Use your competitors in Google Ads' keyword planner

Here's a little known trick that not many know about in Google Ads.

You can use your competitor's websites and landing page in keyword planner. This technique can help with keyword research for your own campaigns or for competitor analysis.

I use this technique with new clients, when I want to understand the big players in the market. Here's how it works.

Start with a website: Google Ads keyword planner

What is the keyword planner in Google Ads?

Keyword planner is a powerful free research tool within Google Ads. It's used to help advertisers research keywords for their campaigns. The planner pulls data from Google search about the search volumes for different keywords all around the world.

The typical way to use keyword planner would be to give it a list of keywords. Planner pulls the information about them from Google's huge database and returns the keywords with monthly search volumes, competitive level and estimated costs per click. This can help you determine wether you should target certain keywords and what volumes and costs to expect.

Using websites instead of keywords

Planner also offers any alternative way to research keywords. You can add a website domain instead of keywords. With this method, Google scans the website and produces a list of relevant keywords for this business based on how it "understands" the site's content. The most common way of using this feature is to add your own website and let Google find the right keywords for you.

Competitor URLs in keyword planner

But the "Start with a website" feature isn't only limited to your own site. You can use any URL on the internet and let Google analyse the site and output keyword ideas. Here's why this method is so good.

1. Get a comprehensive list of keywords that Google thinks are relevant to a similar business.
2. If the competitor is more established or has a better site content, you'll get more keywords and ideas that Google will find on your own site. You can easily tap into their content strategy and pick the most relevant keywords for you.
3. Gain insights on how Google "understands" or misunderstands your competitor's sites. Is it aligned with what they actually do? Do you spot any weaknesses and opportunities.

Find high quality competitor sites

Not sure which competitors you should choose? Here's a good tip for keyword research.

1. Search for a service or product that you offer on Google.
2. Scroll past the paid ads to the organic listings. The top organic websites are doing something right with their SEO. These are usually ideal websites as a starting point for keyword research.

Step by step: How to research competitors with Google keyword planner

1. Launch Google Ads. In the left tab click on Tools > Planning > Keyword Planner.
   
2. In keyword planner you should have 3 options. Choose 'Discover new keywords'.
   
3. The default option here is the 'Start with keywords' tab. Click on 'Start with a website.
4. Paste the website URL in the field and choose the language and location you want to target.
   
5. Choose between Google using the whole domain or just the specific page URL.
6. Click get results, lean back and sip from your brew.

Summary - Keyword planner as a competitor research tool

Keyword planner is powerful. There are other comprehensive competitor research tools out there. But they are not free and also work with 3rd party data and estimations. Google Ads provides reliable search volume and also give insight on how Google understands different websites. It's also free to use and integrated directly with your PPC campaigns. And that's why we like it.

About Happy PPC

We're a Google Ads performance marketing agency specialising in direct to consumer brands. We work with a mixture of ecommerce and lead generation accounts and help our clients scale their PPC accounts.

Odi Caspi - Founder