How to Steal Your Competitor's Best Health Keywords (Legally)

Original keyword research is important, but it is slow. You are testing hypotheses about what your audience searches for, building keyword lists from scratch, and guessing at intent. Competitor content analysis shortcuts this entire process by showing you exactly which keywords already drive traffic in your niche.

Your competitors have already done the expensive work of testing which health topics and keywords generate traffic and conversions. Your job is to study what works for them, identify opportunities they have missed, and build something better.

Here is the step-by-step process.

Step 1: Identify the Right Competitors

Most brands make a critical mistake at this step: they analyze their business competitors rather than their search competitors. These are often completely different entities.

Your business competitors are the brands selling similar products. Your search competitors are the sites that rank for the keywords you want to rank for. In health and supplements, your search competitors often include:

• Health information sites (Healthline, WebMD, Medical News Today)
• Health-focused publishers (Verywell Health, Everyday Health)
• Other supplement brands with strong content programs
• Health practitioners and clinics with active blogs
• Niche health blogs and authority sites

To find your actual search competitors, take your top 10 target keywords and see who ranks in the top 10 for each. The sites that appear most frequently are your real search competitors.

Tool shortcut: In Ahrefs, enter your domain in Site Explorer and click "Competing Domains." This shows you every domain that ranks for similar keywords, sorted by keyword overlap. Semrush has an equivalent feature under "Organic Research > Competitors."

Step 2: Export Their Organic Keywords

For each search competitor, export their full organic keyword profile. In Ahrefs:

1. Enter the competitor's domain in Site Explorer
2. Go to "Organic Keywords"
3. Filter by your relevant topics (e.g., include keywords containing "magnesium," "sleep," "melatonin")
4. Filter by position (1-20) to focus on keywords they actively rank for
5. Export the full list

Do this for your top 5-7 search competitors. You will end up with thousands of keywords, which is exactly what you want at this stage.

Step 3: Find the Content Gaps

Content gaps are keywords your competitors rank for that you do not. These are the highest-value targets because they represent proven demand that you are not capturing.

In Ahrefs: Use the "Content Gap" tool. Enter your domain and up to 10 competitor domains. The tool shows keywords that at least one competitor ranks for but you do not.

Filter this list aggressively:

• Remove branded keywords (you cannot rank for a competitor's brand name)
• Remove keywords with no commercial or educational relevance to your products
• Focus on keywords where at least 2-3 competitors rank, indicating consistent demand
• Prioritize keywords with reasonable difficulty scores for your domain's authority

Example output for a sleep supplement brand:

Keyword	Volume	KD	Competitors Ranking
magnesium glycinate for sleep	8,100	32	4/5
best time to take melatonin	14,800	45	5/5
l-theanine dosage for anxiety	3,600	28	3/5
sleep supplements that actually work	2,400	38	4/5
ashwagandha for sleep reviews	1,900	22	2/5

Each row is a proven keyword opportunity where competitors are getting traffic that you are not.

Step 4: Analyze Their Best-Performing Content

Keywords tell you what to target. But to outrank competitors, you need to understand what makes their current content successful and where it falls short.

For each priority keyword, study the competitor's ranking page:

Content depth: How comprehensive is the article? What subtopics does it cover? What does it miss?

Structure: How is the article organized? Does it use a format that Google seems to prefer for this query (list, guide, comparison)?

Sources: What studies and sources do they cite? Are there newer or better sources they have not included?

E-E-A-T signals: Who wrote it? Is it medically reviewed? Does the author have visible credentials?

Freshness: When was it last updated? Is any information outdated?

User experience: How is the page speed? Is it cluttered with ads? Is the reading experience pleasant?

Document your findings in a spreadsheet. For each competitor page, note strengths, weaknesses, and specific opportunities to create something better.

Step 5: Find Underserved Keyword Segments

Beyond content gaps, look for keyword segments where competitors rank but serve the query poorly. These are often more valuable than pure gaps because you are competing against weak content rather than no content.

Signs of an underserved keyword:

• The top-ranking results are thin (under 500 words for a topic that deserves 2,000+)
• The content is outdated (citing guidelines or studies from 5+ years ago)
• The ranking pages do not have strong E-E-A-T signals (no author, no medical review, no citations)
• The results are generic health sites, not specialists in the specific topic
• User intent is poorly served (commercial results for an informational query, or vice versa)

Step 6: Analyze Their Link Profiles

Understanding where your competitors get their backlinks reveals both their authority-building strategies and potential link opportunities for your own content.

In Ahrefs, examine the "Referring Domains" for each competitor's top-performing health pages. Look for:

Patterns in link sources: Are they getting links from health publications, universities, news sites, or other supplement brands? This tells you what kind of content attracts links in your niche.

Linkable content formats: Which of their pages attract the most backlinks? Original research, data visualizations, comprehensive guides, and free tools tend to earn the most links in health.

Outreach opportunities: If a health publication linked to your competitor's article about magnesium benefits, they might link to yours too, especially if yours is more comprehensive, more current, or presents original data.

Step 7: Build Your "Beat the Competition" Content Plan

Take everything you have learned and build a prioritized content plan.

For each target keyword, create a content brief that specifies:

1. Target keyword cluster (primary keyword + related terms)
2. Search intent (what the searcher actually wants)
3. Format (match or improve on the format that ranks)
4. Minimum depth (match or exceed the word count and comprehensiveness of ranking content)
5. Differentiation angle (what makes your version better: more current research, better E-E-A-T signals, more practical advice, original data)
6. Sources to cite (specific studies and references, including ones competitors missed)
7. E-E-A-T requirements (author credentials, medical review, citations needed)

Prioritize based on the impact/effort framework: start with high-volume keywords where competitor content is weakest, then work toward harder targets as your domain authority grows.

The Ethical Line

Competitor analysis is standard practice in SEO. There is nothing wrong with studying what works for others and building something better. However, there are lines you should not cross:

• Do not copy competitor content. Analyze structure and strategy, then create original content.
• Do not scrape or republish their proprietary data without permission.
• Do not use negative SEO tactics against competitors.
• Do not create content solely to rank for a competitor's brand name.

The goal is to learn from the market and create content that serves readers better. When your content genuinely provides more value than what currently ranks, you earn the ranking through merit.

Making This Ongoing

Competitor analysis is not a one-time project. Set a quarterly cadence:

• Re-run content gap analysis to find new opportunities
• Check if competitors have published new high-performing content
• Monitor whether your content has closed previous gaps
• Track competitor movements on your priority keywords

Health content changes constantly as new research emerges, new competitors enter, and Google refines its algorithms. The brands that monitor and adapt consistently outperform those that do competitor analysis once and move on.

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