What is SEO competitive analysis?

 SEO competitive analysis (sometimes called competitive analysis) is the process of researching your direct search competitors to understand their target keywords, content strategies, backlink profiles, and more, in order to reverse engineer the most successful elements of these tactics into your own SEO strategy.

Instead of guessing which keywords to target, what content to create, or what links to build, you can research your competitors, analyze what is already working for them, and build on that success.

Why is SEO competitive analysis important?

Higher rankings. Get more traffic. Increase conversions. Earn more loyal customers. SEO competitive analysis serves as a powerful research strategy to help you achieve all of these goals. It can help you successfully answer questions such as:

Who are my real SEO competitors?

What keywords should I target?

What does the competitive landscape look like?

What topics should I cover?

How do I find valuable links?

Consider a real-world example:

Imagine you run a pet supply store and are one of three competing stores in town. Your customers are happy, but you know they also visit other stores because they can’t buy everything in one place. So, you go on a road trip to gather competitive intelligence. You visit other stores to understand the popular items they carry. By offering these items yourself — or even upscale ones — you help your customers make fewer trips, and as a result, you get more business and, ultimately, brand advocacy!

Beware of guessing!

Your real search competitors aren't who you think they are. Learn how to find (and outsmart) them in our SEO Accelerator webinar. Zero fluff, all strategy.

Watch the webinar

Smart SEO competitive research

Smart competitor analysis isn’t about copying – it’s about learning the patterns of success so you can build something better. The question isn’t “What are they doing?” but “How can we better solve this problem for our audience?”

How to do SEO competitive analysis

There are many ways to conduct competitive analysis for SEO, but in this guide, we will walk you through 5 basic steps in each of the following chapters of this guide:

1. Identify your SEO competitors.

Who are your competitors? You may think you know, or you may be operating under the assumption, but those brands are not necessarily selling the same products or services as you! Doing research in the SERP – or even better, using an SEO tool – to identify your SEO competitors is crucial for accuracy and SEO planning.

2. Run a keyword gap analysis.

Ready to do some sleuthing? Keyword gap analysis can help you find opportunities to improve your visibility by targeting keywords that your competitors are ranking for, but your website isn't. By addressing areas where your competitors have a stronger online presence, you can reach a wider audience and drive more traffic.

3. Evaluate the SERP for user intent.

Smart marketers tailor their strategies to what consumers are looking for. Whether your audience is looking for a solution, an answer to their question, a product, a service, or a nearby location, it’s important to understand their intent. You’ll learn how to analyze SERPs and how your competitors meet your audience’s needs.

4. Analyze your competitors' content and improve it.

By isolating the content that contributes to your competitor’s success, SEOs can gain insights into effective content strategies, keyword targeting, and user engagement. Armed with this intelligence, you can enhance your content, and outperform competitors in the ever-evolving landscape of SERPs.

5. Perform a competitor backlink analysis.

It’s time to pull back the curtain on your competitors’ backlink profiles. With the right tools and framework, you can uncover valuable insights into the quality and quantity of links driving your competitor’s authority. By leveraging this data and strengthening your backlink strategy, you’re setting yourself up for a SERP takeover!

Here's a helpful workflow you can follow along the way ( check out the downloadable PDF with the link here ):

SEO Competitive Analysis Workflow

SEO Competitive Analysis Example

Throughout this guide, we will use examples to help demonstrate and explain the framework, workflow, and context for interpreting data. Let’s return to the pet supply store example we referenced earlier. Below is an idea of ​​the information you will collect as you proceed through a comprehensive competitive analysis. This includes:

Opponent

SEO Metric comparison

Keyword differences

Top Competitive Content

Backlink sources

SEO Competitive Analysis Example

When should I do an SEO competitive analysis?

You’ve heard the saying, “The only constant is change.” In that spirit, conducting an SEO competitor analysis is not a one-time event, but an ongoing process to stay informed about the dynamic nature of your market, and adjust your strategy accordingly.

You should conduct a competitive analysis when:

You launch a new website.

You launch a new product or service.

You are entering a new market.

You find that your competitors are leaving you behind.

You are implementing an SEO strategy for the first time.

You are a freelance SEO and you have landed a new client.

Your competitors are leaving you behind in the SERPs, and you're not sure why.

You lack the standards for a website and need to create them.

You are looking for investors or stakeholders, and want to build trust in your strategy.

Get an instant competitor analysis report in 2 steps.

Domain Review will give you a snapshot of a competitor - or any site - in just a few seconds. We can perform this quick assessment and get a bird's eye view of almost any site:

1. Go to the Domain Overview tool in Moz Pro (you can access this tool by creating a free community account here )

2. Enter the competitor's domain, subdomain, or exact page.

You'll see a summary, starting with the domain search theme. The search theme is derived from the most searched keywords associated with the site, and provides insight into how the website is performing in SERPs with an audience. If you're searching for your domain in this tool, it can be helpful to verify that your domain is consistent with the language of the target ranking keywords.

Domain Review Summary

The summary also includes Domain Authority®, Page Authority, and Brand Authority™ metrics. Brand Authority is a Moz metric, on a scale of 1-100, that measures the overall strength of a brand. We know that brands matter online and in the real world, and this metric illustrates the relationship between brand value and search engine results.

As you scroll down, you'll see Domain Keyword Topics. This feature provides insight into how people search for that domain by searching for underlying topic categories based on ranking keywords.

Domain keyword themes

As you continue to scroll and explore, you’ll also see a graph called a brand authority comparison. This is a powerful concept that compares the domain authority, brand authority, and location of this brand and its competitors. This graph combines the online and real-world authority of several brands into one.

Brand Authority Comparison

As you scroll, you’ll see additional metrics, such as keywords and link opportunities, discovered and lost links, linking domains, and more. Each of these tables and graphs pulls from a Moz Pro tool, and will give you a 360 view of a site.

As we continue through this guide, we will dig deeper into almost all of this data, and discuss how to extract actionable insights!

Unlock the power of brand authority.

Check your Brand Authority Score now, and see how you measure up!

Why SEOs Should Measure Brand - Whiteboard Friday

Brand, authority, and search visibility are all interconnected. Watch Whiteboard Friday's video to understand why tracking your and your competitors' brand authority can provide insight into their strategy and success.

Free SEO Competitor Analysis Template

To walk you through this guide, we’ve put together a free, downloadable template that you can use to conduct your SEO competitive analysis. This template will also help you create an actionable report.

Download the spreadsheet by clicking here.

Follow the instructions to collect data.

Replace the sample data with your own.

Sort, filter, and customize to your needs

SEO Competitive Analysis Template

How much of this guide do I need to read?

If you're serious about beating your competition, we recommend reading this guide back and forth. We've tried to make it as concise and easy to understand as possible, and learning the basics of SEO is an important first step in achieving your online business goals.

Go at the pace that's best for you, and take note of the resources we link to throughout the chapters—they're worthy of your attention, too.