How to Do SEO Competitor Analysis

Ever wonder how some sites just seem to dominate the search results? It's rarely luck. It's almost always a result of a sharp, insightful SEO competitor analysis.

At its core, the process is about figuring out who you're really up against in the SERPs, uncovering the golden-nugget keywords they rank for (that you're missing), and picking apart their top content and backlink strategies to find opportunities. Nail these four areas, and you've got a powerful roadmap to climb the rankings.

Why Competitor Analysis Is Your SEO Secret Weapon

Let's get practical. An SEO competitor analysis isn't just another box to check on your to-do list; it’s your strategic compass for navigating the crowded world of organic search. Think of it as reverse-engineering success. You're looking at what’s already winning and using that intel to build a smarter, more efficient strategy from the get-go.

One of the first things you need to wrap your head around is the difference between your direct business rivals and your true SEO competitors. Your biggest offline competitor might sell the exact same widget, but if they’re invisible on Google for your target keywords, they aren't your SEO problem. Your real opponents are the websites—be they blogs, industry publications, or even forums—that consistently own the top spots for the search terms your customers are using.

The High Stakes of Organic Search

Ignoring these digital opponents is like flying blind. The numbers don't lie: around 53% of all website traffic comes from organic search, making it the most dominant discovery channel out there. And the competition is fierce—a massive 70% of all clicks go to the top five organic results. If you're not in that top bracket, you're practically invisible.

For anyone in the e-commerce space, this is doubly true. Understanding the battlefield on major platforms is key, which is why a deep dive into something like an Amazon competitive analysis can be so revealing.

Key Takeaway: The goal isn’t to blindly copy your competitors. It's to understand their playbook so you can spot the gaps, exploit their weaknesses, and create something genuinely better that serves your audience more effectively.

Let’s break down what a systematic analysis actually gives you. You can:

Pinpoint valuable keyword gaps—the terms they’re ranking for that you’ve completely overlooked. Actionable Insight: Find keywords like "best software for small business accounting" that a competitor ranks for, and create a more comprehensive comparison guide.
Discover winning content formats and topics that you know resonate with your shared audience. Actionable Insight: If top competitors all have video tutorials for a specific product, that's a strong signal you need to create video content, not just blog posts.
Uncover high-authority backlink opportunities by seeing who links to them. Actionable Insight: Identify that three competitors were featured in a Forbes roundup. You can now target that same journalist with a unique angle.
Benchmark your performance to set realistic goals and actually measure your progress.

This turns vague SEO goals into a clear, actionable plan, ensuring your time and budget are spent on things that will actually move the needle.

The Four Pillars of SEO Competitor Analysis

This table breaks down the core components you'll be looking at.

Pillar	What It Is	Primary Goal
Keyword Gap Analysis	Finding relevant keywords your competitors rank for, but you don't.	Expand your keyword universe and capture more traffic.
Content Analysis	Evaluating the quality, format, and topics of a competitor's top-performing pages.	Understand what content works and create superior versions.
Backlink Gap Analysis	Identifying websites that link to your competitors but not to you.	Build a targeted outreach list for high-quality link building.
Technical & UX Audit	Assessing a competitor's site speed, mobile-friendliness, and overall user experience.	Identify technical advantages you can leverage on your own site.

By investigating each of these pillars, you move from guesswork to a data-informed strategy that gives you a genuine competitive edge.

Finding Your True SEO Competitors

Before you can even think about outranking the competition, you have to know who you’re actually up against. This sounds obvious, but it’s the first—and most common—place where SEO strategies fall flat. Your biggest business rival, the one you go head-to-head with for sales, might be a ghost in the search results.

Your real SEO competitors are the websites, blogs, and even niche publications that are consistently showing up for the keywords your customers are typing into Google. They’re the ones eating up that prime digital real estate on the search results page.

Practical Example: Let’s say you run a local, high-end coffee shop. Your direct business competitor is the Starbucks down the street. But when you search for "best espresso in Brooklyn," your top results are food blogs, local news sites like Gothamist, and review sites like Yelp. Those are your SEO competitors for that keyword.

