How to Find Blog Competitors on Mediavine & Mine Keywords

Are you wondering how to find high volume keywords you can actually rank for? I’ve been there!

When I started blogging, I felt like it was impossible to rank for a keyword with a volume higher than 10!

Finding high volume keywords is HARD.

It starts to feel like they’re all taken.

And then you beat yourself up for not starting your blog back in 2008 – even if, like me, you were only 13 at the time and couldn’t write anything but Twilight fanfiction.

(…yeah I didn’t get outside much.)

But who wants to write 500 posts just to get into Mediavine??

That would take soooo long and genuinely destroy your sanity.

Instead, I’m gonna share a secret way I find high volume keywords in my niche that I can rank for with ya.

Usually people pay me for tips like this, but I’m gonna let you in on it for free!

All you need for this to work is Google and Keysearch (or a more expensive keyword tool).

If you’ve followed me for a while, I’m 99% sure you have both! 

This won’t work without paid Keysearch fyi – the free plan can’t do this.

👉 Get Keysearch – my favourite keyword research tool – for 30% off with code “sheknowsseo”!

What is Competitor Analysis?

Competitor analysis in SEO is the method of finding competitors in your niche with comparable domain authorities (DA). But it goes beyond just finding them.

We find these competitors so we can mine them for keywords – sometimes called “stealing” keywords.

Before I dive in let me just say this: you cannot steal a keyword.

Keywords are not copyrighted. They are simply search terms a user inputs to get an answer on a search engine like Google.

We are NOT stealing content here.

These sites already exist online in the public domain, ranking for search terms you may not have thought of. You are just finding keyword terms this way that your niche audience are already searching for, but that you may not have thought to write on.

It’s basically a form of consumer research: what are your audience already searching for?

And if the site ranking is in your niche with a comparable/competitive DA (you can check what DA you should be targeting free here), then you have a shot.

Then you just need to make better content for your user.

Why DA/Niche Matter

We aren’t just picking any site online.

A DA 1 site in the automotive niche can’t compete with a DA 75 site in the cooking niche. They just don’t crossover.

It’s the same as a new sprinter trying to race Usain Bolt on day one.

…they’re gonna be left in the dust.

Or if a 6 year old baseball player tried to go up to bat against a pro team.

Even if they have tons of natural talent and practised a bunch, they just aren’t at the same level yet.

But if that kid competes with 6-10 year olds, they’re going to have a fighting chance.

Their chances to rank will improve over time, as well. With age, more backlinks, and more “practice” (aka. content in your niche), they’ll be able to overtake the 10 year olds.

Why Does it Matter if They’re on Mediavine?

Competitor analysis allows us to look at sites in our niche that are already ranking for keywords relevant to our audience.

However, if you’ve ever done competitor analysis on a random site you found on Pinterest, Facebook, or even a singular #1 Google ranking, you might find an empty or thin list of keywords.

Why?

Because not every site prioritizes SEO. They may not do it at all, or maybe they just do it poorly.

I used to spend weeks trying to mine competitors with a 30-odd DA who had a pretty Pinterest picture I saw or were in a Facebook round up group.

But I’d get nothing.

Sometimes they didn’t even have any traffic, let alone keywords!

That’s where Mediavine comes in.

Mediavine has a 50,000 session minimum requirement. Finding sites on Mediavine (it’s an ad network, if you’re unsure what I’m talking about), means finding sites that get traffic and likely rank on Google.

SEO and Pinterest are the two most common traffic sources for Mediavine bloggers. (This is based on anecdotal evidence I saw in their Facebook group. I don’t have an official poll on this.)

I’ve had a much higher success rate (over 80%!) in finding competitors with at least 10 unique primary keywords ranking in the top 10 with this method. Usually I’ll find hundreds!

There are always some sites that got in, then had their traffic crash in a Google update, or that got in years ago before the requirements were as high.

That’s why it’s not a 100% guarantee that you’ll get keywords from everyone you mine.

But I much prefer it to the crapshoot of mining random sites.

How to Find Competitors with Sites on Mediavine to Mine Them for Keywords

Step 1: Finding Blog Competitors

Competitor analysis is the key to finding high volume keywords that you can rank for. 

BUT how the heck do you find them??

Most people will randomly pick people they see from Facebook groups or who outrank them on a single post. (Ahem, past Nina!)

But those people may not know what they’re doing.

How often have we all tried to mine a site for keywords only to find that they rank for a total of 2 posts in the top 10?

Well, no more!

I’m gonna show you my not-so-secret method.

All you need is to open up Google (incognito preferred).

Type in the following in the search bar: “intext:Mediavine Programmatic Advertising (Ver 1.1) [niche here]”

You’ll replace [niche here] with your niche. And remove the ” – I just used those to show y’all the formula.

