How to Find Keywords on a Website: Fast Audit Tools

How to Find Keywords on a Website: Efficient Auditing Tools and Shortcuts (Beginner-Friendly)

Introduction: Efficient auditing for beginners (and what I mean by “keywords on a live site”)

Person performing a beginner-friendly keyword audit on a website.

It happens almost every week: a client sends me a competitor’s URL and asks, “What are they targeting? And how can we beat them?” Usually, they need an answer yesterday.

Here’s the reality of the situation. I can usually map a site’s keyword focus in about 20 minutes, but there is a catch. Unlike looking at your own Analytics, auditing an external site means we are working with signals, not private data. We can’t see their conversion rates or their actual traffic logs. We have to infer their strategy based on what they put on the page.

In this guide, I’m going to walk you through the exact workflow I use—from manual spot-checks to scalable crawling. I will show you how to find keywords on a website using tools you probably already have, how to organize that mess of data into a strategy, and how to structure your findings for the new era of AI search. Best of all, we will do this ethically—no hacking logins or ignoring robots.txt files required.

How to find keywords on a website: the on-page places I check first (and why they matter)

Annotated webpage highlighting on-page elements for keyword signals.

Before we open any tools, we need to define what a “keyword” actually looks like in 2026. It is rarely just an exact-match phrase repeated ten times. Today, we are looking for topics and intent signals.

When I look at a page, I treat specific elements as “high-confidence” declarations of what that business wants to rank for. If a term appears in the Title Tag, H1, and URL slug, the site owner is practically shouting, “This is my primary keyword.”

However, you have to read between the lines. For example, on a SaaS pricing page, if the H1 is just “Plans and Pricing,” the keyword isn’t “plans.” The context comes from the domain and the supporting H2s. Here is the hierarchy of signals I look for, ranked by importance.

The “keyword signals” checklist (copy/paste)

Checklist graphic showing keyword signal elements like title, H1, and URL.

Use this checklist to scan any URL manually before you run a full crawl. It helps you build a hypothesis about the page’s intent.

Title Tag: The strongest signal. Does it lead with a non-branded term?
URL Slug: Is it clean (e.g., /best-seo-tools/) or messy (/p=123)? Clean slugs usually contain the primary keyword.
H1 Heading: Should match the Title Tag closely but often sounds more conversational.
First 100 Words: Does the introduction clearly define the topic?
H2/H3 Subheadings: These often contain secondary keywords and long-tail questions.
Internal Anchor Text: How do other pages link to this one? (A massive signal for authority).
Image Alt Text: often overlooked, but describes the visual context.
Schema Markup: Check specifically for FAQPage or Article schema, which often explicitly lists questions the content answers.

My personal rule of thumb: I generally ignore the meta keywords tag. It has been obsolete for years, and if a site is using it, it usually tells me their SEO strategy is outdated.

My 20-minute workflow for how to find keywords on a website (live-site audit, step by step)

Diagram illustrating a 20-minute keyword audit workflow.

When I am rushing to build a competitive audit, I don’t try to boil the ocean. If you try to analyze 10,000 pages at once, you will just get overwhelmed by data. Instead, I use a sampling method that gives me 80% of the insight in 20% of the time.

Tools like Ahrefs’ Site Audit are powerful—they can crawl up to 170,000 URLs per minute—but for this workflow, we need precision over volume. Here is how I break down my 20-minute sprint.

Step 1 — Pick the right sample of pages (don’t start with the whole site)

I never start by crawling the entire domain. I look for the templates that drive the business. I usually grab one of each of the following:

The Homepage: Defines the broad brand positioning.
Top “Money” Page: A core service or product page (check the main navigation).
One Category Page: To see how they group topics.
One High-Intent Blog Post: To see how they handle informational content.

Heuristic: I check the breadcrumbs. If I’m on a product page, the breadcrumb trail usually reveals the site’s entire topic hierarchy (e.g., Home > Men’s Shoes > Running Shoes).

Step 2 — Read the SERP to confirm intent (before you obsess over terms)

This is where beginners get stuck. They extract a keyword like ” CRM software” and immediately put it on a list. But before I write anything down, I Google it.

I call this the “Sanity Check.” I look at the live SERP to see what Google actually rewards for that term. I write down 3–5 bullets based on what I see:

Page Type: Are the top results product pages (demos) or long guides (“What is a CRM?”)?
SERP Features: Is there a “People Also Ask” box? (Goldmine for questions).
AI Overviews: Since Google’s AI Overviews now appear in over 50% of US desktop searches, I check if an AI summary is dominating the top. If so, I need to know what definitions it’s pulling.

