In SEO, your competition isn’t just businesses offering similar services. It’s any website outranking you on Google for the same search query or keywords.
SEO competitor analysis helps you identify and evaluate those sites by analyzing their keywords, content, backlinks, and technical SEO setup.
It provides a detailed map of gaps in their strategy and marketing opportunities to pursue.
The result? Actionable insights to make smarter, more focused SEO decisions that drive measurable results.
Whether you’re building a new SEO strategy or fine-tuning an existing one, competitor analysis gives you a clear roadmap for staying competitive in the search engine results.
In this article, I will show you how to run an effective SEO competitor analysis.
What you will learn
- What SEO competitor analysis is and why it matters
- Key steps to performing a competitive analysis
- Tools to use for effective SEO competitor insights
- How to use findings to improve your own campaign
- 6 SEO competitor analysis template examples
What is an SEO competitor analysis?
An SEO competitor analysis is the process of identifying and evaluating your top-ranking competitors in search engine results to understand why they rank well. It typically involves analyzing their keywords, content, backlinks, technical SEO, and site structure to find opportunities and gaps you can use to improve your own rankings.
The goal isn’t to copy what they’re doing. It’s to benchmark your performance against theirs so you can set clear, realistic goals based on search engine standards.
You should conduct an SEO competitor analysis when you launch a new website, product, or whenever significant changes occur in your ranking status.
For example, if your main competitors earn backlinks from authoritative websites or publish well-structured topic clusters, those become measurable tactics to pursue.
By understanding where you stand relative to the top-ranking pages, you can prioritize the actions that will close gaps, improve visibility in organic search, and avoid wasting time on low-impact efforts.
The analysis also identifies the market share they haven’t tapped into yet, so you can cover it first.
SEO competitor analysis turns optimization from guesswork into a strategic process grounded in real-world data.
Why monitor competitor SEO?
Monitoring competitor SEO helps you understand what strategies are driving their rankings, identify weaknesses in your own approach, and uncover opportunities to improve and outperform them in search results.
It shows you:
- Keywords you’ve overlooked that your search competitors rank for
- Content formats that consistently perform well in your industry
- Backlink sources that are helping them rank higher in the search engine results pages
Competitor monitoring also sharpens your focus. Instead of chasing high-converting keywords already dominated by others, you can prioritize low-difficulty, high-intent keywords where you stand a better chance.
Likewise, instead of cold-pitching random sites, you can acquire links from domains that already link to your competitor’s pages, expanding on an existing authority chain.
Most importantly, regularly analyzing your competitors’ sites pushes you to keep leveling up.
SEO moves fast, so ongoing check-ins prevent you from clinging to outdated tactics.
How to conduct an SEO competitor analysis
Ready to turn insights into action?
This 6-step SEO competitor analysis process will walk you through how to uncover what competing websites are doing and how to use that intel to outperform them.
1. Identify your SEO competitors
The first step in any SEO competitive analysis is determining who you’re up against in the search results. And it’s not always who you expect.
You can start manually by Googling your target keywords and checking which competing sites consistently appear in the top organic search results.
These are your real SEO competitors, even if they don’t sell the same exact product or service as you.
For example if you're an online course platform, try searching:
- “best online course platforms”
- “Teachable vs Thinkific”
- “how to sell an online course”
You’ll likely see SERP features like People Also Ask, featured snippets, and Reddit threads mixed in. But it's worth tracking if a domain ranks consistently despite that noise.
To stay organized, track each competitor’s domain in a spreadsheet:
Tip: Don’t limit your research to direct business competitors. Many competitors are blogs or directories ranking for the same keywords.
Tools like Ahrefs Site Explorer make this quicker.
Enter your own domain and head to the Organic Competitors report.
It’ll show you websites that rank for a similar keyword set, along with metrics like keyword overlap, shared keywords, and overall share of voice in the search engine results.
In the example below, the data is from a marketing-related domain.
2. Find keyword gaps
Once you know who your search competitors are, the next step is to identify keyword gaps: the keywords they rank for that your own site doesn’t.
Start with Google Keyword Planner for a free, basic overview. Go to Tools > Planning > Keyword Planner > Discover new keywords > Start with a website.
Enter your competitors’ domain and browse the suggested keywords list.
For thinkific.com, you’ll find terms like “online course builder,” “digital course creation,” and “sell courses online” — valuable search queries your own content might not cover.
Once you have a list of potential targets, you need to evaluate each one using:
- Search volume: Is there enough traffic to justify the effort?
- Keyword difficulty (KD): Can you realistically rank with your current domain authority?
- Intent: Is the keyword informational, navigational, commercial, or transactional?
For that, you can use a tool like Surfer’s Topical Map to run a deeper keyword gap analysis.
The Topical Map creates topic clusters based on your competitors and your own website content. That makes it easy to spot the keyword gaps within each cluster.
For example, here at Surfer we have covered 36/41 keywords that fall under the "Keyword Research Techniques" cluster. Next to each uncovered keyword you can see its keyword difficulty and search volume.
When clicking on a keyword you will find further keyword data.
Firstly, you can easily check which of you competitors are ranking for that keyword.
Next, you can see if you are already ranking for that keyword with a page that focuses on a different main keyword. In that case, you're probably not ranking high on SERPs for it. You need to create a new page that focuses on that main keyword.
Tip: You don't need to create a new page for each individual keyword. You can group similar keywords under one page.
The Topical Map automatically takes care of keyword grouping. So you only need to take note of the main keyword.
