Master SEO Competitor Analysis: The Key to Better Rankings

Studying your rivals’ SEO tactics is not imitation, it’s the first step to outmaneuvering them in organic search. 

By researching their strategies, we uncover the precise actions driving their success, allowing us to craft an approach that drives your business past theirs to the top of the SERPS.

A competitor analysis forms the bedrock of a data-driven SEO campaign that doesn’t merely guess at success, but engineers it with precision.

Intrigued? You should be. I’m about to go over the exact methods we use to dissect your competitors’ SEO strategies, their strengths, and their weaknesses.

Armed with these strategies, you’ll be capable of outmaneuvering even the most search-dominating competitors. I’ve used these exact strategies to outrank .gov sites, Zillow, Forbes, the list goes on.

So, here we go!

Table of Contents

• What Does an SEO Competitor Analysis Include?
• 1. Identify Your Top Search Rivals
• 2. Crush Your Keyword Analysis
  • Lost Keywords Analysis 
• 3. Content Analysis For Strengths and Weaknesses
  • Content Types and Formats 
  • Tone, Style, and Quality 
  • On-Page SEO Discovery
  • Title Tag Analysis
  • Content Velocity and Timeliness 
  • Omnichannel Content Mapping 
  • Semantic Content Clustering 
  • User-Generated Content Analysis
• 4. Backlink Profile Analysis
  • Capitalizing on Competitors’ Broken Backlinks
• 5. Technical SEO Audit
  • Schema (Structured data markup)
• Forging Your SEO Dominance: The Strategic Culmination

What Does an SEO Competitor Analysis Include?

Here’s a list of 5 main aspects of an SEO competitor analysis that we’ll go over today:

1. Identification of primary competitors
2. Keyword analysis
3. Content analysis
4. Backlink profile analysis
5. Technical SEO audit

There are other factors you can look at, but, to get the basics out of the way, make sure your site is user-friendly (not an ugly, outdated site that’s hard to navigate), mobile-friendly, and doesn’t take 6 seconds to load.

If you have problems there, fix those problems, then come back to this post. Google prioritizes user experience above all, so, even if you follow the strategies below and implement them, if the above issues aren’t addressed, you probably won’t see the results you want.

1. Identify Your Top Search Rivals

The winners in the world of SEO are those experienced in studying the battlefield. Ahrefs is my favorite SEO tool for grabbing the insights needed to identify primary competitors and gain the upper hand.

If your website already has at least a few hundred keyword rankings for keywords relative to your business, this should be relatively straightforward.

If your website is new, simply use a competitor who you already know has thousands of keywords you want to rank for.

If you aren’t sure which competitor to use, start by going to the “keywords explorer” tab, put in a keyword you ideally want to rank for, grab one of the top-ranking sites for that result, one that you’d consider to be the closest competitor to you, then use them as the example moving forward throughout this guide.

Now that you’ve got a website to work with moving forward, let’s dive into using Ahrefs to hone in on who your top competitors are (for now):

Start With Your Domain: Begin by entering your website’s URL into Ahrefs’ Site Explorer. This will be the starting point for identifying your SEO competitors.

Analyze Organic Search: Navigate to the ‘Organic Search’ section on the left-hand sidebar. Here, you’ll find a treasure trove of data, but for now, we’re going to focus on the ‘Organic Competitors’ report, so, click that. This report lists websites that rank for the same keywords as your site.

Review Competitors: Examine the list of competitors Ahrefs provides. Pay attention to the number of common keywords and the competition’s traffic. This will help you identify which competitors are most relevant to your SEO efforts.

Inspect Top Pages: Click on the downward pointing carrot next to a competitor’s domain, then click “top pages” to dive deeper by looking at the top-performing pages of your selected competitor. This will give you insights into which pages are driving the most traffic and what topics resonate with your shared audience.

Compare Keyword Overlap: Use the ‘Content Gap’ tool to compare keywords. Enter your domain and your competitors’ domains to see which keywords they rank for that you do not. This can highlight opportunities for content creation and optimization.

Assess Backlink Profiles: From the “Organic Competitors” tab, take note of the backlink profiles of your competitors by Domain Authority (DA) and number of referring domains. Ahrefs’ ‘Backlink Profile’ report shows where their links come from. This can reveal potential link-building opportunities and strategies, which we’ll discuss later.

Finally, I recommend making a list of about 4 of your top competitors based on the information you’ve gathered following the steps above. So, make that list, and let’s start reverse-engineering and building winning strategies!