Business Rivals vs. SEO Opponents

It’s absolutely critical to draw a line between these two groups. You’ll waste a ton of time and resources analyzing a business rival who has a nonexistent organic footprint. Your focus needs to be squarely on the players who are winning the search game.

This is where a smart analysis begins. Your SEO competitors are simply anyone else vying for the same eyeballs in search. In fact, companies that zero in on keywords discovered through a proper SEO competitor analysis have seen their organic traffic jump by as much as 30% in just six months. This isn't just theory; it's a proven path to growth.

So, how do you find these elusive search rivals? Here are two practical ways to get started.

Method 1: Good Old-Fashioned Manual Searches

The most straightforward approach is to put on your customer hat and use Google yourself. It gives you a raw, real-time look at the SERPs.

List your core keywords: Start by brainstorming 5-10 of your most important "money" keywords—the terms people would use to find a solution like yours (e.g., "AI content optimization tool," "generative engine optimization," "brand monitoring for AI").
Go incognito: Always open an incognito or private browser window. This strips out personalization from your search history and gives you a much more objective view of the rankings.
Spot the regulars: Search for each keyword and start taking notes. Which domains keep popping up in the top 5-10 positions? Don’t get distracted by one-hit wonders. You're looking for the websites that show up again and again. These are your true SEO competitors.

Pro Tip: As you search, pay close attention to the type of content that’s ranking. Are they blog posts? Landing pages? Free tools? This gives you an early hint about the kind of content Google likes to show for your target topics.

Method 2: Let the SEO Tools Do the Heavy Lifting

Manual searches are great for getting a feel for the landscape, but SEO tools can scale this process and uncover competitors you’d never find on your own. Platforms like Ahrefs, Semrush, or Moz are built for this.

The "Competing Domains" or "Organic Competitors" report is your best friend here. You just plug in your domain, and the tool crunches the data on thousands of keywords you rank for. It then spits out a list of other domains that are also ranking for a similar set of keywords.

This report from Ahrefs is a perfect example. It gives you a data-backed list of your actual SEO rivals and shows you the degree of "Keyword overlap," which is a fantastic metric for seeing just how much their strategy crosses over with yours.

By blending both manual spot-checks and data from your favorite SEO tool, you can build a solid, reliable list of 5-10 true SEO competitors. This list is the foundation for everything that comes next, from finding keyword gaps to planning your backlink strategy. It’s also a key part of understanding your overall visibility, which ties directly into bigger concepts we explore in our article on how to measure share of voice.

Uncovering Profitable Keyword Gaps

Alright, you've got your list of true SEO competitors. Now for the fun part—finding the gold. This is where we dive into a keyword gap analysis, which is just a fancy way of saying we're going to find all the valuable keywords your competitors are ranking for, but you aren't. Honestly, it's one of the quickest ways to build a list of content ideas that you know people are already searching for.

Think of it this way: your competitors have already done a lot of the heavy lifting. They've spent time and money figuring out which search terms bring in traffic and customers. By identifying these terms, you're not just guessing what might work; you're looking at a proven roadmap. It’s time to stop playing defense and start claiming some of that traffic for yourself.

Using SEO Tools to Find the Gaps

You could try to do this manually, but you’d be at it for weeks. This is exactly why tools like Semrush's Keyword Gap or Ahrefs' Content Gap are worth their weight in gold. They are built to do this specific job: compare your website against several competitors at once and spit out all the juicy opportunities.

Let’s walk through how this actually works. You’ll plug your domain and the domains of your top 3-4 competitors into the tool. It then does the magic of cross-referencing every keyword each site ranks for and shows you exactly where you're missing out.

Here's a look at what that initial output from Semrush's tool looks like. It gives you a bird's-eye view right away.

This chart is your starting point. It shows you which keywords you share, which ones you’re missing, and what’s unique to each competitor.

But the real power isn't in this initial data dump. A raw list of thousands of keywords is overwhelming and mostly useless. The goal is to filter that down into a manageable list of terms you can actually rank for.

My Takeaway: Getting the initial data from a gap analysis is just step one. The real value comes from how you filter and prioritize that data. This is how you turn a giant spreadsheet into a focused, strategic content plan.

