How to Do Competitor Analysis in SEO: Practical Guide to Beat the Competition

Do not index

To really get a handle on SEO competitor analysis, you have to go beyond just glancing at who shows up on the first page. It's about systematically identifying who you're actually up against in search, picking apart their keyword and backlink strategies, and getting into the nitty-gritty of their on-page content.

Doing this right gives you a clear roadmap. You’ll spot the gaps they've missed and uncover opportunities to build a smarter, data-driven strategy that helps you climb the rankings.

Setting The Stage For A Winning SEO Analysis

Before you fire up any tools or get lost in spreadsheets, let's be clear about why this is such a critical part of any serious SEO campaign. This isn't just about spying on your business rivals. It’s about methodically understanding the entire search environment your website lives in.

A classic mistake is only tracking the companies you compete with for customers. The reality is, your biggest threat in the search results might be a niche blog, a review site, or an industry publication you’ve never even heard of. That's why you have to distinguish between your business competitors and your SERP competitors.

A business competitor sells what you sell. A SERP (Search Engine Results Page) competitor is simply any website ranking for the keywords you want to own—and in SEO, those are the players you need to beat.

The Four Pillars Of Competitor Analysis

A solid analysis is built on four key pillars. Think of each one as a different lens that, when combined, gives you a complete, 360-degree view of the competitive battlefield. For an even deeper dive into the whole process, this a comprehensive guide to SEO competitor analysis is an excellent resource.

This flow is a great way to visualize how the pieces fit together.

As you can see, everything starts with pinpointing your competitors before moving into keywords, backlinks, and finally, content strategy.

To make sense of the data you'll be gathering, it helps to break down your investigation into these core components. Each one answers a different, vital question about your competitors' strategies.

Core Pillars of SEO Competitor Analysis

Analysis Pillar	Objective	Key Metrics to Track
Keyword Analysis	Uncover the terms your competitors rank for that you don't.	Organic Keywords, Keyword Overlap, Ranking Positions, Search Volume
Backlink Analysis	Identify the high-authority sites linking to your competitors.	Referring Domains, Domain Authority, Backlink Types, Anchor Text
Content Analysis	Evaluate the quality, format, and topics of their top-performing content.	Top Pages, Content-Type, Word Count, On-Page SEO Elements
Technical SEO	Assess their site's technical health and user experience.	Site Speed, Mobile-Friendliness, Schema Markup, Site Architecture

Looking at these four areas gives you a comprehensive picture, not just a snapshot. This way, you can build a strategy that addresses every facet of your competitors' SEO efforts.

Differentiating Competitor Types

Your first move is to categorize who you’re up against. This step is all about focus—it stops you from wasting hours analyzing irrelevant sites and helps you prioritize where to put your energy.

I find it helpful to group them into tiers:

Primary Competitors: These are the ones you know well. They sell similar products or services and have a strong organic presence for your money-making keywords. They should be your top priority.

Secondary Competitors: This group competes with you for a good chunk of your target keywords, but they might not be direct business rivals. Think bigger retailers or sites with a slightly different business model.

Tertiary Competitors: These are often content-heavy sites—industry blogs, news outlets, or forums. They aren't selling what you are, but they're soaking up traffic for valuable informational keywords at the top of the funnel.

Identifying Your True SEO Competitors

Before you dive into any analysis, you have to be absolutely sure you’re looking at the right websites. The single biggest mistake I see people make is focusing only on their direct business rivals—the brands they compete with for actual customers.

Of course, those brands are important. But your real SEO competitors are any and all domains that consistently show up in the search results for the keywords you need to own.

The answer to "who are my competitors?" can be a genuine surprise. You might discover your biggest search rival is a niche informational blog, a huge publisher like Forbes, or an affiliate review site. None of them sell what you sell, but they are absolutely winning the attention of your audience.

This is why we have to break down the competition into two distinct groups.

Direct vs. Content Competitors

Getting this distinction right from the start is crucial. It’s what keeps you from wasting hours analyzing irrelevant sites and helps you focus on the domains that are actually eating your lunch in the SERPs.

Direct Competitors: These are the companies you already know. They sell similar products or services and are chasing the same customers. If you run a project management SaaS, then Asana and Trello are your direct competitors. Simple enough.

Content Competitors: This is a much broader category. It includes any website that ranks for your target keywords, no matter what they sell. A B2B marketing blog that publishes an article on "best project management tools" becomes a content competitor, even if they don't have a product of their own.

In SEO, you have to care about both. Your direct competitors show you what a successful commercial strategy looks like in your space. But your content competitors reveal what kind of informational content is truly resonating with searchers and earning those high-value backlinks.