2. Crush Your Keyword Analysis

Keywords are the core of an SEO campaign. They’re the search terms your target audience uses to find products or services. SEO competitor analysis involves figuring out what keywords your competitors are targeting and where you have an opportunity to rank higher.

Effective keyword analysis goes beyond obvious, high-volume search terms. It also includes long-tail keywords, which are longer, less popular phrases, but typically have lower keyword difficulty (KD).

These phrases, used by about 70% of searchers, are more likely to result in conversions. This is because they indicate a very specific search intent. Tools like Semrush’s Organic Research or Ahrefs’ Keywords Explorer help identify the keywords driving a competitor’s organic traffic.

Remember, it’s not just about finding keywords. It’s about understanding search intent. What’s the user really looking for when they type in that phrase? That’s your key to creating content that not only ranks but converts.

And here’s a pro tip: don’t just focus on keywords where you’re getting crushed by the competition. Look for those opportunities where you’re neck-and-neck or just slightly behind. A little optimization could push you over the edge.

Want to save time? Use a tool like BrandWell that combines keyword research and optimization in one platform. With BrandWell, all you have to do is enter your seed topic and it will generate a list of relevant keywords along with their monthly search volume, ranking difficulty, CPC, and trends.

From that list, choose the keyword you want to rank for, click “Create Content”, and voila! You have a 2,000-word, SEO-optimized, 100% original, undetectable, publish-ready blog post within minutes! You can even build topic clusters to boost your topical authority.

Lost Keywords Analysis 

Lost keywords are a missed opportunity. Discovering a competitor’s keyword losses, using Ahrefs or Semrush’s Organic Research tool, can give you an advantage.

For instance, let’s say a rival has dropped out of the top 20 results for terms relevant to your business.

Using your favorite tool, you can uncover data points like search volume, keyword difficulty, and the URLs of those competitor’s pages that are no longer ranking.

Maybe their content isn’t up-to-date, so it’s not as relevant. Or, perhaps a newer competitor is now outranking them. Reviewing a list of lost and declined keywords might give you ideas for updating existing pages. Or you might get inspiration for writing fresh content targeting these opportunities.

3. Content Analysis For Strengths and Weaknesses

This is where you get up close and personal with your competitors’ content. Time to uncover valuable insights and innovative strategies. A comprehensive content analysis goes beyond surface-level observations to reveal nuanced opportunities for outshining your rivals.

💡Quick tip: Run a topic report through BrandWell to view the top 50 competitors that are currently ranking for your target keyword. From this report, you’ll be able to see their average word count, readability level, keyword usage, and more.

Content Types and Formats 

Examine the variety of content your competitors produce. Do they favor listicles, in-depth guides, or location-specific pages? Also, take note of their use of multimedia such as videos, infographics, and images.

Tone, Style, and Quality 

Assess the voice and style of your competitors’ top-performing pages in search. Is it formal and professional, or casual and fun?

Evaluate content quality, checking for issues like keyword stuffing, walls of text, outdated information, spelling errors, or poor grammar. These weaknesses present opportunities for you to create superior, well-researched content.

Also, utilize readability score tools to compare the complexity of your content to that of competitors. This helps in tailoring your content to your audience’s preferences and comprehension levels.

On-Page SEO Discovery

Don’t overlook the small but impactful elements like interlinking, outbound linking, meta descriptions, subheadings, and image alt and title tags. These sometimes-ignored components can significantly affect user engagement and SEO performance.

My favorite tool for looking into readability and on-page SEO elements is, hands-down, the Conductor SEO Chrome plugin.

Title Tag Analysis

It’s important to pay attention to how competitors use title tags. These carefully selected titles create a first impression on the SERPs and when written well, get clicked.

Competitors who are good at incorporating relevant keywords into their title tags tend to rank higher. They also tend to have a higher click-through rate. When analyzing your competitor’s SEO strategy, pay attention to how they use keywords in their titles.

For instance, maybe a competitor consistently places targeted keywords at the beginning of a title tag. Or perhaps they include power words in their title tags. Examples of power words include “beginner,” “ultimate,” and “best.”

Don’t assume your competitors always get it right though.

Content Velocity and Timeliness 

Track how often your competitors are publishing different types of content, as well as updating content with the Calendar feature on Ahrefs.

 Also, consider creating a “content gap timer” to monitor their response time to new industry developments. This can help you identify opportunities to be first-to-market with timely, relevant content.