Filtering Your Way to Actionable Insights

With your raw list in hand, it's time to slice and dice. Here are the filters I always use to zero in on the low-hanging fruit and high-value targets.

Missing Keywords: Start here. This is the big one. It shows you every keyword where at least one competitor ranks (say, in the top 10 or 20), but your site is nowhere in sight. This is your treasure map.
Keyword Difficulty (KD): Every SEO tool has some version of this. It’s an estimate of how hard it’ll be to crack the first page. I like to start by filtering for a lower KD score, maybe under 30, to find some quick wins.
Search Volume: This is the average number of times a keyword is searched for each month. Bigger numbers are great, but don't ignore keywords with lower volume. They’re often hyper-specific and can convert like crazy. The sweet spot is a nice combination of decent search volume and low KD.
Intent: Most modern tools also classify keywords by searcher intent—informational, commercial, transactional, etc. This is crucial for matching keywords to your goals. If you need to build brand awareness, focus on "informational" terms. If you need to drive sales now, go after "transactional" ones.

Putting It All Together: A Real-World Scenario

Let's say you run a website that sells eco-friendly cleaning supplies, and your main competitors are Grove Collaborative and Blueland. After plugging everyone into a keyword gap tool, you could apply these filters:

Missing: Show keywords where Grove and Blueland rank in the top 10, but your site doesn't.
KD: Set the max to 25.
Volume: Set a minimum of 200 monthly searches.
Intent: Filter for "Informational" queries.

The tool might spit out a keyword like "how to make non-toxic all purpose cleaner," which gets 800 searches a month and has a KD of just 18. Boom. That's a perfect opportunity. It’s highly relevant, has low competition, and speaks directly to your target audience. Your actionable insight: Create a definitive blog post titled "DIY Non-Toxic All-Purpose Cleaner (3 Easy Recipes)" that includes a short video tutorial and a printable recipe card.

This is a classic example of a long-tail keyword. If you want to get really good at finding these, diving into advanced strategies for long-tail keyword research will uncover even more of these highly targeted gems.

By repeating this filtering process, you can quickly build a prioritized list of 10, 20, or even 50 content ideas. The best part? Every single one is backed by data, confirming that an audience exists and your competitors are already winning with it. This structured approach takes the guesswork out of SEO and gives you a clear path forward.

Analyzing Competitor Content and On-Page SEO

Alright, you’ve got your list of high-value keywords. That’s a fantastic start, but it's really just the first piece of the puzzle. Now comes the fun part: digging into the content that’s already crushing it for those terms.

It’s time to put your detective hat back on. We're going to manually analyze the SERPs to figure out not just what your competitors are ranking with, but why it works so well.

Think of it this way: keywords tell you what topics people care about, but the top-ranking pages show you exactly how they want that information delivered. This is where we move beyond raw data and into the art and science of what makes great content tick.

Deconstructing the Winning Content Formula

First things first, pick one of your target keywords and Google it. Make sure you’re in an incognito window to get unbiased results. Now, open the top three to five organic results in separate tabs and get ready to break them down. I don't mean just skim them; I mean dissect their every move.

What you're hunting for are patterns.

Practical Example: Let's say you're analyzing the top results for "how to build a remote team." You might quickly spot a trend. Maybe all the top pages are massive, 3,000+ word ultimate guides. Perhaps they all feature quotes from industry leaders or include slick, custom infographics to illustrate key points.

This initial observation is gold—it gives you a clear blueprint. You now know that to even have a fighting chance, your content needs to match, and ideally exceed, that level of depth and quality. This isn't about copying; it's about understanding the table stakes for that specific search query.

The Anatomy of a Top-Ranking Page

As you dig into these pages, pay super close attention to the specific attributes that contribute to their success. You're looking for a combination of these elements to truly understand what's resonating with both searchers and Google.

