Find competitor keywords and win them with Google Ads
Enter a competitor’s shop or product page and see the Google searches it ranks and advertises for, with monthly searches and what a click costs. Pick the ones that fit your product, and Claude turns them into Google Ads campaigns.
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| Keyword | Searches | CPC | Organic |
|---|---|---|---|
| 32 oz water bottle | 9,900 | $0.77 | #2 |
| 32 oz bottle | 2,900 | $3.06 | #1 |
| wide mouth water bottle | 1,600 | $0.74 | #3 |
| 32 oz insulated water bottle | 720 | $0.78 | #4 |
| water bottle stainless steel 32 oz | 720 | $1.02 | #7 |
| wide mouth stainless steel water bottle | 320 | $0.95 | #3 |
| best 32 oz water bottle | 210 | $0.97 | #6 |
Competitor keyword research beats guessing
Every search you advertise on costs money to test. Your competitors have already run that test for you.
Keyword tools give ideas, not proof
A keyword planner lists every search that sounds related to your product. It can’t tell you which of them bring a shop like yours customers.
Competitors already paid for the test
A shop that ranks or keeps advertising on a search for months has a reason to. Their keywords are the shortest route to searches with buyers behind them.
SEO suites are built for agencies
All-in-one SEO platforms come with a monthly subscription and dozens of reports. A shop owner needs one answer: which searches can I win with my product?
Everything a competitor shows up for on Google
For one product page or a whole shop, in the market you sell in.
Searches they rank for
Every search where the page or shop ranks in Google’s top 20, with its position and, for a whole shop, the page that ranks.
Searches their ads target
Their Google search ads, read by Claude: headline, text, selling points and the searches each ad is written for.
Searches for their brand
How often people search for the brand itself, kept separate and off by default, so you decide whether to include them.
Volume and cost per click
Monthly Google searches and the average CPC for every keyword, in your market’s currency.
Google’s auction range
The low and high top-of-page bid, so you know roughly what a click costs before you spend anything.
Buyers first
Informational searches (“how to…”, “what is…”) are hidden by default, so you start with searches from people ready to buy.
What one product page ranks for
We analysed a single product page: a well-known brand’s 32 oz insulated water bottle, in the United States. Without its brand searches and without informational searches, the page ranks for 90 buying searches with 55,360 searches a month.
The biggest one, “32 oz water bottle”, has 9,900 searches a month. The page ranks #2 for it, and advertisers paid $0.77 per click on average. “32 oz bottle” is smaller (2,900) but four times as expensive ($3.06), which tells you where the ad competition is. If you sell a 32 oz bottle yourself, that’s your list: searches with proven buyers, sorted by size, with the price of each click.
| Keyword | Searches | CPC | Organic |
|---|---|---|---|
| 32 oz water bottle | 9,900 | $0.77 | #2 |
| 32 oz bottle | 2,900 | $3.06 | #1 |
| wide mouth water bottle | 1,600 | $0.74 | #3 |
| 32 oz insulated water bottle | 720 | $0.78 | #4 |
| water bottle stainless steel 32 oz | 720 | $1.02 | #7 |
| wide mouth stainless steel water bottle | 320 | $0.95 | #3 |
| best 32 oz water bottle | 210 | $0.97 | #6 |
From a competitor’s web address to campaigns
Three steps, one screen each. You always see what to click next.
- 1
Enter a competitor
Paste their shop or one of their product or category pages, then pick the market and language you sell in.
- 2
Pick your keywords
Filter by organic or advertised, add their brand or informational searches if you want them. The bar at the bottom adds up the searches you picked.
- 3
Get your campaigns
Tell us where the ads should lead. Claude groups the keywords into ad groups and writes the ads from your product page. Export them for Google Ads Editor.
Choose what to analyse
The whole shop
You get the searches every page of the shop ranks for, the 300 biggest. That’s the right choice when you compete with most of what they sell, or when they’re a niche shop with one product line.
