As all marketers know, organic search is a massive part of most businesses’ website performance and a crucial component of the customer funnel. The SEO success of businesses depends on choosing the right keywords and making sure you're in the top position on Google SERP.
Enter Similarweb's Keyword Research tools.
Take the guesswork out of your keyword strategy and discover the keywords that are working for your competitors, in your industry categories, and even for commercial intent.
In this guide, we'll show you how to use Similarweb to discover:
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Keywords by Competitors: What keywords are driving traffic the most traffic to my competitors
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High-Intent Keywords: How to find valuable long-tail keywords to target
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Keywords by Buyer's Journey: How to generate a list of target keywords based on the steps in the buyer's journey
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Keywords by Industry: What keywords are driving traffic in my industry
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Keyword Generator Tool: How to discover new, high-potential keywords for my business
The first step in keyword research is to look under the hood of your main competitors to discover the search terms driving the most traffic to their website. So, let's take a look.
For this workflow, we'll be using tools and insights in the Competitive Research module.
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Enter your website. Click +Compare to enter up to four competitor sites. Using the sidebar, navigate to the Search > Keywords page to view the list of top keywords and search traffic metrics.
At a glance, you see the total number of search visits and the number of organic and paid keywords driving traffic to the analyzed website(s). The table provides a list of the individual keywords and various insights about each one. Consider each of the search terms, the competitive traffic share, and the URL.
Which brands own which keywords, and to what landing pages are they sending visitors? Are you losing traffic share to a competitor?
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The Keywords page includes various filters that will help you discover the best keywords to target.
Filter by Branded and Non-Branded: Filter to non-branded keywords to view brand-agnostic keywords that will tell you more about customer interests and present endless opportunities to evaluate and build out your content and strategy. Use the Keyword Difficulty score: Keyword Difficulty score, represented by KD in the table, is a 0-100 score showing how difficult it is to rank for a particular keyword. Using it, you can estimate the amount of effort it would take to rank higher on SERP for a specific keyword or keyword group. Filter by Search Intent: To better focus your efforts on finding the right keywords, filter the list by search intent. Keyword Search Intent is a powerful metric that is used to reveal more context on the purpose or goal behind a user’s search query. You can filter the list and choose between the following search intents: Informational, Navigational, Local, Transactional, and Job Search Note
For more information on the available keyword filters, visit Search Keywords.
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Select keywords of interest and create a keyword list to track and monitor the newly discovered keywords.
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You can also identify competitors' keywords using the Keyword Gap tool. Use it to compare the keywords driving traffic to your site vs. your competitors and find keywords you’re missing out on. Easily discover new keyword opportunities, generate new ideas, and understand your audience’s interests.
Now you know how to find keywords based on competitive traffic, what about terms based on customer intent?
Long-tail queries can act as a proxy for high intent. The longer the question, the more engaged a customer is. And the more engaged they are, the more likely they are to convert. Individuals whose searches are highly focused are driven by specific intent.
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On the Keywords page, set the filter to Organic Keywords and check the Questions queries box.
The table provides a list of the question queries, in order of search volume. Consider the data for each search term, including Competitive Traffic Share and the URL.
Use the filters to refine the search to Non-Branded keywords to view high-volume, objective queries. How are they different?
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Next, visit Keyword Phrases to discover word combinations being searched by consumers driving traffic to the competitive set.
Filter by 2-words or 3-words to see a list of the relevant long-tail keywords. Use the competitive traffic filters and search bar to refine further your search based on performance metrics or terms of interest.
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Click the arrow next to a listed keyword phrase to view Competitive Traffic Share over time.
Next up: how can you find keywords based on the customer journey?
As you work to improve your SEO strategy, it's helpful to build targeted keyword lists based on where customers are in the funnel: top of the funnel (TOFU), middle of the funnel (MOFU), and bottom of the funnel (BOFU). Here's how:
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On the Keyword page, set the filter to Organic and Non-Branded Keywords.
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Use the Search Bar to filter for keywords by buyer's journey stage:
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TOFU (Awareness / Informational): Try including generic terms like "what" or "which" that reflect buyers' initial exploration of a product.
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MOFU (Consideration / Directional): Try including more specific terms like branded searches and "best" that reflect buyers' comparison of products.
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BOFU (Evaluation / Transactional): Try including high-intent terms like "near me" that reflect buyers' active evaluation and narrowing of product options.
Note the search volume, competitive traffic share, and SERP Features for each buyer's journey stage. How do they change?
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Targeting keywords with the right balance between search volume and competition is critical to your SEO strategy -- especially as you segment by buyer's journey stage.
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Once you've found keywords for each buyer's journey stage, create a keyword list for each one to easily track, experiment, and optimize your SEO strategy across a range of keywords, from high volume/high competition to low volume/specific intent.
Next consideration in the race for clicks: industry keywords.
Your brand (and your competitors' brands) aside, what are the most popular keywords in your industry? What do they say about consumer interests, and how can you leverage them to drive more people to your site?
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In the Search module, select Keywords by Industry and choose your industry.
Set the time frame and geographic region for your analysis. Filter by non-branded to view brand-agnostic terms.
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The table shows the list of top keywords sending traffic to the selected industry and several qualifying search and traffic metrics.
Use the Newly Discovered and Trending Pages filters to find new and trending topics that you don't want to miss out on. Include or Exclude specific terms using the search bar.
We've covered keywords by brand competition, keyword competition, search intent, buyer's journey stage, and industry. Now, let's talk about generating keywords for your business with the (*drumroll*): Similarweb Keyword Generator!
It's as simple as this: enter a keyword or keyword list and discover keyword ideas based on one of three search engines, Google, Amazon, or YouTube.
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Within the SEO module, go to Keyword Opportunities > Keyword Generator module. Choose to search for keywords optimal for Google Search, Amazon On-Site Search, or YouTube.
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Enter a seed word(s). The tool returns a list of keywords and provides insights on search volume, trends, zero-click %, Keyword Difficulty, Search Intent, and more.
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Tab through the keyword lists, including Phrase Match, Related Keywords, Trending Keywords, and Question Queries to drill down into the long-tailed keywords.
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Don't just look at the first page of results! Keep going to find that golden long-tail keyword with reasonably high traffic and low competition.
Repeat your keyword discovery across Google, Amazon, and YouTube. Understanding which keywords to target and optimize for each search engine can help you drive more organic traffic effectively.
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With YouTube especially, the YouTube keyword tool can help you optimize your video content, increase your library of tags, and rank better on YouTube SERP features. And as the only tool that uses behavioral data to estimate search volume and traffic for YouTube keywords, we're pretty excited about it.
And don't forget... create keyword lists across your search engines so you can easily monitor the keywords you are targeting and optimizing.
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