Key Takeaway: Your SEO competition is anyone occupying the search engine real estate you want. Don't limit your analysis to just the companies that sell what you sell.

Using Tools to Find Overlooked Rivals

Manually Googling all your keywords to see who ranks is not a good use of anyone's time. This is where you bring in the heavy hitters: tools like Ahrefs, SEMrush, or SpyFu. They instantly uncover the domains that share significant keyword territory with you, often revealing competitors you never even knew existed.

Look for a "Competing Domains" or "Organic Competitors" report in your tool of choice. Just pop in your domain, and it will spit out a list of sites that rank for a similar pool of keywords.

The metric you want to zoom in on here is keyword overlap. This is the percentage of keywords that both your site and a competing domain rank for. A high overlap percentage is a dead giveaway of a direct SEO competitor. This data-driven approach pulls you out of the world of guesswork and gives you a hard list of the domains you’re truly up against.

Creating a Tiered Competitor List

Once you have your data-backed list, the next move is to organize it. I find a tiered system is the best way to prioritize your analysis and decide where to spend your energy. It helps you focus on the biggest threats and opportunities first.

I always recommend breaking competitors down into three tiers:

Primary Competitors: These are your main rivals. They have high keyword overlap, target the exact same audience, and usually have strong domain authority. Your immediate goal is to close the gap with these players.

Secondary Competitors: This group has a decent amount of keyword overlap but might not be a perfect match. Maybe they target a slightly different audience segment or just aren't as established online. They're still significant, but not your top priority.

Tertiary (or Aspirational) Competitors: Think of the giants in your space—sites like HubSpot, NerdWallet, or industry-leading publications. You probably aren't going to outrank them for major head terms tomorrow, but studying their strategy gives you an incredible blueprint for what top-tier content and link building look like.

This simple structure turns a long, intimidating list into an actionable game plan. You can now tackle your analysis one tier at a time, starting with the competitors who pose the most immediate challenge to your growth.

Uncovering Competitor Keyword and Content Gaps

Alright, this is where the real fun starts. You've identified who you're up against in the SERPs, and now it's time to put their keyword strategy under the microscope. We're going to systematically dismantle what's working for them.

The goal here isn't just to pull a massive list of keywords. It's to understand the intent behind them. We need to see which terms are their high-intent, bottom-of-the-funnel "money keywords" versus the broader, informational queries they use to draw people in at the top of the funnel.

The Power of a Keyword Gap Analysis

The single most valuable exercise in this entire phase is the keyword gap analysis. The name says it all: you're finding the valuable keywords your competitors are ranking for, but you're not. This is the fastest, most direct path to discovering proven topics for your content calendar.

Let’s be clear: this isn't optional anymore. With over 8.5 billion Google searches happening every single day, the fight for visibility is fierce. Pinpointing where your competitors have an edge lets you create content with surgical precision.

Tools like SEMrush and Ahrefs are built for this, mapping out keyword territory your rivals own that you haven't even touched. A thorough gap analysis can transform your content strategy from a guessing game into a data-backed roadmap.

How to Run the Analysis

While "keyword gap analysis" might sound technical, modern SEO platforms have made it incredibly straightforward. Most have a feature literally called "Keyword Gap" or "Content Gap" that automates the heavy lifting.

Here’s how it usually works:

Start with Your Domain: Plug your own website in as the baseline.

Add Your Rivals: Pop in the domains of the 2-4 primary competitors you found earlier.

Run the Report: Let the tool work its magic and cross-reference everyone's keyword profiles.

What you get back is a goldmine. You’ll see a detailed breakdown comparing where everyone stands, often with clear visuals showing keyword overlap and unique opportunities.

The real power move is filtering this report to show keywords where your competitors are ranking well, but your site is nowhere in sight.

My Favorite Pro-Tip: Don't just look for "missing" keywords where you don't rank at all. A quick win is to filter for "weak" keywords—terms where your competitors are on page one, and you're languishing on page two or three. A little on-page optimization can often push these up quickly.

Turning Data Into a Strategic Content Plan

A spreadsheet full of keywords is just data. It's what you do with it that matters. The final, critical step is to turn this list into an actionable content plan by prioritizing the opportunities you just uncovered.

I always filter my keyword lists through three essential lenses. It’s a simple but powerful way to separate the signal from the noise.

Search Volume: Is anyone actually looking for this? Volume gives you a sense of the potential traffic prize.

Keyword Difficulty (KD): How big is the mountain we have to climb? This metric from your SEO tool helps you pick battles you can actually win.

