Ranking first on Google gets you 27% of all clicks. On page two, you’re looking at less than 1%.

That’s a massive gap, and it’s exactly why SEO competitive analysis matters. It helps you figure out what your competitors are doing right, where they’re slipping, and how you can use that to your advantage. Instead of guessing your way through SEO, you’re making informed decisions based on what’s actually working in your industry. 

An SEO competitive analysis strategy allows marketers to stay ahead—and we’re sharing how you can do it too.

What is SEO competitive analysis?

An SEO competitive analysis is the process of researching rival websites’ search engine optimization strategies and results to gather insights you can use to improve your own results.

In SEO, competitor websites are those that rank higher than you for relevant search engine queries. These higher positions in search results can divert traffic away from your website.

Unlike traditional business competitor research, SEO competitor analysis focuses specifically on websites that rank for keywords relevant to your business. These SEO competitors may differ from your market competitors. 

In short, they’re simply the domains appearing in search results for terms you want to target.

The competitor analysis process involves these main components:

1. Identifying competitors: Finding websites that outrank you for valuable search terms. 
2. Keyword research: Analyzing which terms competitors rank for successfully. 
3. Content evaluation: Examining their content quality, format, and strategy. 
4. Backlink assessment: Understanding their link acquisition strategies. 
5. Technical SEO inspection: Reviewing site speed, mobile responsiveness, and structure. 

Why competitor analysis matters for your rankings

The insights gained from a competitive SEO analysis directly impact your ranking potential in several ways, and here’s how: 

• Provides a benchmark for your current SEO performance, showing precisely where you stand in relation to competitors.
• Helps identify and implement successful strategies while avoiding approaches that have proven ineffective for others.
• Uncovers gaps in your current strategy. You might find keywords with high commercial value that competitors are targeting but you’ve overlooked, or discover content formats that consistently outperform in your niche. 

These revelations offer clear direction for your SEO investment, focusing your resources on tactics with proven success in your specific market.

In short, a competitor analysis reveals both strengths to emulate and weaknesses to exploit.

For instance, you might discover a competitor ranking well due to superior content structure but lacking proper mobile optimization—an opportunity for you to outrank your competitors. 

Step-by-step process for conducting SEO competitive analysis

We recommend that you do an SEO competitor analysis every three to six months, so you can quickly identify any changes in your market and adapt your strategy. Throughout this process, you can look into competitor analysis tools to streamline and automate your manual efforts. 

Here’s how to do an SEO competitor analysis—step by step:

Step 1: Understand where competitor traffic is coming from

Knowing where your competitors get their visitors and the most amount of traffic share is the foundation of effective SEO competitive analysis. This step reveals which marketing channels and strategies work best in your industry and highlights opportunities you might be missing.

Competitor traffic analysis examines how many visitors your competitors attract and which channels drive that traffic. This process provides insights into:

• Traffic volume and growth patterns. 
• Most effective marketing channels. 
• User engagement metrics. 
• Geographic distribution of visitors. 
• Audience demographics and behavior. 

Tools like Semrush’s Traffic Analytics feature provide comprehensive data, including monthly visits, unique visitors, pages per visit, average visit duration, and bounce rate. 

When examining competitor traffic, focus on five key areas:

1. Overall traffic trends: Look for seasonal patterns and growth trajectories. If a competitor shows sudden traffic spikes, investigate what campaigns or content changes might have caused them.
2. Traffic sources: Identify which channels drive the most visitors—organic search, direct, referral, social media, or paid advertising. If competitors receive significantly more traffic from a particular channel than you do, consider investing more in that area.
3. User engagement: Compare metrics like pages per visit, average visit duration, and bounce rate. Poor engagement metrics might indicate a weakness you can capitalize on with better content or user experience.
4. Geographic distribution: Check which countries or regions drive the most traffic to competitor sites. This information helps you discover untapped markets and regional preferences for international SEO strategies.

For a comprehensive view, compare multiple competitors simultaneously. Ahrefs allows you to assess organic search traffic specifically, showing which keywords drive visitors. 

Beyond raw numbers, consider what competitors’ traffic patterns reveal about market opportunities. A competitor with growing traffic from a particular country might signal an emerging market worth targeting yourself.