Omnichannel Content Mapping 

Analyze how competitors repurpose content across different platforms. Do they transform blog posts into podcasts or social media snippets? This can inspire innovative content distribution strategies for your own brand.

Semantic Content Clustering 

Examine how competitors group related topics and how this affects their site structure and user journey. Proper structuring of content clusters and silos is the backbone of any SEO campaign’s success. Use these insights to inform your own content organization strategy and improve user experience.

User-Generated Content Analysis

Examine how competitors leverage user-generated content and identify opportunities to better engage your audience through interactive content strategies.

By listing out your top competitor’s strengths and weaknesses, you’ll better understand what your target audience craves. You can then craft compelling content that attracts more viewers and outshines your rivals.

4. Backlink Profile Analysis

Backlinks are links from other websites. These virtual endorsements signal trustworthiness to search engines, and to this day are the most powerful currency in Google’s ranking algorithm.

Tools such as Semrush’s Backlink Analytics and Ahrefs’ Site Explorer make analyzing backlink profiles easier. Figuring out how your competitors earn backlinks can improve your strategy. Also, be on the lookout for hidden link-building opportunities.

Start by comparing your backlink profile to those of your main competitors. What is their DA (Domain Authority)? How many more backlinks do they have than you? Are the backlinks from authoritative sites? Are they from industry-relevant sites?

When looking at backlinks in Ahrefs, I always filter by a minimum DA of 20 or higher, this will give you a better idea of their link profile, finding potential opportunities for you to get quality links from similar sites.

Note: Look at their number of referring domains, not the number of backlinks specifically, as you can have lots of backlinks from one single domain, and the number of links from unique domains is what matters most here.

Capitalizing on Competitors’ Broken Backlinks

You can uncover opportunities by digging into a competitor’s broken or “dead” backlinks. When an authoritative, high-DA site links to a page that no longer exists, the link loses value, which impacts user experience and SEO.

You can find these broken links using a tool like Semrush’s Backlink Analytics. Look for website pages showing “404 Not Found.” Then use the Wayback Machine to check each page’s history. If a competitor’s website has multiple broken backlinks, create content targeting those pages. You might also decide to create a new resource relevant to the competitor’s missing content.

Finally, reach out to the owners of websites with dead links. Let them know you have an excellent resource they can link to. Check this video out for even more great link-building strategies.

5. Technical SEO Audit

A technical SEO audit focuses on how well your competitor’s (and your) website is optimized for search engine crawlers and users. Technical issues such as slow-loading pages and broken links create a poor user experience. I always run technical site audits with Screaming Frog, Semrush, and Ahrefs.

Analyze and compare website speed, mobile-friendliness, site architecture, crawl depth, JavaScript rendering, orphaned pages (pages that have no links to them from anywhere on the site), and the use of Schema markup. These factors impact SEO performance. Tools such as Google’s PageSpeed Insights and its Mobile-Friendly test analyze site performance across devices.

Schema (Structured data markup)

Schema markup helps structure website data so search engines can understand it. This structured data language allows search engines to comprehend your content with unprecedented clarity, potentially granting you a significant edge over rivals. 

By dissecting your competitors’ SERP features through schema implementation, you uncover opportunities they may have missed, enabling you to present your content in a more compelling format on search result pages. This strategic intelligence allows you to outmaneuver competitors, securing rich snippets and enhanced listings that capture users’ attention and drive higher click-through rates.

Use the Schema validator tool to see, page-by-page, what types of Schema your competitors’ top pages have, and how complex it is. Then use ChatGPT to create better, more robust markup than them. 

Forging Your SEO Dominance: The Strategic Culmination

While this analysis provides a solid foundation, additional factors like social media, local SEO optimization, and user experience metrics offer further depth for those seeking even more comprehensive insights. But what we’ve gone over today is more than enough of a solid start to search ranking success.

Remember that SEO competitor analysis isn’t just about collecting data, or copying a competitor’s exact strategy. It’s about strategic interpretation and implementation of gathered intelligence. Your objective is to learn from what you find and identify actionable advantages that give your site an edge over competitors in search results.

A thorough examination of competitors’ SEO strategies reveals opportunities to refine your approach and achieve your ranking objectives more efficiently. This data-driven method allows for precise targeting of high-impact improvements, maximizing your SEO efforts and resources.

Author: Chris Kirksey, CEO, Direction.com