How to Do an SEO Competitor Analysis [+ Template]

What Is SEO Competitor Analysis?

An SEO rival investigation is the process of researching rival websites’ hunt motor optimization strategies and results to stitchery insights you tin usage to amended your ain results.

In SEO, rival websites are those that often amusement higher than you for applicable hunt motor queries. And those higher positions successful hunt results tin divert postulation distant from your website.

Why Is an SEO Competitor Analysis Important? 

Doing an SEO rival investigation is important due to the fact that it provides insights that assistance you outrank (appear higher than) rival websites successful hunt engines similar Google.

Specifically, analyzing rival websites allows you to:

• Discover winning SEO strategies and replicate them
• Uncover rivals’ SEO weaknesses and capitalize connected them
• Benchmark your existent SEO show and measurement however your show changes

Ultimately, doing an SEO rival investigation tin assistance you boost marque awareness, make much traffic, and summation your market share.

How to Do an SEO Competitor Analysis

We urge that you bash an SEO rival investigation each 3 to six months, truthful you tin rapidly place immoderate changes successful your marketplace and accommodate your strategy.

We besides urge that you analyse competitors’ SEO efforts:

• Before launching caller products oregon services, truthful you tin larn astir the marketplace you’re entering
• After a rankings decline, truthful you tin get a amended knowing of imaginable issues

Here’s however to bash an SEO rival analysis—step by step:

1. Identify Your SEO Competitors

To place your SEO competitors, hunt for your target keywords (search presumption you privation to amusement for) successful Google to spot which websites commonly appear. 

Or, participate your domain into the Organic Research instrumentality and spell to the “Competitors” tab.

The instrumentality volition hunt our database to spot which domains person the astir keyword rankings successful communal with your domain.

It’s important to enactment that SEO competitors aren’t ever concern competitors. 

For example, an manufacture work mightiness not merchantability the aforesaid products oregon services arsenic you. But the work could divert hunt postulation distant from your website.

2. Find Keyword Gaps

Keyword gaps are keywords that competitors fertile for but you don’t, and filling these gaps tin assistance you pull much postulation to your website.

You tin find keyword gaps with Semrush’s Keyword Gap tool.

Enter your domain and up to 4 competitors’ domains. Then, scroll down to the array and use the “Missing” filter.

You’ll spot keywords that each analyzed competitors fertile for but you don’t.

Use these filters to refine your results:

• Position: The ranking presumption of analyzed sites. You mightiness privation to filter for keywords that each competitors fertile successful the apical 10 results for, arsenic these keywords are much apt to beryllium applicable to you.
• Volume: The mean fig of monthly searches for the keyword. Generally, higher-volume keywords tin thrust much marque consciousness and traffic.
• KD: The keyword trouble score, which measures however hard it’ll beryllium to unafraid a top-10 Google ranking. You whitethorn privation to absorption connected keywords successful the “Very easy” to “Easy” range.
• Intent: The wide intent down the search. Transactional keywords thin to beryllium champion astatine driving sales, portion informational keywords thin to enactment champion for blog posts.
• Advanced filters: Here, you tin filter for keywords that see 1 oregon much circumstantial words. This is adjuvant if you privation to absorption connected a peculiar topic.

Look for relevant, high-potential keywords you privation to people and prevention them to a keyword list.

Then, you tin make a program to people these keywords.

3. Identify Competitors’ Sitewide Strengths and Weaknesses

Identify competitors' sitewide strengths and weaknesses to pinpoint wherever your SEO efforts could person the top impact.

You tin find these strengths and weaknesses by evaluating your rivals’ contented show and method SEO health:

Content Performance

Analyze your competitors’ contented show to spot what contented works for them, and past effort to replicate their results.

You mightiness beryllium capable to spot which pieces of contented pull the astir comments connected their website. Or pull the astir engagement connected societal media.

But you tin get amended insights with an SEO rival investigation tool.

For example, the Organic Research instrumentality tin amusement your competitor’s top-performing pages based connected the estimated magnitude of unpaid hunt postulation they bring in.

