Competitor keywords are keywords your competitors are currently targeting to improve rankings and generate more online traffic.

Targeting competitor keywords helps you appear on the same SERPs (search engine results pages) as your competitors. You can also use competitor keyword research to reveal weaknesses, such as valuable keywords they have yet to target.

With this information, you can perform a competitor keyword analysis to find out which keywords to focus on next (more on that later).

What Is Competitor Keyword Research?

Competitor keyword research is the process of finding and analyzing the keywords your competitors are currently targeting and ranking for in SERPs.

From here, you’ll first need to find out which keywords have worked well for your competitors so far.

To start this process, you can take a deeper look at your customers and their online search habits.

Leveraging Search Intent

Users know what they’re looking for when they enter keywords or phrases into Google.

To maximize your organic success, you will need to zero in on search intent.

Search intent is the reason behind someone’s search. And your content needs to match the user’s intent.

There are four main types of search intent:

• Informational: when the user wants to learn more about something
• Transactional: when the user wants to complete an action, like buying
• Commercial: when the user wants to learn more before completing an action
• Navigational: when the user wants to find a specific page or website

How to Do a Competitor Keyword Analysis

If you’ve already done your keyword research, you can analyze your competitors to get the most out of your target keywords.

(If you haven’t, think about broad keywords from your niche.)

Performing a competitor keyword analysis can be done in five simple steps:

1. Find Your Competitors
2. Research the Competition
3. Gather Competitor Keywords
4. Export Keywords
5. Organize Your Results

Artificial intelligence models are computer programs that aim to replicate aspects of human intelligence. Developers input rules (known as algorithms) that allow the program to make decisions, notice patterns, and make predictions.

Successful models have a user-friendly interface. That means new users can interact with it without much direction.

For example, Bing Chat is an AI-powered chatbot app that can have back-and-forth conversations with users:

People type messages into the text box and the software replies—thanks to the accessible interface.

However, it’s the AI model that does the heavy lifting. It runs in the background and provides relevant answers to questions it has never encountered before.

Users don’t interact with the AI model directly. But it powers the whole experience.

Artificial intelligence is a complex topic with a lot of overlapping terminology. So, let’s clear a few things up.

Artificial Intelligence vs. Machine Learning vs. Deep Learning

Think of artificial intelligence, machine learning, and deep learning as one big tree. 

The trunk is AI. And one of its biggest branches is machine learning (ML). But that big branch splits into several smaller branches. One of them is deep learning (DL).

What’s the bottom line?

All are connected. But each term doesn’t refer to the same process.

Here’s what it looks like:

Good Advanced Search is a feature provided by Google that lets users refine their search results. 

Users can access advanced search through different search functions or search operators.

Like this advanced search. 

This search only displays pages on Semrush’s site with the word “blogging” in the title. And only includes pages we published or updated within the past year.

Advanced search can also help your search engine optimization efforts.

Let’s explore different ways to use Google’s advanced search functionality. Along with advanced search operators to help you navigate the search results.

How to Do an Advanced Search on Google

Google has a few advanced search functions:

1. Filters: Tools to filter websites, images, videos, shopping, news, maps, books, flights, and finance
2. Advanced Search: An advanced search engine to narrow your results in Google’s search results
3. Advanced Image Search: An advanced search engine to narrow your results in Google’s image search results

Here’s how to use each one:

Filters

Filters appear under Google’s search box. Use them to refine results by narrowing the type (such as images, videos, shopping, or news). 

Then, use “Tools” to narrow the results further.

For example, say you want to find trending news topics to cover for your blog.

You could search your niche and click “News,” “Tools,” and sort news articles by the past week to see what’s happening in your niche. 

Keep in mind that some filters may only appear for specific languages. Or only for those logged into their Google accounts.

Advanced Search

Google Advanced Search lets you find pages with specific words or numbers. Or exclude certain words from the search.

You can then narrow those results further by specifying:

• A language
• A region
• The last time a page was updated
• A specific site or domain
• Where the terms appear (like the text or the URL)
• Specific formats (like PDFs or PowerPoints)
• Pages with certain usage rights (like ones free for commercial use)

For example, say you want to find recent shopping statistics for an article you’re writing.

You can do this using advanced search. 

To start, enter search terms in the first input box. Then, set the “last update” to the past year (to find recent research). Lastly, set the file type to a PDF (to display PDF reports). Then, click “Advanced Search.”