Business Relevance: This is the most important one. Does this keyword attract the right kind of person for our business? A high-volume, low-difficulty keyword is completely useless if it doesn't align with what you sell.

Let's imagine you run a project management software company. Your gap analysis might reveal a competitor is ranking for "best free project management tools for nonprofits." The volume might be moderate, and the difficulty manageable. But the relevance? It's sky-high. That keyword immediately becomes a top-priority piece of content.

To see a more in-depth process for finding and prioritizing these topics, take a look at our complete guide on performing an SEO content gap analysis.

By sorting every opportunity through this framework, you build a crystal-clear, prioritized content roadmap. Every article you create will be designed to close a specific, identified gap and take traffic directly from your competition.

Deconstructing Competitor Backlink Profiles

Once you’ve got a handle on your competitors' keyword strategy, it’s time to look at their off-page authority. Backlinks remain one of Google's most powerful ranking signals, and thankfully, your competitors have already left a trail of breadcrumbs for you to follow.

Think of their backlink profile as a proven roadmap. It shows you exactly which sites in your industry are willing to link out, what kind of content earns those links, and which strategies are most effective. This isn't about simply tallying up links; it's about reverse-engineering their entire relationship-building process.

Look Deeper Than Just the Link Count

The first mistake many people make is getting hung up on the total number of backlinks. A competitor might boast thousands of links, but a huge portion could be low-quality, spammy, or from irrelevant sites that provide zero value.

Our goal is to uncover the high-authority, topically relevant links that are actually making a difference.

This is where the big SEO tools earn their keep. With massive link indexes—SEMrush tracks over 43 trillion backlinks and Ahrefs has over 35 trillion—you have a staggering amount of data at your fingertips. Your job is to sift through it intelligently to build a strategy focused on quality, not just quantity.

When you plug a competitor's domain into a tool, you need to filter through the noise. Start by zeroing in on a few key metrics:

Domain Rating (DR) or Authority Score (AS): Every tool has its own name for it, but this metric estimates the overall strength of a linking website. I always sort by this first to see the most powerful links.

Referring Domains: This is the number of unique websites linking out. It’s a much more telling metric than total backlinks. After all, 100 links from 100 different domains is far more valuable than 100 links from a single site.

Relevance: How closely related is the linking site to your niche? A single link from a well-respected industry blog can be worth more than a dozen links from unrelated directories.

Spotting Repeatable Link-Building Patterns

With your list filtered down to the highest-quality links, the real detective work begins. You're looking for patterns. How are they consistently earning these valuable backlinks? Are they guest posting everywhere? Are they creating killer resources that everyone cites?

A competitor's backlink profile isn't just a list—it's a story. Each high-quality link is a clue that tells you who they're building relationships with and what kind of content earns them authority.

By categorizing their best links, you can start to piece together their entire off-page playbook.

Common Link Strategies You Can Uncover

Guest Posts: Look for links coming from author bios on a variety of industry blogs. This is the clearest sign of a guest blogging campaign in action.

Resource Pages: Competitors often get great links from pages titled "Helpful Resources" or "Useful Links." These are pure gold because you know the site owner is actively looking for high-value content to share.

Expert Roundups: Are they quoted in articles like "15 Experts Share Their Top SEO Tips"? This indicates they're likely using services like HARO (Help a Reporter Out) to get expert features.

Podcast Appearances: Check for links from podcast show notes. This is a fantastic way to get high-authority links and build brand recognition at the same time.

Identifying these recurring patterns gives you a list of tactics that are already validated in your market. And as you dig in, it's absolutely critical to know how to check backlink quality so you can separate the gems from the junk.

Turning Your Analysis Into an Outreach Strategy

This is where all that research pays off. Once you’ve identified the high-authority domains linking to your rivals and how they got those links, you can build a laser-focused outreach plan.

For example, if you find your top competitor has landed five killer links from guest posts on top marketing blogs, you now have a pre-qualified list of five websites to pitch. You already know they accept guest posts and are interested in your topic. The cold open just became a warm introduction.

You can also use this data for the "skyscraper" technique. If you find a competitor's page has earned a ton of great links but your own content on the topic is more detailed or current, you can act. Reach out to the people linking to their dated resource and show them your superior alternative. If you're looking for a deeper dive on this, our own guide on https://blog.attensira.com/how-to-find-links-to-your-website can help.

This systematic approach completely removes the guesswork from link building. Instead of blasting out emails hoping something sticks, you're focusing your time and effort on high-probability targets. It's smarter, more efficient, and far more effective.

