Ever wonder why your competitors outrank you, despite having weaker content or a slower website? It’s not always about who has the best offer. In search engine optimization (SEO), it’s about who knows how to outplay the competition using data. Search engines don’t reward just the amount of effort, they reward relevance, authority, and strategy. Your competitors are already feeding Google the signals it wants. By studying their SEO moves, you shortcut years of trial and error.
But here’s the good news: your competitors are showing you exactly what works. All you need to do is look under the hood.
Why Competitive SEO Analysis Matters
Competitive SEO analysis isn’t optional anymore, it’s the difference between staying invisible and dominating the search results. If you’re still guessing what keywords to target or where to get backlinks, you’re leaving traffic (and revenue) on the table.
Think of it like a chess match. You don’t have to guess what your opponent will do next, you analyze their previous plays, spot patterns, and find the gaps they missed. That’s how you beat them.
A well-run SEO competitor analysis helps you:
Identify keyword gaps you’ve ignored
Discover backlink opportunities that are proven to work
Benchmark your content against theirs to produce better assets
Understand which technical or on-page factors may be holding you back
It’s not about copying. It’s about outsmarting.
How to Analyze Your SEO Competitors
Once you’ve identified who your SEO competitors are, the next step is understanding why they’re outranking you, and how to do better.
This isn’t about copying. It’s about dissecting their strategy, identifying weak spots, and finding openings you can exploit. Start with these five pillars. They give you a complete picture of what’s driving your competitors’ performance.
1. Keywords: Ranking & Gaps
The goal here is simple:
See what they rank for
See what you don’t
Decide what’s worth chasing
What to do:
Use Ahrefs’ Content Gap or SEMrush’s Keyword Gap Tool
Identify keywords where competitors rank in the top 10—but you don’t show up at all
Filter by intent: prioritize commercial and transactional terms
Why it matters:
Ranking on keywords that your audience is actually searching for is non-negotiable. If your competitors are showing up for those terms and you’re not, that’s lost business—full stop.
2. Backlink Profile
Backlinks are a major trust signal. If Google sees others linking to your competitor, it assumes the content is credible.
What to look for:
Total number of referring domains
Link quality (domain rating/authority)
Types of pages getting links (homepages? blog posts?)
Anchors used in backlinks
Tools to use: Ahrefs, SEMrush, or Majestic
Key move: Identify backlinks they have that you don’t. Then go get them—or better ones.
3. Content Strategy & Quality
Not all content is created equal. If your competitor is ranking, chances are they’ve nailed one or more of the following:
Topic depth and structure
Internal linking and keyword placement
Freshness and update frequency
Engagement metrics (time on page, bounce rate)
Pro move:
Use a tool like SurferSEO or Clearscope to compare your content side-by-side with theirs. These tools score pages based on structure, keyword usage, semantic depth, and more.
Ask:
Are they covering subtopics you missed?
Do they use visuals, videos, stats, or expert quotes?
Is their content genuinely more useful?
4. On-Page SEO Factors
Basic, but critical. You need to audit their:
Meta titles and descriptions
Heading structure
Keyword placement (especially in the first 100 words)
URL structure
Internal links
Image optimization (alt text, file names, compression)
Why it matters:
If their on-page elements are better optimized, they’re feeding clearer signals to Google—and that could explain their edge.
5. Technical SEO Factors
If their site loads faster, is easier to crawl, or works better on mobile, Google notices.
Check for:
Core Web Vitals performance
Mobile responsiveness
Page speed (use Google PageSpeed Insights)
Crawl errors or indexation issues (Screaming Frog or Sitebulb)
Use of structured data/schema markup
Benchmark against them to see if your site is lagging in critical technical areas.
The Complete SEO Competitor Analysis Checklist
You’ve found your SEO competitors. You’ve dissected what makes them rank. Now it’s time to put it all into action, with a practical, no-fluff checklist and a strategy that’s built to outperform.
Ready to run a full SEO competitor audit?
Using AI for Competitor SEO Analysis
SEO used to take hours of manual work. Now, AI can do a big chunk of the heavy lifting for you, faster, and in some cases, deeper.
You can use AI help for the following steps in your SEO competitor research to uncover missing angles, poor formatting, weak CTAs, and lack of authority references:
Summarize top-ranking content instantly to find patterns and structural best practices
Detect content gaps by analyzing common subtopics across top results
Score readability and SEO strength against competitors
Generate counter-content ideas based on weak spots in their approach
Also, did you know that AI search is shifting SEO? Learn more about AI search and how to rank in ChatGPT in our blog!
Need help getting started with AI prompts?
How to Find SEO Competitors?
You can’t outrank your competition until you know who you’re actually up against. And here’s the catch: your SEO competitors aren’t always the same companies you fight for customers. In some cases, your closest rivals in the SERPs aren’t even in your industry, they’re just really good at content marketing and user experience optimization.
Direct vs. Indirect SEO Competitors
Let’s break this down:
Direct SEO Competitors are businesses offering the same products or services as you and ranking for the same keywords. They’re the obvious ones.
Indirect SEO Competitors may target the same keywords or audience without offering the same service. Think blog sites, directories, media publishers, affiliate pages, or marketplaces.