If the competitor is ranking with a product page, but the rest of the SERP is informational blogs, I note that the competitor might be ranking on domain authority alone—and they are vulnerable to a better-optimized guide.

Step 3 — Extract on-page terms fast (titles, headings, body, internal anchors)

Now we extract data. For a single page, I might just use a browser extension. For the full sample, I run a mini-crawl (more on tools later). The goal here is to separate unique content from boilerplate.

A mistake I made early on: I used to simply count word frequency. I’d end up thinking a page was targeting “Privacy Policy” or “Contact Us” because those words appeared in the footer of every single page. Now, I strictly filter my extraction to the main content area (<main> or <article> tags) to avoid false positives.

Step 4 — Cluster what you found into topics (so it’s not just a messy list)

You should now have a raw list of terms. Don’t leave them in a messy spreadsheet. I group them into “buckets” or topic clusters immediately. This is how modern SEO works—we target topics, not just strings of text.

Example Cluster:

Primary Topic (Pillar): Email Marketing Software
Supporting Terms: automation tools, best email templates, drip campaigns, open rates.
FAQs: “Is email marketing dead?”, “Free vs paid email tools.”

Step 5 — Score opportunities (what to optimize first)

Finally, I have to prioritize. I can’t chase every keyword found on a competitor’s site. I use a simple gap analysis table:

Topic / Keyword	Search Intent	Competitor Strength	Our Gap	Priority Score (1-3)
Project Management Tools	Commercial	Weak (Thin content)	We have no page	1 (High)
What is Kanban?	Informational	Strong (Detailed guide)	We have a decent post	3 (Low)

Tools and shortcuts I use to find keywords on any live site (with a comparison table)

Icons representing various SEO tools like Screaming Frog, Ahrefs, and Google Keyword Planner.

There is no single “magic button,” but there is a right tool for every budget. I switch between these depending on whether I have 5 minutes or 5 hours.

Tool Method	Best For	Cost	Speed to Insight
Browser + “View Source”	Spot-checking one specific URL (Title/H1)	Free	Instant
Screaming Frog SEO Spider	Extracting data from 500+ pages at once	Free (up to 500 URLs) / Paid	Fast (Scale)
Ahrefs Site Audit	Deep technical analysis & keyword metrics	Paid	Medium (Requires setup)
Google Keyword Planner	Checking search volume for terms found	Free	Medium
Autocomplete Aggregators	Finding long-tail variations	Free / Freemium	Fast

Browser-only shortcuts (fastest start)

If I am on a call and need to look smart immediately, I use search operators. You can type these directly into Google to see how a site is indexed.

site:competitor.com "topic" – Shows every page they have on that specific topic.
intitle:"keyword" site:competitor.com – Shows pages targeting that keyword in the Title Tag (high intent).

For example, site:hubspot.com intitle:"instagram marketing" instantly tells me their pillar content for that vertical.

Crawling tools for scale (Screaming Frog, Ahrefs Site Audit)

When I need to audit a whole subfolder, I fire up Screaming Frog. It crawls the live site just like Googlebot.

My Setup: I configure the spider to “Respect robots.txt” (to be polite) and limit the crawl to the specific subfolder I’m analyzing. Then I export the Page Titles, Meta Descriptions, and H1-1 columns. This gives me a master spreadsheet of their targeting strategy in about three minutes.

Free keyword discovery for long-tail ideas (Planner, Ubersuggest, autocomplete)

Once I pull a keyword like “running shoes” from a competitor, I plug it into free tools like Ubersuggest or just Google’s own search bar to see the autocomplete suggestions. This helps me find the long-tail variations (e.g., “running shoes for flat feet“) that the competitor might have missed.

From keyword lists to topic clusters: turning your audit into a content plan

Illustration of topic clusters forming a content plan.

This is where we bridge the gap between “data” and “strategy.” A list of keywords is not a plan. A topic cluster is a plan.

Keyword-based vs. topic cluster auditing (what changes in practice)

I used to audit by asking, “Do we rank for Keyword X?” Now, I ask, “Do we have authority on Topic Y?”

Keyword-based: Focuses on individual rankings. Often leads to duplicate content and “cannibalization.”
Topic Cluster: Focuses on covering user intent comprehensively. Aligns perfectly with semantic SEO and how AI engines understand relationships between concepts.