Step 2: Do a competitor SWOT analysis

After identifying your competitors and their traffic sources, conducting a SWOT analysis offers a systematic framework to assess their SEO position. This time-tested tactic helps organize your competitive intelligence into four clearly defined categories that guide strategic planning.

If you don’t already know, SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats–a structured approach to evaluating both internal and external factors affecting your competitors’ SEO performance. 

In fact, you can also conduct a SWOT analysis for your SEO and content strategy so you can get a clear picture of where your website stands. 

To conduct an effective SEO SWOT analysis, examine each quadrant with specific questions:

Strengths: Identify what competitors excel at in their SEO efforts.

• Which keywords do they rank well for consistently?
• What content types generate significant organic traffic?
• Where are their backlink profiles particularly strong?
• What technical advantages do their websites have?

Weaknesses: Pinpoint areas where competitors underperform.

• Which aspects of their sites need improvement?
• What keywords are they missing despite relevance to their business?
• Do they have content quality issues or gaps in coverage?
• Are there technical SEO problems holding them back?

Opportunities: Discover potential advantages you can leverage.

• What content could outperform their existing materials?
• Which keyword gaps exist that you could target?
• Are there untapped link sources they’ve overlooked?
• Could you improve upon their user experience?

Threats: Recognize potential challenges they pose.

• Are they actively improving areas where you currently lead?
• Is the gap between your sites narrowing or widening?
• Are they targeting new keywords relevant to your business?
• Are newer competitors gaining significant market share?

Remember to revisit your competitor SWOT analysis regularly–ideally every six months. SEO algorithms change rapidly, and ongoing evaluation ensures your strategy remains responsive to competitive shifts.

Step 3: Analyzing competitor keywords (and lost keywords)

Competitor keywords are search terms that rival websites rank for in organic or paid search results. This strategy becomes a powerful shortcut to finding high-intent keywords that drive conversions.

Keyword research for competitors enables you to:

• Understand what relevant audiences search for. 
• Identify opportunities to outperform rivals. 
• Avoid targeting overly difficult keywords. 
• Set benchmarks for your search marketing strategy. 

Keyword gaps are terms that competitors rank for but you don’t, and filling these gaps can help you attract more traffic to your website.

To make keyword gap analysis a bit easier, you can try Writesonic’s SEO AI agent. All you have to do is enter a query asking the agent to conduct a keyword gap analysis between your website and a competitor, and highlight the keywords that they are ranking for, but you are not. 

Here’s what this looks like in action:

With insights pulled directly from Ahrefs and SEMrush, you don’t have to rely on third-party tools and manual data scraping. Just enter a simple query into the chatbox, and you’ve got your SEO competitor analysis data ready in seconds!

When choosing which competitor keywords to target, consider:

• Search intent (informational, navigational, commercial, or transactional)
• Search volume (balance between traffic potential and competition)
• Keyword difficulty (prioritize terms with manageable difficulty scores)
• Current SERP competition (analyze who currently ranks)

Commercial and transactional terms typically drive conversions more effectively than informational queries. Keywords with high search volume yet moderate difficulty offer excellent value.

The most valuable approach combines lost keyword analysis with content gap research. This comprehensive view helps you create content that fills these gaps while targeting high-value keywords. 

Look for entire topic areas your competitors cover that you don’t. These represent significant opportunities for growth.

💡Learn more about: How to Find Low Competition Keywords

Step 4: Assess competitor content gaps and coverage 

A content gap analysis involves examining what your competitors rank for that you don’t, allowing you to identify critical topic opportunities and content shortcomings in your own strategy.

This strategy involves three key elements: 

• Identifying topics competitors cover that you don’t.
• Understanding content quality differences.
• Structural or on-page SEO approaches that outperform yours. 

By comparing your content inventory against competitors’, you’ll spot weaknesses to address and strengths to capitalize on.

To begin your analysis, identify top-performing pages from your competitors through tools like Ahrefs. You should also look into which content earns the most backlinks, indicating topics others find valuable enough to reference.