You can add these keywords alongside their metrics into a spreadsheet.
The spreadsheet also has the intent column to help you decide whether a blog post, landing page, or tool page is the best match for each keyword. For example:
- “Infographic examples” could be a gallery-style post
- “Create a brochure” might warrant a transactional landing page
3. Analyze the competitor’s content strategy
Understanding how your SEO competitors structure and publish content gives you a blueprint for what’s working in your niche and where you can outperform them with superior content.
Start by identifying the formats they use. Ahrefs Site Explorer reviews the top-ranking pages from your main competitors. Sort them into formats:
- Blog posts
- Guides or how-tos
- Landing pages
- “Versus” or comparison pages
- “Alternatives to” pages
- Videos or interactive tools
Assess which formats attract the most search traffic, backlinks, and engagement. Add that data into a spreadsheet like below.
In the example above, a blog post on infographic design drives 3,400 visits and 45 backlinks, while a comparison page earns fewer visits but 20 links. That could be a signal to turn high-converting keywords into comparison-style 'vs.' pages.”
Tip: Look for outdated web pages. If a competitor ranks with outdated or thin content, it’s a prime opportunity to replace it with something better.
4. Analyze the competitor’s backlink profile
Backlinks remain one of the strongest ranking signals in SEO. And competitor backlink analysis can help you acquire links from the same authoritative websites.
Use Ahrefs Backlink Analysis to explore your competitors’ backlink profiles. Enter a competitor’s domain and generate a list of their referring domains.
You’ll also see metrics like Domain Rating (DR), total referring domains, and how much traffic those links are helping generate.
Look for:
- High-authority domains with a DR of 70+
- Dofollow links are valuable for passing link equity
- Pages with multiple backlinks, since these can inspire your own linkable assets
Next, organize your findings into a separate spreadsheet so you can spot repeatable patterns and take action faster.
Here’s what you’ll find in each row and how it helps you spot backlink opportunities you can go after:
- The referring domain that provided the link.
- The competitor URL they linked to.
- The type of link, such as an editorial mention or inclusion in a listicle.
- Whether your site currently has a backlink from that domain.
- The recommended next step, like initiating outreach or creating a linkable asset.
- And finally, additional notes to guide your strategy. For example, if the domain has high authority or if there’s an opportunity to improve on the competitor’s content angle.
This turns link-building into a deliberate, insight-driven process. For example, if your main competitor is included in a roundup list on cnet.com and you’re not, that’s a clear outreach opportunity.
5. Assess technical SEO aspects
You can have the best content in your niche, but if your site loads slowly, has indexing issues, or fails Core Web Vitals, it might never reach page one on search engine rankings. That’s where technical SEO analysis comes in.
Start by comparing your site’s technical performance against your competitors.
You can use Google PageSpeed Insights for mobile speed and Core Web Vitals. This is a free tool and can help you identify improvement opportunities.
You can use Screaming Frog for crawl errors, broken links, indexing errors, and site architecture.
To make your findings easier to act on, track essential metrics in a spreadsheet.
Benchmark the following against your main SEO competitors:
- Mobile speed score
- LCP, CLS, and FID
- Number of errors or warnings
- Issues affecting meta titles, meta descriptions, or web pages being indexed
Tip: Even a few fixes, like compressing images or cleaning up your URL structure, can lead to a more positive user experience and better rankings.
6. Set benchmarks and track performance
Once you’ve completed your analysis, the final step is to turn insights into measurable goals and track progress over time.
Benchmarks make your SEO strategy focused, repeatable, and easier to prioritize.
Use your competitor data to set KPIs across three main areas:
- Keyword rankings, especially for new keywords in your gap list
- Content depth and topic cluster creation
- Backlink growth and filling backlink gaps
Here are a few example KPIs to work with:
- Rank +10 new keywords in the top 20
- Add +5 backlinks from authoritative websites
- Publish 2 new pages based on your competitor’s content structure
- Close a 25% gap on a competitor’s most-linked blog post
To keep it actionable, monitor your progress in a spreadsheet:
Track your KPIs monthly or quarterly using:
- Google Search Console or Surfer Sites for search queries, impressions, and how much traffic you’re earning. Surfer makes it easy to set and track traffic goals.
- Surfer Keyword Tracker to monitor your movement in the search engine rankings.
- Ahrefs Backlink Checker for growth in competitors’ backlink profiles.
Key takeaways
- SEO competitor analysis is essential for identifying and evaluating your top-ranking competitors to improve your own SEO strategy.
- Your SEO competitors may not always be direct business competitors but websites ranking for the same keywords and search queries.
- Regularly monitoring competitor SEO helps uncover keyword gaps, content gaps, backlink opportunities, and technical SEO weaknesses.
- Keyword gap analysis reveals keywords your competitors rank for but you don’t, enabling targeted content creation and improved keyword targeting.
- Analyzing competitors’ content strategies highlights successful formats and topics to inspire and improve your own content.
- Backlink analysis helps identify authoritative referring domains linking to competitors, providing opportunities to acquire valuable backlinks.
- Technical SEO comparison, including Core Web Vitals and mobile device performance, is crucial to ensure a positive user experience and better search engine rankings.
- Tracking SERP features and paid search activities of competitors can reveal additional optimization opportunities.
- Setting benchmarks and KPIs based on competitor data allows you to focus your SEO efforts and measure progress effectively.
- Conducting SEO competitor research regularly keeps you agile and competitive in the ever-changing search landscape.
