Knowing which keywords a website ranks for is one of the most useful pieces of competitive intelligence available in SEO. For your own site, it tells you what is working, what has slipped, and where the opportunities are. For a competitor’s site, it shows you exactly which search terms are sending them traffic and which content is driving their visibility.
The good news is that you do not need an expensive tool subscription to get meaningful data. Several free and freemium options give you genuine keyword visibility for both your own site and your competitors, with enough detail to inform real decisions.
If you are new to keywords and want to understand what they are and why they matter before diving into how to check them, our article on what keywords are and why they matter is a good starting point.
This guide covers the best free methods available in 2026, what each one tells you, and how to use the information once you have it.
What You Will Learn
- How to check your own keyword rankings for free using Google Search Console
- How to check what keywords any website ranks for using free third-party tools
- How to check competitor keywords without a paid subscription
- What to do with the information once you have it
- The limitations of free tools and when to consider upgrading
Method 1: Google Search Console (Your Own Site, Free, Official Data)
If you want to know what keywords your own website ranks for, Google Search Console is the most accurate and authoritative source available. It is completely free, it comes directly from Google, and it shows you real data about the searches that are leading to your pages appearing in results.
Keyword ranking checkers are useful because they provide instant, accurate, and location-specific results that manual searches cannot. Google search rankings vary by location and personalisation, which makes it hard to know your true position. Search Console removes that uncertainty by showing you actual average position data across all searches, not a single personalised result.
What Google Search Console shows you
Go to search.google.com/search-console, select your property, and click Performance in the left navigation. The default view shows your total clicks, impressions, average CTR, and average position over the last three months.
Click the Queries tab in the table below the graph. This shows every search query that triggered your pages to appear in Google, sorted by clicks by default. For each query you can see:
- Total clicks from that search
- Total impressions (how many times you appeared)
- Click-through rate
- Average position in Google’s results
This data is gold. It tells you not just which keywords you rank for, but how often you appear, how often people click, and where you sit in the results for each query.
The most valuable thing to do with this data: Filter by position to find your striking distance keywords, the queries where you rank between positions 5 and 15. These are the keywords where a targeted improvement can move you from page two to page one, often producing a significant traffic increase from a single page update.
Our article on how to use Google Search Console for keyword research covers this technique in detail, including step-by-step instructions for finding your best keyword opportunities from Search Console data.
Google Search Console Performance report shows every search query your site appears for, along with clicks, impressions, CTR, and average position. This is your most accurate free source of keyword data.
Method 2: Ahrefs Webmaster Tools (Your Own Site, Free With Verification)
Ahrefs Webmaster Tools is completely free for site owners who verify their domain. It does not include features like rank tracking or extensive competitor analysis, but it is more than enough for improving your own site.
Once you verify your site at ahrefs.com/webmaster-tools, you get access to:
- A full list of keywords your site ranks for, with position, search volume, and traffic estimates
- The specific pages ranking for each keyword
- Your site’s backlink profile
- Technical SEO issues found during Ahrefs’ crawl of your site
The keyword data in Ahrefs Webmaster Tools is broader than Search Console in one important way: it shows estimated search volume for each keyword, which Search Console does not. This lets you prioritise which keywords are worth improving based on how much traffic they could potentially drive.
The limitation is that it only works for sites you own and have verified. For competitor research, you need a different approach.
Method 3: Semrush Free Account (Competitor Keywords, Limited Free Searches)
Semrush offers a free account with limited searches that is genuinely useful for checking competitor keywords. Semrush’s rank checker displays Google’s top 10 search results for a keyword, as well as the site’s top keywords and traffic-driving positions.
With a free Semrush account at semrush.com, you can:
- Enter any competitor domain and see their top organic keywords
- See estimated search volume and position for each keyword
- View the pages on their site that rank for each keyword
- Get a rough estimate of their total organic traffic
The free account limits you to ten searches per day and shows only a partial list of results. For most small business owners doing occasional competitor research, this is sufficient to get a useful picture of what your main competitors are ranking for.
How to check a competitor’s keywords in Semrush
Go to Semrush and enter your competitor’s domain in the main search bar. Select “Organic Research” and you will see their top organic keywords listed by estimated traffic, along with position, search volume, and the specific URL ranking for each term.
Look for keywords where:
- The competitor ranks on page one (positions 1 to 10) with significant search volume
- Your own site does not rank or ranks poorly
- The keyword is commercially relevant to your business
These are your highest-priority content gaps: searches that are sending traffic to your competitor that could be coming to you instead. Alongside checking competitor keywords, understanding their backlink profile gives you a complete picture of why they rank. Our article on competitor backlink analysis covers how to audit their links and find opportunities.