For a methodical approach, examine:

• Content depth and quality: Is their content more thorough, filled with expert insights, or backed by unique research?
• Content formats: Do they use videos, infographics, or interactive elements you’re missing?
• Structural elements: How do they organize information with headers, lists, and tables?
• On-page SEO optimization: Check meta titles, descriptions, and schema markup usage

To get a better understanding of which existing pieces need an overhaul, look for pages that target valuable keywords but rank lower in search results. 

Beyond basic comparisons, you should also analyze topical coverage gaps. 

This will uncover which topics they’ve covered and which you’ve missed to create content that not only matches but surpasses theirs.

Step 5: Assessing backlink profiles

Building quality backlinks matters because it’s among Google’s most important ranking factors.

According to research by Backlinko, top-ranking pages typically possess 3.8 times more backlinks than positions #2-#10. This stark difference shows why analyzing your competitors’ backlink profiles is crucial for competitive SEO success.

Backlinks are links from other websites that point to your site. Each quality link from another website (especially if it’s within your industry) acts like a vote of confidence in your favor. The more “votes” you have, the better.

Competitor backlink analysis involves examining the inbound links pointing to rival websites to identify valuable link-building opportunities and guide your own strategy. 

To identify the best backlink prospects, consider factors like:

• The authoritativeness of the website and webpage: Backlinks from more authoritative websites and webpages tend to be better for SEO.
• The relevancy of the website: Backlinks from topically relevant sites tend to be better for SEO.
• The context of the backlink: Prominent backlinks on relevant, high-quality pages tend to be best for SEO.
• The nofollow status of the backlink: If you see that the backlink has a nofollow attribute, this means Google may ignore the link for SEO purposes.

To conduct a thorough backlink analysis:

1. Select appropriate tools: Platforms like Semrush, Ahrefs, and Moz offer robust backlink analysis capabilities. 
2. Export competitor backlink data: Use your chosen tool to export the backlink profiles of 3-5 key competitors. Focus on both the quantity of referring domains and the quality of those links.
3. Analyze backlink metrics: Pay attention to:
   • Total referring domains versus total backlinks. 
   • Domain authority of linking sites. 
   • Link types (follow vs. nofollow). 
   • Link context and placement. 
   • Anchor text distribution. 
4. Filter for quality: Not all backlinks are worth pursuing. Set filters based on metrics like Domain Rating (25-99), Trust Flow (12-99), or Domain Traffic (1000+) to focus on valuable prospects.

Remember that variety matters. Links from diverse domains carry more weight than multiple links from the same domain.

Regular backlink analysis (every 3-6 months) ensures you stay informed about changes in your landscape, allowing you to adapt your link-building strategy accordingly.

Step 6: Monitor competitors’ SERP features

When competitors appear in SERP features (non-traditional search results) for target keywords, they may attract more attention on the search results page.

SERP features include elements such as featured snippets, Google’s People Also Ask, image carousels, shopping results, AI overviews, and video listings. 

These enhanced results typically capture more user attention than standard blue links. With generative engine optimization boosting AI overviews, it’s more critical than ever to try and gain that top spot or zero position to increase organic traffic for your website. 

Here’s an example of a featured snippet:

The simplest way to find featured snippet opportunities is to open an incognito window and search for your target keywords. Look for queries that trigger featured snippets. 

For each SERP feature your competitors occupy, analyze the content that earned that position. Featured snippets often come from pages with clear, concise answers to common questions.

Creating similar content structures and targeting these queries (often long-tail terms) can increase your chances of winning these positions.

💡You might also like: How to Use AI Agents for Featured Snippet Optimization

Step 7: Understand competitors’ PPC

Paid search campaigns provide critical insights into your competitors’ marketing priorities and conversion strategies.

Analyzing competitors’ PPC efforts complements your organic SEO research by revealing which keywords they’re willing to pay for—often indicating their most profitable products or services.

Competitor PPC analysis involves examining their ad copy, landing pages, keyword targeting, and bidding patterns. 

This helps you identify gaps in your own paid search strategy and informs your overall SEO approach. 