Make definite to analyse your competitors’ top-performing pages to look for patterns. 

For instance:

• Is the contented mostly long-form oregon short?
• Do they usage tons of videos oregon images?
• Are they mostly merchandise pages, blog posts, oregon thing different?

Let your answers to these questions usher your contented production. To instrumentality the guesswork out. And recreate what’s already working—in a amended way. 

Technical SEO 

Analyzing your website’s technical SEO wellness and comparing it against your rivals’ is simply a cardinal measurement successful doing a rival analysis, due to the fact that method wellness tin marque each the quality successful rankings.

You tin larn astir your site’s method wellness for escaped done Google Search Console.

The instrumentality provides assorted reports, including:

• Page indexing: Discover which pages person and haven’t been added to Google’s index (database of imaginable hunt results)
• Core Web Vitals: See however your tract scores connected 3 leafage acquisition metrics, collectively known arsenic Core Web Vitals
• HTTPS: Check that each the pages connected your tract usage the unafraid HTTPS protocol, arsenic recommended by Google

Alternatively, usage Semrush’s Site Audit instrumentality to reappraisal your method SEO.

You tin tally regular audits to cheque your progress.

And get proposal connected however and wherefore to hole each issue.

If you utilized Google Search Console to reappraisal your method health, bash the pursuing to measure your competitors:

• Review competitors’ Core Web Vitals with the PageSpeed Insights instrumentality (just cognize that this lone shows metrics for the specified page)
• Manually cheque if competitors’ webpages usage the HTTPS protocol
• See however competitors’ websites execute connected a mobile device
• Inspect competitors’ XML sitemaps to spot which pages they’ve flagged for indexing

If you utilized Site Audit to crawl your website, usage the aforesaid instrumentality for your rival analysis. 

Then, comparison your results.

Try to lucifer competitors successful areas wherever they’re strong. And bushed competitors successful areas wherever they’re lacking.

4. Analyze Competing Sites connected a Page-by-Page Basis

There are galore on-page SEO factors that power a page’s show successful hunt results, truthful it’s adjuvant to reappraisal circumstantial pages arsenic portion of your SEO competitory analysis. 

Here are the circumstantial elements you should analyse connected each page:

Title Tags 

A title tag is an HTML constituent that indicates the rubric of a webpage and is commonly displayed successful hunt motor results, societal media posts, and browser tabs. 

Like this:

Title tags assistance awesome to Google what your pages are about. And optimizing them is 1 of the easiest ways to amended your rankings. 

Which is wherefore you should look astatine your competitors’ rubric tags. Especially the ones connected pages that outrank you. 

When you do, inquire yourself:

• Do competitors integrate keywords amended than you?
• Do the people keywords look adjacent the opening of the rubric tags? At the end?
• Do competitors see special, click-enticing modifiers similar “easy,” “best,” and “free”?

The answers to these questions should springiness you an thought of however to trade your rubric tags—so you tin boost your rankings. 

Meta Descriptions 

A meta description is simply a abbreviated snippet of substance that summarizes a webpage’s contented and tin look successful hunt motor results pages.

Like this:

Meta descriptions aren’t a nonstop ranking factor. But they tin impact (and improve) click-through rates. 

Meta descriptions are often overlooked, peculiarly connected ample sites. So, don’t marque that mistake.

Instead, spot however your competitors usage meta descriptions. Notice what’s moving and what isn’t. And set yours accordingly. 

URL Structure 

URL structure is the order, compartmentalization, and grouping of webpage URLs wrong a website. 

Like this:

Your URL operation affects however easy users tin navigate a site, find circumstantial pages, and find circumstantial contented types.

Ideally, a URL operation is intuitive, clear, and organized.

Study your competitors’ URL structures connected their pages that outrank your pages. And inquire yourself:

• Do competitors integrate keywords successful their URLs? If so, how?
• Do competitors usage shorter URL slugs?
• Do competitors’ URLs picture the leafage content? 

If you announcement thing you tin improve, enactment connected it truthful your URLs are arsenic bully as—or amended than—your competitors’.