One page
You get only the searches that one page ranks for. Use it when the competitor sells many products and you compete with one of them: enter that product or category page. A drinkware brand that also sells coolers ranks for cooler searches too, which is no use if you only sell bottles.
A shop’s homepage on its own mostly ranks for the brand name and its misspellings. If you enter a homepage, the tool switches to the whole shop for you.
How to find competitor keywords by hand
You can get a first picture for free. Here’s how, and where it stops.
- Search like a customer. Type the main searches for your product into Google, set to the country you sell in, and note which shops appear in the results and in the sponsored ads.
- Read their pages. The titles and headings of their product and category pages show which words they write for.
- Look up their ads. Google’s Ads Transparency Center shows the ads a domain runs. It shows the ads, not the keywords behind them, and you read them one by one.
- Ask a keyword planner. Google’s Keyword Planner suggests keywords from any web page. These are ideas based on the page’s text, not searches the site ranks for, and unless your ad account spends regularly, it shows volumes only as ranges.
That gives you a list of guesses. What it doesn’t give you is proof: which searches the competitor actually shows up for, how often people search them and what each click costs.
| By hand | Outrank Competitors | |
|---|---|---|
| Searches they rank for | Guessed from their pages | Every keyword in the top 20, with position |
| Volume and CPC | Ranges in Keyword Planner | Monthly searches, CPC and auction range |
| What their ads target | Read every ad yourself | Claude reads each ad and lists its searches |
| Ready for Google Ads | Build campaigns by hand | Ad groups and ads, ready for Google Ads Editor |
What the numbers can and can’t tell you
Rankings come from a large database of Google results. It covers big shops well; for very small shops and small markets it can miss searches. Their brand searches are added from Google’s own data, so those aren’t left out.
Ads are the ones Google publishes for the competitor’s domain in your market. You see what they say and which searches they target, not their budget or how well they convert.
Volumes and CPC are monthly averages based on Google Ads data. The auction range is Google’s estimate of a top-of-page bid. They’re a guide for planning, and your own results will tell you the rest.
Questions, answered
What is competitor keyword research?
Finding the Google searches your competitors already show up for, in the organic results and in ads, and checking how many people make those searches and what a click costs. For a shop, it’s the quickest way to find searches with buyers behind them, because a competitor that keeps ranking or advertising on a search has a reason to.
How do I find out which keywords a competitor uses?
Enter their shop or one of their product pages in Outrank Competitors and pick your market. You get the searches the page or shop ranks for (positions 1 to 20), the searches their Google ads target and the searches for their brand name, each with monthly searches and CPC.
Can I see the exact keywords a competitor bids on?
Nobody outside Google can see another advertiser’s keyword list. What you can see is their ads: Google publishes them in its Ads Transparency Center. Outrank Competitors loads those ads, Claude reads each one and lists which of the competitor’s searches it clearly targets.
Is it free?
Creating an account is free and comes with 2 credits, no card needed. After that you top up credits when you need them. There’s no subscription and credits never expire.
Which countries does it cover?
The United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, France, Spain, Italy and the Netherlands, in their local languages. Money is shown in the market’s currency.
Does it work for Shopify stores?
Yes. It works with any online shop, on Shopify or any other platform: you enter a web address, not an app connection. The same goes for your own shop when you build campaigns.
Is it allowed to bid on a competitor’s keywords?
Bidding on the generic searches a competitor ranks for, like “insulated water bottle”, is normal competition. Brand names are more sensitive: Google generally lets you use them as keywords but restricts trademarks in ad text, so check Google’s trademark policy for your market. Brand searches are off by default, and the ads Claude writes never name the competitor.
How accurate are the numbers?
Search volumes are monthly averages, CPC is what advertisers paid per click on average, and the auction range is Google’s estimate of a top-of-page bid. Treat them as a solid guide, not a promise. Rankings come from a large database of Google results; for very small shops and markets it can miss searches, which is why their brand searches are added from Google’s own data.
See what your competitors rank for
Enter one shop or product page and get their keywords, their ads and the cost of every click.
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