Here’s how you can effectively analyze competitor PPC campaigns:

1. Track ad history and spending patterns: Tools like SEMrush or SpyFu can show competitors’ estimated monthly ad spend, keywords they target, and historical ad copy. Fluctuations in spend often indicate seasonal priorities or new product launches.
2. Analyze ad copy and messaging: Study competitors’ headlines, descriptions, and calls-to-action to identify which value propositions they emphasize. Pay attention to any performance-based claims or unique selling points repeatedly featured across campaigns.
3. Examine landing page strategies: Compare where competitors send paid traffic versus organic visitors. Often, paid landing pages feature stronger conversion elements that you can adapt for your own campaigns.
4. Identify keyword gaps: Focus on keywords competitors target in paid campaigns but not in organic content—these represent potential quick wins for your content strategy.
5. Monitor ad position and impression share: Consistent high positions for certain keywords indicate their strategic importance. Conversely, keywords where competitors maintain moderate positions but steady presence may represent sustainable long-term value.

The relationship between competitors’ organic and paid strategies often reveals their overall market approach. Some may use PPC primarily for branded terms, suggesting defensive positioning. Others might aggressively target non-branded terms, indicating expansion goals.

Step 8: Look at their social media performance

Social media platforms have become crucial touchpoints in the buyer journey, making them valuable components of competitive SEO analysis. 

The relationship between social signals and SEO is primarily indirect—shares, likes, and comments don’t directly boost your ranking positions but can significantly increase brand visibility and drive traffic. This traffic, in turn, can lead to engagement metrics that search engines do notice.

When analyzing competitors’ social media performance, focus on these key metrics:

• Follower growth and engagement rates across platforms. 
• Content types that generate the highest engagement (videos, polls, images). 
• Posting frequency and optimal timing patterns. 
• Hashtag strategies and their effectiveness. 
• Share of voice compared to other competitors. 

Remember to look beyond raw metrics to how competitors position themselves socially. Are they primarily broadcasting content or actively engaging with their audience? 

Examine whether competitors have optimized their profiles for social search. 

For example, YouTube videos with proper captions, chapter titles, and keyword-rich descriptions appear in Google search results, creating additional visibility opportunities you might capitalize on.

By integrating these social insights into your broader SEO competitive analysis, you’ll develop a more comprehensive understanding of your competitors’ digital presence and identify areas where you can outperform them both on social platforms and in search rankings.

Step 9: Technical SEO analysis

Even if a website has great content, it won’t rank well on Google if its technical setup is poor. That’s why it’s important to look at the technical side of your competitors’ websites. You might find areas where they’re weak and where you can get ahead.

Here’s what to check for a competitor technical SEO audit:

1. Site speed and Core Web Vitals:

 Use Google PageSpeed Insights to test how fast their pages load. If their scores are low, that’s your chance to do better. Faster websites not only rank higher, but also give users a smoother experience.

2. Mobile-friendliness:

Run their URLs through WebPageTest or Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test. Since Google ranks mobile versions first, sites that aren’t mobile-optimized are falling behind. If you’re better here, you’ve already got an edge.

3. Site structure and URLs:

Check how their website is organized—are the pages grouped well? Do URLs include keywords? A clean structure helps Google understand what the site is about. For big websites, you can even use tools like Google Sheets to spot URL patterns and hierarchies.

4. Internal linking:

Look at how they interlink between pages. Strong internal links help users find content easily and spread SEO value across the site. If a competitor ranks higher, study how they link things internally. You might find smarter strategies to apply.

5. Site security (HTTPS):

Secure sites (those that use HTTPS) are favored by Google. If your competitor is still on HTTP, you’ve got another win.

Step 10: Analyze, compare, act

Now that you’ve gathered all these insights—from keyword gaps and backlink wins to technical weak spots and SERP feature steals—it’s time to bring it all together and actually use it.

This step is about organizing your competitor research in a way that helps you take action. The goal is simple: translate insights into strategic decisions that boost your rankings, traffic, and overall SEO performance.

Start by comparing competitors side by side. Look for patterns—are certain competitors dominating a content format you’re ignoring? Are they consistently ranking because of strong internal linking? That’s where your priorities lie.

Next, highlight what matters most. Not every insight requires a reaction. 

Focus on the gaps and strengths that align with your business goals. Maybe one competitor is crushing it with comparison pages, or another has poor mobile performance you can beat. Flag these as your quick wins and long-term projects.