Ahrefs Organic Keywords report shows which search terms a competitor ranks for, their search volume, ranking position, and estimated traffic. Use this to find the keywords sending traffic to your competitors but not to you.
Method 4: Ahrefs Free Site Explorer (Competitor Keywords, No Account Required)
Ahrefs offers a limited free version of its Site Explorer tool that does not require an account. Go to ahrefs.com/website-traffic, enter any domain, and you will see:
- An overview of the domain’s estimated organic traffic
- Their top pages by traffic
- A limited view of their top organic keywords
The free version shows significantly less data than a paid account, but the top pages report is particularly useful. It shows you which pages on a competitor’s site are driving the most traffic, which tells you which topics are most valuable in your space, and which types of content are performing.
Method 5: Google Search (Manual Method, Free, No Tools Required)
For checking where a specific page or website ranks for a particular keyword, a manual Google search in an incognito browser window is still a viable free method.
Open Google Chrome in incognito mode (Ctrl+Shift+N on Windows, Cmd+Shift+N on Mac) and search for your target keyword. Incognito mode prevents your search history and account data from personalising the results, giving you a cleaner view of what a typical searcher would see.
While incognito mode can limit the influence of past search history, it may not completely eliminate personalisation. To determine your website’s ranking, simply count the search results until you spot your site. Although this method is straightforward, it can be time-consuming and less reliable compared to using dedicated SEO tools.
This method is most useful for checking a handful of specific keywords rather than getting a comprehensive picture of your keyword profile. For systematic tracking, the tools above are significantly more efficient.
Method 6: Google’s “site:” Search Operator
A quick way to see what pages of a specific website are indexed by Google is to use the site: search operator. Type site:competitorwebsite.com.au into Google and you will see all the pages Google has indexed from that domain.
While this does not show you the keywords each page ranks for, it gives you a complete picture of how much content a competitor has indexed and which pages Google considers important enough to include in its index. You can also narrow it down by adding a keyword after the site: operator to see if a specific page exists: site:competitorwebsite.com.au “keyword topic.”
What to Do With the Keyword Data You Find
Finding keywords is only useful if you act on the information. Here is how to use what you discover:
For your own site: Use Search Console data to identify striking distance keywords and update those pages to improve their ranking. For keywords where you rank but have a low click-through rate, update your title tag and meta description to earn more clicks. Our article on meta title best practices covers exactly how to write titles that earn more clicks.
For competitor research: Build a list of keywords your competitors rank for that you do not. Prioritise them by search volume and commercial relevance. These become your content creation priorities. Our keyword research for small business guide covers how to evaluate keywords and decide which ones to target first.
For identifying content gaps: Look at which topics your competitors consistently rank for across multiple pages. This signals a topic area where they have established topical authority that you may be missing. Our article on topical authority in SEO explains why covering a topic comprehensively is more effective than targeting isolated keywords.
Sorting Google Search Console by position ascending reveals your striking distance keywords. These are pages sitting just outside page one with significant impressions but very few clicks.
The Limitations of Free Tools
Free keyword tools give you a useful directional picture, but they have real limitations worth understanding before you make significant decisions based on them.
Estimated data is not exact data. Third-party tools like Semrush and Ahrefs estimate keyword rankings and search volumes by sampling search results and modelling traffic. These estimates are useful for identifying patterns and priorities but should not be treated as precise figures. Only Google Search Console provides actual performance data for your own site.
Free accounts show partial results. Most free accounts show your top ten to twenty keywords, not your full keyword profile. For a small business with a modest number of pages, this may be sufficient. For a larger site, a paid tool provides a much more complete picture.
Rankings change. A keyword position checked today may be different tomorrow. Google’s results shift constantly in response to algorithm updates, new content being published by competitors, and seasonal changes in search patterns.
For finding new keyword opportunities beyond what is already ranking, our article on the best free keyword research tools in 2026 covers the tools that help you discover keywords you are not yet ranking for. And for a deeper understanding of the keyword research process beyond just checking rankings, our article on how to choose the right keywords for your business covers how to evaluate keywords by search intent, competition, and commercial value once you have identified them.
Ready to Put Your Keyword Data to Work?
Knowing which keywords your site and your competitors rank for gives you the clearest possible picture of where you stand in your market and where the opportunities are. The free tools covered in this guide are genuinely useful for most Australian small businesses, and Google Search Console alone provides more actionable data than most business owners realise.
If you want an expert review of your current keyword rankings and a prioritised list of the opportunities most worth pursuing, our Free Website and Marketing Review covers your keyword performance alongside your full SEO health at no cost. Request yours at ape-x.com.au/review. And to learn more about how keyword strategy fits into a complete SEO approach, our SEO service page covers how we approach it for Australian businesses.