Analyzing On-Page and Content Strategies

Backlinks and keywords tell you a lot, but they're only part of the story. The real magic often happens on the page itself. The quality of the content and the user experience are what turn a ranking into revenue—this is where you need to roll up your sleeves and do a manual review to see why your competitors are actually winning.

This kind of deep dive shows you what’s currently clicking with both search engines and your audience. You'll get a firsthand look at how they structure their arguments, engage readers, and send all the right relevance signals to Google. Think of it as getting a copy of their playbook.

Evaluating Key On-Page SEO Elements

First, put on your search engine crawler hat. Pull up the top-performing pages you found earlier—the ones driving traffic and earning links for your competitors—and start dissecting their on-page fundamentals. These are the classic signals that tell Google what a page is all about.

Keep an eye out for patterns in how they handle the basics:

Title Tags: Are they putting the primary keyword right at the beginning? Do they add modifiers like "Guide," "Checklist," or the current year to make their listings more clickable in the search results?

Header Hierarchy (H1, H2s): A clean, logical header structure is non-negotiable for both users and search engines. Does their H1 clearly state the page's main topic? Are their H2 subheadings targeting related questions and long-tail keywords? A well-organized page is simply easier to understand.

Internal Linking: How are they connecting the dots between their own content? Look closely at the anchor text they use. A smart internal linking strategy doesn't just pass authority; it guides users deeper into their site, which is a huge win for engagement.

When you assess these elements across a few competitors, you start to see how intentionally they're optimizing for specific search engine ranking factors. If the top three results for a keyword all use a question-and-answer format in their H2s, that's a massive clue about what Google thinks satisfies user intent for that query.

Dissecting Content Depth and Format

Now, let's move beyond the technical nuts and bolts and look at the content itself. What kind of experience are they actually providing? Your goal here is to figure out which content formats are hitting the mark for your target topics.

Are they consistently winning with a particular style of content? You'll often see a few dominant formats:

Long-Form Guides: Deep-dive articles, often over 2,500 words, that cover a topic from every conceivable angle.

Interactive Tools: Calculators, quizzes, or configurators that give the user personalized value and keep them on the page.

Video Content: Embedded YouTube videos that break down complex ideas or show a product in action.

Data-Driven Studies: Original research or case studies filled with unique stats and compelling infographics that are magnets for backlinks.

If your main competitor is sitting at #1 with a 3,000-word ultimate guide, your 800-word blog post probably isn't going to cut it. This analysis should directly inform the type and scope of the content you decide to create.

To do this systematically, a simple checklist can be invaluable. It ensures you're evaluating every competitor's page against the same criteria, making it easier to spot trends and identify their strategic priorities.

On-Page SEO and Content Checklist

Element to Analyze	What to Look For	Strategic Implication
Title Tag	Keyword placement, modifiers (e.g., year, "how-to"), emotional triggers.	Reveals their approach to attracting clicks (CTR optimization).
Header Structure (H1, H2, H3)	Logical flow, use of primary and secondary keywords, question-based headings.	Shows how they organize information for readability and topic relevance.
Content Format	Is it a guide, listicle, tool, case study, or video-heavy page?	Indicates which format best satisfies user intent for the target query.
Content Depth & Angle	Word count, unique insights, original data, expert quotes, specific angle.	Highlights opportunities for you to create something more comprehensive or unique.
Use of Multimedia	Custom images, infographics, embedded videos, interactive elements.	Demonstrates how they engage users and break up text.
Internal Linking	Number of links, anchor text relevance, link placement (contextual vs. navigational).	Uncovers their strategy for distributing page authority and guiding user flow.
Call to Action (CTA)	Type of CTA (e.g., lead magnet, demo), placement, and messaging.	Tells you how they are converting their organic traffic.

Using a checklist like this turns a subjective review into an objective analysis. You're no longer just guessing why a page works; you're building a data-backed case.

This whole process provides you with concrete examples of what your audience is looking for. It allows you to create something that isn't just a little different, but demonstrably better.

Building Your Actionable SEO Roadmap

You've done the hard work. You've dug through mountains of data, pinpointing keyword gaps, mapping out backlink profiles, and deconstructing your competitors' content strategies. But right now, all that is just information. The next step is where the magic happens—turning that raw data into a living, breathing SEO roadmap that will guide your every move.

Without a clear plan, even the most brilliant insights will just sit in a spreadsheet, collecting digital dust. The goal here is to stitch everything together into a prioritized action plan. You can't possibly chase every keyword or earn every backlink at once. You need a system to find your biggest points of leverage—the moves that will give you the most bang for your buck.