Content and Keywords 

This measurement successful your SEO rival probe involves taking a deeper look astatine the pages that outrank your pages and analyzing their content. 

As you do, inquire yourself questions like:

• How are competitors utilizing keywords passim the page? 
• Are determination applicable secondary keywords you could adhd to your content? 
• Is the penning of precocious quality?
• Do competitors screen topics successful a akin level of item arsenic you? 
• How does the contented show Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness (E-E-A-T)?
• What makes the contented unique?
• How bash competitors usage images, videos, data, etc.?

Answering these questions helps you place ways to amended your ain content.

5. Find Backlink Gaps

If a reputable tract links to a rival but doesn’t nexus to you, you person a backlink spread that’s worthy addressing.

Closing backlink gaps tin beryllium important successful SEO due to the fact that Google uses backlinks to gauge the authoritativeness of websites and webpages.

You tin cheque your ain backlinks successful Google Search Console. And find rival backlinks by searching competitors’ names successful Google and checking the results that amusement up. 

But it’s quicker and much reliable to usage Semrush’s Backlink Gap tool.

Enter your domain and your rivals’ domains, and the instrumentality volition amusement your “Best” prospects by default.

These are websites that nexus to each your rivals but not to you.

You tin larn much astir competitors’ backlinks by clicking the arrows successful the corresponding rows and columns.

Like this:

To place the champion backlink prospects, see factors like:

• The authoritativeness of the website and webpage: Backlinks from much authoritative websites and webpages thin to beryllium amended for SEO. Semrush’s Authority Score (AS) measures authoritativeness retired of 100.
• The relevancy of the website: Backlinks from topically applicable sites thin to beryllium amended for SEO. So, look for websites that are authoritative successful your niche.
• The discourse of the backlink: Prominent backlinks connected relevant, high-quality pages thin to beryllium champion for SEO. You besides privation your marque to beryllium mentioned successful a affirmative context.
• The nofollow presumption of the backlink: If you spot that the backlink has a nofollow attribute, this means Google whitethorn disregard the nexus for SEO purposes

There are galore link gathering tactics you tin usage to get links from your chosen prospects. But it’s astute to mimic the maneuver that worked for your competitor.

For example, the rival mightiness person got their merchandise featured successful a applicable round-up. Or allowed the website to interrogation their CEO.

6. Monitor Competitors’ SERP Features 

When competitors look successful SERP features (non-traditional hunt results) for people keywords, they whitethorn pull much attraction connected the hunt results page. 

If you optimize for the aforesaid SERP features, you whitethorn beryllium capable to regenerate your competitors and seizure the attraction for your ain site.

You tin hunt Google manually to spot if your competitors look successful immoderate SERP features.

Like this, which is an illustration of a featured snippet:

Alternatively, analyse a rival successful Semrush’s Organic Research tool. And spell to the “Positions” report.

The icons successful the “Position” file correspond SERP diagnostic rankings for the corresponding keywords.

You tin absorption connected circumstantial types of SERP diagnostic rankings by utilizing the filter astatine the top.

There are chiseled ways to optimize for antithetic SERP features. And you tin find proposal astir galore of them (e.g., sitelinks, AI Overviews, and the local pack) connected the Semrush blog.

Here are immoderate speedy tips for success:

• Use schema markup to assistance Google recognize the contented connected your page
• Provide clear, concise answers to commonly searched questions
• Add high-quality images to your contented and optimize them for search

Try Our SEO Competitor Analysis Report Template

Semrush’s My Reports instrumentality provides a rival investigation study template that makes it speedy and casual to compile cardinal accusation astir rival websites.

Enter your competitors’ domains and the instrumentality volition contiguous elaborate accusation astir their:

• Website traffic
• Market share
• Keywords
• Backlinks
• Paid hunt ads
• Brand mentions
• Social media performance

(Assuming you person the indispensable instrumentality subscriptions.)

The rival investigation study is afloat customizable and casual to stock with your team.  

Plus, you tin docket the study to tally each month.

Start your escaped proceedings to usage the template and make your archetypal SEO rival investigation report.