A simple cluster map template (beginner-friendly)

I keep this in a Google Sheet to track my content execution. It prevents me from creating orphan pages that never rank.

Cluster Topic	Pillar Page URL	Supporting Article Topic	Key Question to Answer	Internal Link Status
Home Coffee Brewing	/guide-to-brewing	Best Grinders 2024	Burr vs Blade?	Linked to Pillar
		French Press Guide	How long to steep?	Linked to Pillar

Using AI-powered platforms for keyword auditing (without turning your strategy into keyword stuffing)

In the last few years, tools that offer AI SEO tool capabilities have changed how I audit content gaps. Platforms like Surfer SEO or Clearscope analyze the top-ranking pages and tell you exactly which semantic terms you are missing.

However, I treat these AI suggestions as hypotheses, not laws. If an SEO content generator tells me to use the word “comprehensive” 15 times, I ignore it. That ruins readability. But if it tells me that 8 out of 10 competitors are discussing “battery life” and I haven’t mentioned it once, that is a critical content gap I need to fill.

Auditing for the AI-search era: how I structure pages for visibility in AI summaries

We are entering the era of Generative Engine Optimization (GEO). The market for this is projected to grow massively, reaching over USD 33 billion by 2034 , but for us right now, it means one thing: structure matters.

If a human can skim your content fast and quote it accurately, an AI system is more likely to summarize it correctly in an AI Overview. I don’t try to “trick” the AI; I just make my content incredibly easy to parse.

AI-friendly on-page checklist (what I change during an audit)

Direct Definitions: I ensure the first sentence after an H2 directly answers the heading (e.g., “What is X? X is…”).
Comparison Tables: AI models love structured data like tables for comparisons.
FAQ Schema: I explicitly mark up questions and answers so crawlers understand the Q&A format.
Citation Clarity: I attribute statistics clearly so the AI can verify the source.

Common mistakes when you try to find keywords on a live site (and how I fix them)

Warning sign symbolizing common keyword auditing mistakes.

Even with good tools, it is easy to misinterpret the data. Here are the mistakes I still catch myself making when I am rushed.

Confusing Navigation with Targeting: Just because “Services” appears on every page doesn’t mean the page is optimized for it. Fix: Filter your crawl to the body content area only.
Ignoring Search Intent: Targeting a high-volume keyword with the wrong page type (e.g., a blog post for a “Buy Now” keyword). Fix: Always check the SERP first.
Obsessing Over Density: Trying to stuff a keyword in 3% of the text. Fix: Focus on covering sub-topics, not repeating the main word.
Ignoring Canonicals: analyzing a URL that actually points to a different version of the page. Fix: Check the canonical tag in the source code immediately.
Forgetting Internal Links: Finding a keyword but failing to link to it from other relevant pages. Fix: Add a column for “Inbound Links” in your audit spreadsheet.

FAQs + recap: quick answers, then my next steps checklist

Checklist icon with Q&A representing FAQs and next steps.

FAQ 1: How can I quickly find the keywords used on any live webpage?

The fastest reliable method is to use a crawler like Screaming Frog. Connect it to the URL, and extract the Title Tag, H1, and Meta Description. These three elements usually reveal the primary keyword targeting. For a single page, right-click and “View Source” to check the Title tag manually.

FAQ 2: Can I use free tools to discover effective keywords?

Absolutely. If I had to pick one free method, I would use Google’s own Autocomplete combined with Google Keyword Planner. You can use the planner to validate search volume and Autocomplete to find specific long-tail questions that real users are typing.

FAQ 3: What’s the difference between keyword-based and topic cluster auditing?

Keyword-based auditing looks at isolated terms (e.g., “ranking for ‘shoes'”). Topic cluster auditing looks at the relationship between pages (e.g., “ranking for the entire ‘running’ category via a pillar page and supporting posts”). Clusters build better authority and resilience against algorithm updates.

FAQ 4: Are AI-powered content platforms useful for keyword auditing?

Yes, primarily for relevance and structure. They help you identify missing sub-topics that your competitors are covering. However, always prioritize user experience over the raw “score” these tools provide—don’t sacrifice readability for density.

FAQ 5: How do I ensure my content ranks well in AI-generated search responses?

Focus on clarity and formatting. Use clear headings, provide direct answers immediately following those headings, use AI article generator workflows to create structured summaries, and implement schema markup (like FAQPage) to help machines understand your content’s context.