Using SWOT to Clarify Your Position

One of the most effective ways I've found to organize all this competitive intel is a simple SWOT analysis. It's a classic business framework, but it works wonders for SEO because it forces you to translate raw numbers into a clear strategic picture. It helps you see the entire competitive landscape on a single page.

Here’s how to frame it with the data you just collected:

Strengths: What are you already doing well? Maybe your site has a solid domain authority, or perhaps you have a die-hard audience on a particular social media channel that your competitors can't touch. These are your existing assets.

Weaknesses: Be honest. Where are the glaring holes? This is where you'd list those high-value keywords you’re not even ranking for, or the fact that your top rival has twice as many referring domains.

Opportunities: What external trends or competitor blind spots can you exploit? This is where you slot in your content gap analysis findings, those high-authority blogs you found that are open to guest posts, or a new format like video that your rivals haven't adopted yet.

Threats: What is a competitor doing right now that could knock you off your perch? Maybe a rival just launched an aggressive link-building campaign, or they consistently rank for emerging, high-intent keywords in your niche.

Going through this exercise makes it incredibly clear where to focus. See a major weakness in your backlink profile? See an opportunity to guest post on sites that already link to your competitors? Boom. You have an immediate, actionable task.

From Insights to Prioritized Actions

With your SWOT analysis complete, you can start building the actual roadmap. The trick is to prioritize every single task based on two simple factors: expected impact and required effort. For example, going after a low-difficulty keyword that a competitor surprisingly ranks for is a fantastic quick win. Trying to dethrone an industry titan for a massive head term, on the other hand, is a long-term war.

Your roadmap should be a concrete list of initiatives, not a vague wish list.

For instance, a vague goal like "improve our content" is useless. A great roadmap item sounds more like this: "Create a 2,500-word ultimate guide targeting the keyword 'X' to close the content gap with Competitor A. The goal is to achieve a top-5 ranking within six months."

This process is what separates a proactive, data-driven SEO strategy from a reactive one. You’ll stop chasing shiny objects and start making deliberate decisions designed to systematically close the gap, overtake your rivals, and dominate your corner of the search results.

Answering Your Top Questions

When you start digging into competitor analysis, a few key questions always come up. Let's tackle some of the most common ones I hear from clients and colleagues.

How Often Should I Run a Competitor Analysis?

This is a classic "it depends," but I can give you a solid framework. Think of it in two layers: the deep dive and the regular check-in.

I recommend a full-blown, comprehensive analysis on a quarterly basis. That's the sweet spot for catching major strategic shifts—like when a competitor launches a huge new content hub or you see a sudden surge in their backlinks from a PR campaign. This timing gives you enough data to spot real trends, not just weekly fluctuations.

But you can't just set it and forget it for three months. A quick monthly check-in is non-negotiable. Keep a close eye on your top rivals' keyword rankings, new referring domains, and any new content that's taking off. This rhythm helps you stay agile and pounce on new opportunities without getting lost in the weeds of a constant, full-scale audit.

What Are the Best Free Tools for This?

Look, premium tools like Ahrefs and Semrush are the industry standard for a reason—the data is incredible. But you can absolutely get a powerful analysis going without touching your credit card.

Here are a few free tools that provide a fantastic starting point:

Google Search (Incognito): Don't underestimate it. This is the simplest, purest way to see who you're really up against on the search results page for your most important keywords.

Google Keyword Planner: It's still a go-to for keyword research and getting a feel for search volume. You'll get more precise data if you have an active Google Ads account running.

Ubersuggest: Neil Patel's tool gives you a handful of free searches each day. It’s surprisingly good for a quick look at domain authority, top-performing pages, and new keyword ideas.

These won't give you the whole picture, but they're more than enough to build a solid foundation for your competitive strategy.

Should I Only Focus on Competitors Bigger Than Me?

Absolutely not. In fact, that's one of the biggest mistakes I see people make. A healthy analysis looks at the entire landscape.

Of course, you need to watch the industry giants. They show you what a mature, well-funded SEO strategy can achieve and give you those long-term, aspirational goals. But the real tactical gold often comes from the smaller, up-and-coming players.

These fast-growing competitors are often more nimble. They're the ones testing clever content angles, finding untapped keyword opportunities, and using agile tactics you can adopt right away to start building momentum. Ignoring them means you’re missing out on some of the most actionable insights available.

Ready to see how your brand stacks up in the new age of AI search? Attensira provides the actionable insights you need to optimize your content and dominate AI-driven search results. Connect your domain and start tracking your AI presence today at https://attensira.com.