{"id":159389,"date":"2025-02-14T10:32:19","date_gmt":"2025-02-14T09:32:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brand24.com\/blog\/?p=159389"},"modified":"2026-04-10T12:50:50","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T10:50:50","slug":"spy-on-competitors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brand24.com\/blog\/spy-on-competitors\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Spy on Competitor? Keywords, Ads & More [16 Proven Techniques]"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Curious about what organic keywords your competitors rank for? How many backlinks do they have? What is the sentiment around their brand? You can easily check it. Actually, you can check much more information about them. So, let’s discover how to spy on competitor – legally and smartly!<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\nTo spy on competitor<\/b> sounds like a sneaky tactic. But in reality, it’s a totally ethical and legal way of gathering publicly available information to understand your rival’s strategies and performance.

\nIt involves analyzing its social media activity, marketing strategy, website, customer reviews, and more. All that to identify your competitor’s strengths & weaknesses and discover your opportunities for differentiation and growth in the market.\n\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

00 Find your competitors<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I decided to start from step zero, which is an absolute must: before diving into analysis, it’s crucial to identify your main competitors.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I know, it sounds obvious. But from my experience, many people work in chaos. Instead of sacrificing 10 minutes to create a list of competitors, they start doing everything at once.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They end up jumping from one page Tab to another and – ultimately- waste much more time than they would spend listing their competitors first.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Okay, and how to find your competitors?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Start with direct competitors, so the businesses that target the same audience and operate in the same or similar niche.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also, consider indirect ones that may target slightly different markets but still compete with you for consumer attention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Spy on your competitors! Detect their online mentions!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Start Trial!<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

A good starting point for such research is Google or ChatGPT. Seriously, these two sources can do quite a comprehensive competitor identification.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For example, I prompted ChatGPT to provide me with a list of the top 5 competitors of the Patagonia brand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"spy\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t<\/svg>\n\t\t<\/button>
ChatGPT can generate a list of your competitors in a few seconds<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Also, you can use SEO software like Semrush or Ahrefs. Those tools, based on keywords, detect top competing domains. Here you can see the organic competitors of Patagonia:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"semrush\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t<\/svg>\n\t\t<\/button>
Semrush competitive analysis features are really rich<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

And here you can check paid competitors of Patagonia:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"semrush\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t<\/svg>\n\t\t<\/button>
You can discover both your paid and organic competitors<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Now, let me present 16 techniques<\/strong> to help you discover how to spy on competitors<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

01 Keywords<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Competitor websites often serve as the central hub for a company’s activities, showcasing their products, services, campaigns, and content strategy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Therefore, your competitor’s website is the first place you should explore to gather insights. Let’s start with what matters a lot in driving website traffic: keywords<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To spy on competitor keywords<\/a>, we need to dive into your competitors’ SEO strategies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are several tools available that can help you uncover the organic and paid keywords your competitors are ranking for. Semrush and Ahrefs are the most popular ones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let’s discover how many keywords the Patagonia brand ranks for using the Semrush tool.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Organic keywords<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Start from the \u201cOrganic Research\u201d tool and enter your competitor’s domain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then, go to the \u201cPositions\u201d tab and select “Organic” to see the keywords they rank for, search intent, SERP features, traffic, volume, CPC, keyword difficulty (KD), and more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here, you can apply more or less advanced filters to adjust the view to your needs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Semrush\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t<\/svg>\n\t\t<\/button>
Semrush keyword research<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Now it’s time for analysis. Look for your competitor’s top-performing keywords that bring traffic to their website.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition to high-volume keywords, pay attention to long-tail keywords<\/strong>. Implementing them into your content strategy can be a game changer. Okay, but what are they?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Long-tail keywords are longer, more specific phrases people search for<\/strong>. For example, a typical keyword is “best hiking boots,” whereas a long-tail keyword is “best hiking boots for wide feet”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Such keywords are more precise and often have lower search volumes, but they can be valuable for targeting a niche audience<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also, pay attention to the keyword difficulty (how hard it is to rank for a keyword).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I wanted to find high-volume keywords with low keyword difficulty that bring traffic to the Patagonia website.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, I filtered the data. Also, I excluded keywords containing \u201cPatagonia.\u201d Here you can see the results:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"how\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t<\/svg>\n\t\t<\/button>
Filtered keywords<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Thanks to this analysis, I found highly popular products available at the Patagonia store.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With the \u201cOrganic\u201d feature, you can also check the keywords of specific URLs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For example, the Patagonia homepage ranks for over 41,000 related keywords, and 300 of them are in the top position on Google. That’s an impressive result!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Top\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t<\/svg>\n\t\t<\/button>
Top keywords the Patagonia homepage ranks for<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Start spying on your competitors now!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Start Trial!<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Paid keywords<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Let’s discover paid keywords for which your competitor wants to rank. I’m sure they will be very valuable for your business. Again, we will use Semrush.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Go to the \u201cAdvertising Research\u201d section. The Patagonia brand has advertisements for more than 1,700 keywords:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Semrush\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t<\/svg>\n\t\t<\/button>
Semrush paid keywords analysis<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

You can filter the data to discover the top high-performing paid keywords. These are the keywords they are likely investing the most in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also, look for keywords that your competitors are targeting in search engines but you are not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Remember that competitor analysis is an ongoing process. So, continuously monitor your competitor’s organic and paid keywords.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

02 Mentions<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Monitoring online conversations and mentions is a great way to spy on your competitors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Okay, but how to get such insights in practice? In fact, it’s really easy!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All you need to have is a great media monitoring tool like Brand24<\/strong>. It allows you to track mentions across:<\/p>\n\n\n\n