Content Type: Is it a blog post, a product page, a free tool, or a category page? The type of content Google favors for a query tells you a ton about searcher intent.
Content Format: If it's a blog post, what kind is it? A "how-to" guide? A listicle ("7 Best Ways to...")? A case study? An opinion piece?
Depth and Detail: How comprehensive is the content? Does it just scratch the surface, or does it dive deep with sub-topics, real-world examples, and supporting data?
Use of Visuals: Are they using generic stock photos, or have they invested in custom graphics, helpful screenshots, charts, or embedded videos? Original visuals are almost always a sign of a high-effort page.
Unique Elements: Do they include anything special? Think expert quotes, original research, a downloadable template, or an interactive quiz. These are often the knockout punches that elevate content from good to great.

My Takeaway: The SERP is a focus group that has already told you what works. If the top three results for your target keyword are all detailed listicles with original images, creating a short, text-only guide is likely a waste of time. Match the successful format, then find a way to make yours undeniably better.

Mastering On-Page SEO Clues

Beyond the content itself, you need to examine the on-page SEO signals. These are the technical and structural elements that help search engines understand what a page is about and how it’s organized. They’re often the subtle differentiators that push a page from the bottom of page one to the top.

A huge part of this is looking at the page's structure through its headers. A well-organized page uses a logical hierarchy of H1, H2, and H3 tags to break up the content and signal importance. Tools like the free Detailed SEO Extension for Chrome can show you a page's header outline with a single click.

Are your competitors’ headers keyword-rich and descriptive? Do they follow a logical flow? If you want to really get this right, our complete guide on using SEO header tags for better rankings is an in-depth look at how to structure your content perfectly.

To make this process easier, I've put together a checklist you can use to audit any competitor's page. This will help you spot opportunities and ensure your own on-page SEO is buttoned up.

On-Page SEO Analysis Checklist

Element to Check	What to Look For	Actionable Insight
Title Tag	Is the primary keyword at the beginning? Do they use enticing modifiers like "Guide," "2025," or "Simple Steps"?	Craft a title that is both keyword-optimized and has a higher click-through appeal. Example: Instead of "Remote Team Guide," try "How to Build a Remote Team in 2025 (Expert Tips)."
Meta Description	Does it summarize the page and include a call to action? Does it make you want to click?	Write a compelling meta description that sells the value of your page in the SERPs. Example: "Learn the secrets to building a high-performing remote team. Our guide covers hiring, culture, and tools. Get our free checklist inside!"
URL Slug	Is it short, clean, and does it contain the keyword? (e.g., `/remote-team-guide` vs. `/p=123`)	Optimize your URLs to be readable and descriptive for both users and search engines. Your URL should be `/build-remote-team`, not `/blog/article-id-481-final-version`.
Internal Linking	Are they linking to other relevant posts on their site? What anchor text are they using?	Identify opportunities to build a strong internal linking structure on your own site. If you write about remote teams, link to your other articles on "best remote work tools" or "remote employee onboarding."

By systematically picking apart both the content quality and the on-page technicals, you're no longer just guessing. You’re building a data-backed creative brief that outlines exactly what you need to do to create something that has a genuine shot at outranking the top dogs.

Taking a Look at Your Competitor's Backlinks

This is where you get to do some real SEO detective work. Digging into your competitors' backlink profiles isn't just about counting links; it's about decoding the story they tell. Think of backlinks as votes of confidence from other websites—they're still one of the most powerful signals Google looks at.

By figuring out who links to your competitors, you uncover their authority, see their promotion strategies in action, and basically get a roadmap for building your own site’s credibility. It’s all about finding insights you can actually use, not just getting lost in a sea of data.

Zeroing In on the Links That Matter

First things first: forget about the total number of backlinks. A competitor with 10,000 junk links is often way weaker than one with 100 links from highly relevant, authoritative sites. Your goal is to pinpoint the links that are actually making a difference for them.

Grab a tool like Ahrefs, Moz, or Semrush, pop in a competitor's domain, and head straight for their backlink report. Instead of scrolling through the endless list, sort or filter the results to see links from high-authority sites. Look for metrics like Domain Rating (DR) or Domain Authority (DA) and concentrate on links from sites with a score of 50 or higher.

This little trick immediately cuts through the noise. Suddenly, you're not looking at spammy directory links anymore. You're seeing the good stuff: links from established industry blogs, news sites, and universities. These are the kinds of links that build real trust with Google.

