedback or target audience to determine your competitors.
2. What are the key techniques for performing competitor keyword analysis for their Google Ads?
The key technique to be followed in executing competitor keyword analysis is using competitive analysis templates from different analytics tools. It is to effectively create a detailed list of keywords with their search volume, relevance, difficulty level, etc.
3. What is the need for competitor keyword analysis for Google Ads?
Competitor Keyword Analysis for Google Ads is essential in making the required decision about the keywords and format to be used for framing an attractive ad copy. It is also essential to understand which keywords are to be considered for inclusion and bidding for the Ad to remain in competitive advantage.
4. What are the key tools for performing competitor keyword analysis?
A few of the key tools to be used for performing the analysis are Google Keyword Planner, Ahrefs, Wordstream, Moz and Spyfu.
5. How to outperform competitor keywords for Google Ads?
In outperforming your competitors on Google Ads, you need to select the best keyword matches and negative keywords in creating an effective Ad copy.