Example:
If you run a plumbing service in Toronto, your direct SEO competitor is another local plumber. But YellowPages, Yelp, and even DIY blogs ranking for “how to fix a leaky faucet” are also indirect SEO competitors taking your traffic. You can learn more about local search optimization in our blog!
Your marketing team might keep a list of business rivals—but that list won’t help much in SEO if those companies aren’t ranking organically.
How to tell the difference:
A business competitor may serve your market but not invest in content or SEO.
An SEO competitor ranks above you for priority keywords, even if they don’t sell exactly what you do.
That’s why every SEO strategy should start with SERP-based competitor discovery, not just industry analysis.
Methods to Identify SEO Competitors
1. Google Search (Manual Method)
Search your target keywords on Google in an incognito window. Make a note of the domains that:
Appear consistently in the top 10
Publish content similar to yours
Have commercial intent (not just informational)
This gives you a real-world snapshot of who’s winning on the ground.
2. Competitor Research Tools
Automate and scale your research with tools like:
SEMrush – Use the “Organic Research” tool to find domains ranking for your keywords.
Ahrefs – Plug in your domain to see “Competing Domains” and “Content Gap.”
Moz – Use “Link Intersect” to find sites linking to your competitors, but not you.
Pro tip: Don’t rely on just one tool. Cross-check results for accuracy.
3. Reverse-Engineering Backlinks
Sometimes backlinks reveal your hidden SEO rivals; specially, if you are a pioneer in the industry.
Steps:
Enter your domain in Ahrefs or SEMrush.
Check who links to your top pages.
Do the same for your known competitors.
Identify sites consistently linking to multiple players, these are opportunities and potential threats.
If a domain has backlinks from your industry peers and ranks well, it’s an SEO competitor, even if they don’t sell a thing.
💡 Pro Tip: Know Your Battleground
SEO competition looks different based on your business model.
If you’re in e-commerce, you’re not just competing with other brands, you’re up against Amazon, review blogs, Reddit threads, and affiliate content dominating top-of-funnel search queries and long-tail keywords. For a local business, your true rivals include Google Business listings, Yelp, and “best-of” roundup blogs, often more than your direct industry peers.
Always factor in these indirect competitors when building your strategy—they’re often the ones stealing your organic traffic.
Tracking Competitors & Updating Your Strategy
Doing a one-time SEO competitor analysis is like checking the weather once and never looking again. The SERP is always moving. Your competitors are publishing new content, earning links, updating structure, and Google notices.
To stay ahead, you need systems in place that track their next moves before they cost you rankings. Use these to monitor your SEO environment like a hawk:
Ahrefs Alerts – Get notified when competitors earn new backlinks or publish content
SEMrush Position Tracking – Monitor keyword rankings side-by-side with competitors
Visualping / PageCrawl.io – Track changes on specific competitor pages
Google Alerts – Free tool for brand or topic mentions tied to your competitors
Screaming Frog + Scheduler – Run regular crawls of competitor sites to detect new pages, changes, or structural shifts
Use a combination of backlink and content monitoring. Ranking losses often start with one or the other. You don’t need to do a full teardown every week. But you do need a rhythm.
Every 90 days: Full competitive audit
Monthly: Track key rankings, backlinks, and new content
Immediately: After a major Google update or sudden ranking loss
If you’re serious about SEO, build this into your process like a quarterly financial review. The earlier you spot a shift, the faster you recover, or capitalize.
Conclusion
Beating your SEO competitors isn’t about guesswork, it’s about smart analysis, consistent tracking, and taking action faster than they do. From identifying who you’re really up against to reverse-engineering their strategy with AI and proven tools, you’ve now got a complete framework to outrank them.
Ready to outsmart your competitors and win more traffic? Schedule a free strategy call with our SEO team and let’s build your edge.
Frequently Asked Questions
Run a competitive analysis for local SEO by evaluating how top businesses rank in local search and map pack. Review their Google Business Profiles, citations, reviews, local keywords, and backlinks. Use this data to identify why they rank higher and take action to boost your own visibility in local results.
An SEO competitive analysis has five key parts: identify competitors in the SERPs, perform keyword gap analysis, evaluate backlink profiles for link opportunities, review content strategy, and audit on-page and technical SEO. Each part shows where your SEO strategy needs improvement.
Conduct a technical SEO competitor analysis by benchmarking competitor websites for site speed, crawlability, mobile responsiveness, indexation, structured data, and Core Web Vitals. This reveals if they have a technical edge. Faster loading times or better structured data often explain why they outrank you.
Check your competitors’ SEO by identifying which sites outrank you for key terms, then using tools like SEMrush or Ahrefs to analyze their keywords, backlinks, and top pages. Inspect their on-page SEO, test their site speed, and track how often they publish content and gain links to spot advantages.
Competitor analysis in SEO means evaluating websites that rank for your target keywords to identify why they outrank you. This includes studying their keywords, content, backlinks, and technical setup. The goal is to find gaps and opportunities to improve your own SEO strategy and outperform them in search results.
Tali is a results-driven digital marketer with a track record of growing her clients’ businesses and driving revenue.
As the business owner at WSI Digital Path, Vaughan, she takes great pride in delivering powerful but cost-effective solutions for her clients.
Innovative and revolutionary digital marketing trends set the pace for the digital marketing industry. Don’t make the mistake of falling behind! Contact WSI Digital Path today and trust your digital marketing to the industry’s leading professionals.
