How to Find a Website's Paid and Organic Keywords?

How do you find keywords that your website ranks for? There are a few ways, and I’ll go over two of them in this article: paid and organic keywords. Depending on what you are doing, one may be more beneficial than the other, so it helps to know how to find each one (and also how to use both). When you can find your keywords, you can start to understand what people are looking for in your industry and craft content that answers their questions – and gets your website traffic as a result!

The Basics

Before you even start thinking about keywords, you should figure out which search engines you want your website to rank on. If people are looking for your niche online, they may use different search engines depending on their country. The keywords will be different as well. It is best to just pick one search engine to focus on for now and then eventually move on if your business starts booming. You can always come back later! 

Next, you should open up AdWords or Google Ads (if you know what those are) and type in the product or service that the website is selling. This will help inform the keywords of where people are searching.

Step 1 - Check AdWords

Start by searching your site in AdWords. Do you see any keywords in the search box? If so, you're halfway there! Remember these because these are keywords people have been typing into Google which led them to your site. These words could be included in your meta descriptions or titles on your pages too. Any related searches should also appear below the search bar. 

However, it is worth checking another place where potential website visitors can find your site - Google Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs). Once you type into Google what you're looking for, click on 'showing results for' at the top of the page, under Quick Searches.

Step 2 - Use Google's Search Console

Keyword Tool is a way for you to find keywords that you can use on your website, both in the text content as well as metadata. Using Google's Search Console tool, you can track which keywords people search for when they get to your site. This will give you ideas about how to optimize your site for those terms. The easiest way to do this is using the filter button at the top left of the screen. When it asks for keyword phrases or types of queries, just type in paid or organic.

Step 3 - Find Competitor Ads

With SEMrush, you can access a full range of paid and organic keywords in various industries. Compile this list by checking through the keyword detail tab. Download all URLs associated with these keywords that are selling advertising space on the right-hand side of the URL address bar. The keywords will be italicized in parentheses next to the domain name.

Step 4 - Use Ahrefs, SEMRush, or Moz Pro

- Research the targeted keywords of your competitor site with these tools. It can help you determine their strategy and find gaps in your competitor site's SEO plan. It will also help you get an idea of which terms might be more effective for you if your website is not yet ranking well for those terms. For example, if I am considering starting a beauty blog and the competition has already taken the top position for a beauty blogger, but I want to start a beauty website instead of a blog, this tool will show me that there are still other words related to beauty that I can target to draw traffic (e.g., natural cosmetics, skincare)

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