My Two Cents: A single backlink from a respected, relevant website can easily be worth more than hundreds of links from random, low-quality domains. Always, always focus your energy on quality over sheer quantity.

Uncovering Their "Linkable Assets"

Once you know who is linking to them, the next big question is why. What content on their site is so good that it's attracting these high-quality links? These pages are what we call linkable assets, and they're an absolute goldmine of strategic information.

Inside your SEO tool, look for a report called "Best by links" or "Top pages by links." This report will show you which of your competitor’s URLs have racked up the most backlinks. As you scan this list, patterns will start to jump out at you.

Original Research & Data: Are they publishing an annual industry report or a survey with unique stats? This kind of content is a link magnet because other writers and journalists need to cite their data.
Free Tools & Calculators: Did they build a simple, handy tool that solves a common problem? Think of a mortgage calculator on a real estate site or a headline analyzer for a marketing blog.
Ultimate Guides & Resources: Are their top-linked pages massive, comprehensive guides that cover a topic better than anyone else? These often become the definitive resource everyone links to.

Let's Walk Through a Real-World Example

Imagine you're in the project management software game. While analyzing a competitor, you see their most-linked-to page is an article called "The 2024 State of Agile Methodology Report." It's earned links from 75 different marketing and tech blogs.

Bingo. That isn't just a blog post; it’s a deliberate link-building strategy laid bare. They created something valuable and data-driven that people in their industry wanted to reference. You now have a proven concept. Your actionable insight: Go create "The 2025 State of Agile Methodology Report," but do it better. Use more recent data, design sharper infographics, and pull in quotes from more industry experts.

Running a Backlink Gap Analysis

Now it’s time to get surgical with a backlink gap analysis. This process is all about finding websites that link to multiple competitors, but not to you. It's the SEO version of finding out all your friends got invited to a party and you were left off the list.

Tools like Ahrefs' "Link Intersect" are perfect for this. You just plug in your domain and three or four of your main competitors. The tool then spits out a list of all the websites that have linked to at least one of them but have never linked to you.

This list is pure gold—it's your new high-priority outreach list. These sites have already shown they’re interested in linking to content in your niche. Your job is to give them a great reason to link to you next.

Here’s a simple game plan:

Check the context: Look at the exact pages they linked to. Was it part of a product review, a mention in a roundup post, or a citation for a specific statistic?
Find your equivalent (or better): Pinpoint a piece of your own content that’s a perfect fit for their article.
Craft your pitch: Reach out and introduce your resource. If you created that "2025 Agile Report," you could email the sites that linked to your competitor's old version and offer them a fresh data source to update their content.

This systematic approach turns backlink analysis from a passive research project into an active, strategic weapon in your SEO arsenal. It gives you a clear path forward for building your site's authority.

Turning Analysis into an Actionable SEO Strategy

Okay, so you've done the digging. You have spreadsheets full of keyword gaps, content ideas, and backlink opportunities. But right now, that’s all it is: a pile of data. The real magic happens when you transform that research into a concrete plan that gets results.

The key is not to try and do everything at once. That's a surefire way to get overwhelmed and accomplish nothing. Instead, a winning strategy is all about smart prioritization. We need to organize your findings into clear, manageable workstreams so your team knows exactly what to tackle next.

This visual gives you a simple framework for deciding which competitors to focus on first, based on things like traffic, domain authority, and how much their audience engages.

Think of it as a quick way to spot your best opportunities—competitors with high traffic and engagement but a domain authority that you can realistically challenge.

Building Your Content Roadmap

Your keyword gap analysis is the perfect foundation for your content calendar. You've already done the hard part of figuring out what your audience is searching for and where your competitors are beating you. Now, let's get it organized.

Pop your keyword opportunities into a simple spreadsheet. I recommend these columns to start:

Target Keyword: The main search term you want to rank for.
Content Type: What kind of page is ranking? (Blog post, landing page, tool, etc.)
Priority: A simple "High," "Medium," or "Low."
Effort: How much work will this take? (Also "Low," "Medium," or "High.")