This will find every site in your niche that’s in Mediavine.

So we can be 90% sure they know their stuff when it comes to SEO.

For example, here are the results for the search: “intext:Mediavine Programmatic Advertising (Ver 1.1) garden”:

What Does the Formula Do?

This formula pulls the header text that Mediavine requires advertisers to put in their privacy policy.

99% of bloggers don’t no-index their privacy policy, so you’ll find a wealth of competitors this way.

“intext” looks for specific text on the site. So it’s running across all indexed sites and pages to find this Mediavine script.

We add in our niche to narrow it down to just niche related competitors, so we aren’t getting 1 million results that won’t help us.

Step 2: Check DA

Now this method can result in higher DA sites showing.

That doesn’t mean you can’t compete with them, but it may mean that it’ll be harder.

And I’m lazy so I’m all about easy rankings.

So use the free Moz bar to check their DA, or use the Site Explorer in Keysearch and compare their DR with yours.

If you have the Moz Bar extension running (and you’re logged in), press on the icon in the Chrome toolbar until it shows the DA directly beneath each listing on Google Search.

It should look like this:

Step 3: Mine Their Keywords

Using the Competitor Analysis tab in Keysearch, hover over it and you’ll see “Organic Keywords”.  Click this.

This is where you can input their domain name and mine them for keywords.

It’s not perfect – no one can know true rankings without Google Search Console or true traffic without Google Analytics – but you’ll get a sense of their best-performing posts and 20 pages (about 1000) keywords they’re ranking for.

I recommend filtering 1 to 10 for rankings so you only target page 1 keywords.

Here are the results when I mine “Simple Garden Life”:

Step 4: Write an Epic SEO Optimized Blog Post!

Now all you need to do is get to writing!

I’ve found this method massively helpful.

Typically the sites bringing in a ton of money aren’t hanging out in the Facebook groups doing comment swaps (I haven’t been in them since long before I hit 50k sessions and made my first $10k/mo).

Instead, they’re out there raking in the $$$.

We want to find those sites cause they know their keywords.

You’ll want to make sure you write the highest quality post possible. Just because you’re in a specific niche or have a certain DA doesn’t mean you’ll be guaranteed to rank.

Organize Your Keywords

An organized entrepreneur is a successful entrepreneur!

Now that you know how to find a plethora of keywords in 10 minutes from competitors on Mediavine, you need to actually organize those keywords.

Not every keyword you find will be a winner. Not every keyword should be written right now. And if you’re like me and batch work, you’ll get 1000 keywords and then lose track of them.

That’s why I created my SEO Spreadsheets!

For just $9 you get 10 spreadsheets to help you organize your keywords, create a content plan, track internal links and backlinks, and keep track of which competitors you mined.

Get the spreadsheets here to organize your SEO today!

Warning: Don’t Steal Content

I will say it again for the people in the back.

This method lets us find keywords. It is NOT meant for you to steal blog posts from your competitors.

Just because I find a keyword for “things to do in Rome”, doesn’t mean I’m going to have the same post as a competitor.

We may have very different audiences. We definitely have different styles and experiences.

Stealing or copying content from competitors – or even having ChatGPT just minorly rewrite it – is wrong.

Want to Find Competitors on Other Ad Networks?

Mediavine isn’t the only ad network out there.

There’s Adsense – which anyone can join, Ezoic – which anyone can join, SheMedia – which most people over 3k pageviews can join regardless of their 20k requirement lately), Monumetric – 10k pageviews required, and Raptive – 100k pageviews required.

I wouldn’t bother finding sites on Adsense, as literally anyone can join it.

Ezoic lists all their publishers here. But many people – myself included – have old accounts that no longer run on our sites.

A two-click way to find more Ezoic publishers and Mediavine publishers is Builtwith.com – just sign up for a free account and you can download a list of active sites running these ads. However, you can’t filter them by niche.

It’ll look like this:

I share how to find competitors on other ad networks in my signature SEO course, the Profitable Part-Time Blogger.

I found out a way to find sites on Raptive (formerly Adthrive) which has an even higher entry requirement than Mediavine. Which means even better keywords for you to snag!

For more help on that, check out my Profitable Part-Time Blogger program – full of info like this to help you take your travel blog from aw no to ah-mazing!

Read More About Keyword Research

• How Many Keywords Should I Use for SEO?
• Are SEO Keywords Case Sensitive?
• 12 Best Ubersuggest Alternatives for Keyword Research
• SEO Pageview Calculator and More!
• 23 Best Ahrefs Alternatives For Bloggers (Free & Paid)
• 19 Best Surfer SEO Alternatives for Bloggers
• How to Find Blog Competitors on Mediavine & Mine Keywords
• What is a Zero Volume Keyword?
• Keysearch Review: The Best SEO Keyword Research Tool

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