DE Deutsch ES Español FR Français あ 日本語 RU Русский
Start free trial
DE Deutsch ES Español FR Français あ 日本語 RU Русский
Start free trial

Find keyword gaps and competitive opportunities without manual analysis

Compare your domain against competitors programmatically. Find keyword gaps, traffic differences, and content opportunities using automated workflows instead of manual analysis.

Note: SE Ranking API is available as a standalone plan and does not require an SE Ranking platform subscription. You can explore it risk free with a 14-day trial that includes 100,000 free credits.

If you're on an SE Ranking subscription: You can purchase the API as an addon. If you'd like to test it first, ping support via in-app chat with your account email to request 100,000 free credits – or contact api@seranking.com.

Overview

Competitive research is essential to any SEO strategy, but doing it manually is repetitive and hard to scale. The typical process involves entering domains one at a time, scanning keyword overlap reports, exporting results, and compiling findings into a spreadsheet. The deeper problem is that competitive analysis usually happens once, during onboarding or at the start of a project, and then goes stale because no one has time to repeat it.

The SE Ranking API makes competitive research a programmable step. Instead of comparing domains inside a UI, a script, automation workflow, or product backend calls the API with two or more domains and receives structured data, including keyword gaps, traffic comparisons, and ranking positions, ready to feed into a report, content plan, or product interface.

Who is this for

Agencies that need to run competitive analysis across dozens or hundreds of clients without doing it manually for each one.

SaaS product teams embedding competitive benchmarking features inside their own platform.

Sales teams that need prospect-specific competitive data before a meeting, generated automatically.

What teams are building and why

Find the keywords your competitors rank for and you do not. Compare a client or user domain against competitors and surface the keywords the target is missing, filtered by volume, difficulty, and position range. This highlights quick-win opportunities alongside longer-term gaps, so teams focus on the keywords that will make the most impact rather than working through an unfiltered list.
Show users competitive benchmarks that update automatically. Let users enter their domain and competitors and see side-by-side traffic, keyword, and ranking comparisons inside your product, updated automatically rather than pulled manually from a separate tool. Teams using this for client reporting find that always-current competitive data keeps clients engaged and reduces churn because clients see ongoing value beyond the initial engagement.
Feed competitive gaps into AI content generation. Feed keyword gaps and competitor ranking data into AI models that generate content briefs, suggest topics, or optimize existing pages based on what competitors rank for and what the target does not. Without competitive grounding, AI-generated content targets whatever the model guesses rather than the opportunities the data shows.
Use competitive data to personalize sales outreach. Scan a prospect domain, extract keyword opportunities the prospect is missing, and embed specific competitive insights in personalized outreach so each email reads as individually researched. Sellers walk into conversations knowing exactly where the prospect stands relative to their competitors, not just offering generic SEO services.

Data used in this workflow

  • Domain keywords comparison data — keyword gaps between two or more domains, showing which keywords one domain ranks for but the other does not. Used to power keyword gap dashboards and identify content opportunities.
  • Domain competitor data — organic or paid competitors ranked by keyword overlap. Used to auto-identify competitors when a user enters a single domain.
  • Domain overview data — traffic estimates, keyword counts, and historical trends. Used to benchmark domains side by side and track competitive positioning over time.
  • Domain keywords data — keywords a domain ranks for, with positions and traffic estimates. Used to filter quick-win opportunities and compare ranking performance across competitors.

Resources

Explore the API documentation and quickstart guide to understand available endpoints, integration patterns, and how to get up and running quickly.

Get started

Ready to try it yourself? → Sign up for a 14 day trial , get your API key. For additional help, please send an email to api@seranking.com .