Actionable Tip: Always start with the "High Priority, Low Effort" items. These are your quick wins—often lower-difficulty keywords you can target with a new blog post to build momentum and get some traffic in the door fast.

For instance, if you discovered "how to track brand mentions in ChatGPT" has solid search volume and isn't too competitive, that’s a perfect high-priority target. This method ensures you're constantly working on the tasks that give you the biggest bang for your buck.

Planning Strategic Content Updates

Creating new content is only half the story. Your analysis probably unearthed a few pages where competitors are just doing a better job. Maybe their content is more thorough, better structured, or has more compelling visuals. This is gold for your content update strategy.

Actionable Example: Your article on "best project management tools" is stuck on page 2. A competitor's page #1 article includes a detailed comparison table, user ratings, and pricing information for 15 tools. Your article only covers 5 tools and lacks the table. Your action plan: Expand your article to cover 20 tools, add a feature comparison table, and embed user review scores.

Creating a Targeted Link Building Plan

Remember that backlink gap analysis? You’ve just created a ready-made outreach list of high-quality prospects. These are sites that are already linking to content just like yours—it just happens to be your competitor's.

It's time to organize them into a targeted outreach campaign.

For every website on your list, make a note of the exact piece of competitor content they linked to. This context is everything when it comes to writing a pitch that doesn't get instantly deleted. If you see they linked to a competitor's industry report from two years ago, you have a perfect opening to offer them your brand-new version with fresh data. This kind of competitive insight is precisely how top agencies develop the best lawyer SEO strategies.

Establishing a Monitoring System

Finally, remember that a competitor analysis isn't a one-and-done project. It’s a continuous loop. You need a simple system to keep an eye on what’s happening.

Use your SEO tool of choice to set up rank tracking for the new keywords you're targeting. This is non-negotiable—you have to measure what you're doing.

Then, just set a recurring calendar reminder—maybe once a quarter—to run a quick competitor check-up. This keeps your strategy fresh and allows you to adapt to changes, turning this single analysis into an ongoing engine for growth.

Got Questions? We’ve Got Answers

Even with a solid plan, a few questions always seem to surface once you start digging into the data. Let's clear up some of the most common ones I hear from people running their first few SEO competitor analyses.

How Often Should I Run a Competitor Analysis?

For a full-blown analysis—the kind where you're diving deep into keywords, content, and backlinks—I recommend doing it quarterly. That cadence is frequent enough to catch emerging trends and adapt your strategy, but not so often that you get lost in constant analysis.

For your top 3-5 closest competitors, though, you’ll want to keep a closer eye on them. A quick monthly check-in on their new content and any big keyword ranking changes is a smart move. It lets you stay agile and respond quickly when they make a move in the search results.

My Biggest Business Rival Isn't My Top SEO Competitor. What Gives?

This happens all the time, and it's a critical distinction to understand. When it comes to your SEO strategy, your focus must be on your SEO competitors—the websites that are actually showing up and ranking for the keywords you want to own.

It's still a good idea to monitor your direct business rivals for general market intel, but your day-to-day SEO efforts—from content creation to link building—have to be aimed at outperforming the sites that are currently winning in the SERPs. After all, they’re the ones getting the organic traffic you’re after.

The real magic of competitor analysis isn't just in the data you collect; it's in turning those insights into action. While a keyword gap analysis can give you some quick wins, looking at the whole picture—content, backlinks, and on-page SEO—is how you build a powerful strategy that truly dominates the search results.

What's the Single Most Important Part of This Whole Process?

If I had to pick just one thing, it would be the keyword gap analysis. It almost always uncovers the most immediate and actionable opportunities.

When you find those high-intent keywords your competitors are ranking for and you aren't, you've just been handed a validated roadmap for what content to create next. Closing these gaps is one of the fastest ways to start pulling in relevant organic traffic and making up ground on the big players in your space.

Ready to see how your brand stacks up in AI-powered search? LLMrefs monitors your visibility across generative engines like ChatGPT and Gemini, tracking your share of voice and uncovering competitor gaps. Start optimizing your Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) strategy and claim your space in the future of search. Get started for free at llmrefs.com.