Then, create a simple action plan. It can be as basic as a Google Sheet or as detailed as a full SEO playbook. Break it down by opportunities:

• Keywords to target.
• Content ideas to create or improve.
• Backlink prospects to pursue.
• Technical SEO fixes to prioritize.
  

If you’re working with a team, assign tasks based on these findings. This keeps your execution aligned with what you’ve learned from the analysis—and ensures the work actually gets done.

Why Writesonic’s SEO AI agent is the perfect SEO competitor analysis tool

Doing a full SEO competitor analysis sounds like a lot of work—and it is. But with SEO AI agent by Writesonic, it becomes way easier, faster, and more effective.

Think of it as your personal SEO assistant that’s powered by AI, backed by real-time web data, and built to help you actually outrank your competitors. You don’t have to jump between 10 different tools or dig through endless reports. Just ask, and it delivers.

Here’s how this AI agent simplifies competitor analysis:

1. Real-time competitor research

Unlike many SEO tools that rely on outdated or static data, Chatsonic pulls in live web results. You can ask it to compare your site with a competitor’s and instantly get up-to-date keyword gaps, content opportunities, backlink insights, and more, without switching tabs.

2. All-in-one SEO analysis

Whether you want to find out what keywords your competitor ranks for, why their traffic is growing, or how their content is structured—Chatsonic can break it all down in seconds. 

Just enter a query like “Analyze keyword gaps between mydomain.com and competitor.com” and boom—you’ve got actionable insights.

3. Tool integrations for deeper research

Chatsonic connects with key marketing tools like Google Search, Ahrefs, Semrush, and more. So, if you need extra layers of detail (like domain metrics, traffic data, or ad strategies), it can pull in those insights from your favorite platforms, all in one place.

4. Natural language queries = zero learning curve

No need to learn complex tool interfaces. Just type your questions naturally—“Which blog posts are getting the most backlinks for [competitor]?” or “What technical SEO issues are holding back my site?”—and Chatsonic delivers clear answers.

5. Fast, flexible, and always available

Need a quick comparison before a strategy meeting? Or want a list of long-tail keywords your competitors are ranking for? Chatsonic works like a real-time SEO analyst, minus the hourly rate.

Ready to conduct your own SEO competitor analysis in just minutes? Get started with Chatsonic today!

FAQs

1. When is the right time to conduct an SEO competitive analysis?

The timing of your SEO competitive analysis depends on several key business scenarios. Generally, you should conduct an analysis when implementing your initial SEO strategy or if you notice significant drops in your website’s performance. 

For established businesses, running a thorough analysis quarterly helps maintain market awareness and catch emerging trends. Additionally, set up monthly reviews for tracking specific metrics and implement continuous monitoring for your most important keywords and direct competitors.

2. How do I identify which competitors to analyze?

Start by examining businesses that rank for your target keywords in search results. These are your search competitors and may differ from your direct business competitors. Use tools like SEMrush and Ahrefs to find websites competing for the same search terms. 

Focus on both direct competitors (those offering similar products/services) and indirect competitors (those targeting similar audiences but with different offerings). Analyze 3-5 top competitors thoroughly rather than spreading your efforts too thin across many websites.

3. How can I track the success of my competitive analysis efforts?

Monitor key metrics including ranking improvements for target keywords, organic traffic growth, and changes in conversion rates. Track your position changes weekly using SERP tracking tools, and review traffic and engagement metrics monthly through your analytics platform.

Finally, compare your performance against benchmarks established during your initial analysis, and adjust your strategy based on the data you gather.

4. What common mistakes should I avoid in competitive analysis?

Avoid focusing solely on direct competitors while ignoring indirect ones who might be capturing your target audience. Don’t get caught up in vanity metrics and focus on data that directly impacts your business goals. 

Another common mistake is conducting analysis irregularly or failing to document findings properly. Make sure to maintain consistent monitoring and keep detailed records of your observations and implemented changes.

5. What are the key steps in conducting an SEO competitive analysis? 

An effective SEO competitive analysis involves identifying competitors, analyzing their keywords and content strategies, assessing their backlink profiles, examining their technical SEO, and monitoring their SERP features. This process helps uncover opportunities to improve your own SEO strategy and outrank competitors.