{"id":434,"date":"2025-08-19T02:12:41","date_gmt":"2025-08-19T02:12:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/autorank.so\/blog\/how-to-do-competitor-analysis-in-seo\/"},"modified":"2025-08-19T02:12:41","modified_gmt":"2025-08-19T02:12:41","slug":"how-to-do-competitor-analysis-in-seo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/autorank.so\/blog\/how-to-do-competitor-analysis-in-seo\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Do Competitor Analysis in SEO: A Practical Guide"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>SEO competitor analysis reveals what is working for sites that already rank for your target keywords \u2014 their <a href=\"https:\/\/autorank.so\/blog\/blog-content-strategy\">content strategy<\/a>, backlink sources, technical advantages, and keyword gaps you can exploit. Instead of guessing what Google wants, you study what Google is already rewarding.<\/p>\n<h2>Step 1: Identify Your Real SEO Competitors<\/h2>\n<p>Your SEO competitors are not necessarily your business competitors. They are the sites that rank for the keywords you want to rank for.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Search your target keywords:<\/strong> Note which domains appear repeatedly in the top 10 results<\/li>\n<li><strong>Use Ahrefs or SEMrush:<\/strong> The &#8220;Competing Domains&#8221; feature shows sites with the most keyword overlap<\/li>\n<li><strong>Look beyond obvious competitors:<\/strong> Blogs, media sites, and directories may be your biggest SEO competitors even if they are not direct business competitors<\/li>\n<li><strong>Pick 3-5 competitors:<\/strong> Focus your analysis on a manageable number<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Step 2: Analyze Competitor Keywords<\/h2>\n<p>Understanding which keywords drive traffic to competitors reveals opportunities you may be missing.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Export their keyword rankings:<\/strong> Use Ahrefs Site Explorer or SEMrush Domain Analytics to see every keyword a competitor ranks for<\/li>\n<li><strong>Filter by volume and position:<\/strong> Focus on keywords with meaningful search volume where competitors rank in the top 20<\/li>\n<li><strong>Find keyword gaps:<\/strong> Keywords your competitors rank for but you do not \u2014 these are your biggest opportunities<\/li>\n<li><strong>Identify shared keywords:<\/strong> Keywords where you both rank but they outrank you \u2014 these are optimization opportunities<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Step 3: Analyze Competitor Content<\/h2>\n<p>Content analysis reveals what type of content Google rewards in your niche.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Top-performing pages:<\/strong> Which pages drive the most organic traffic? Use Ahrefs &#8220;Top Pages&#8221; report<\/li>\n<li><strong>Content format:<\/strong> Are they using long-form guides, listicles, tools, or video? Match the winning format.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Content depth:<\/strong> How comprehensive are their top pages? Note <a href=\"https:\/\/autorank.so\/free-tools\/word-counter\">word count<\/a>, subtopics covered, and media included<\/li>\n<li><strong>Publishing frequency:<\/strong> How often do they publish new content?<\/li>\n<li><strong>Content freshness:<\/strong> Do they regularly update existing content?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Step 4: Analyze Competitor Backlinks<\/h2>\n<p>Backlinks remain one of the strongest ranking factors. Understanding where competitors get their links reveals link building opportunities for you.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Total referring domains:<\/strong> How many unique sites link to each competitor? This is your authority benchmark.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Top linking domains:<\/strong> Which authoritative sites link to them? Can you earn links from the same sources?<\/li>\n<li><strong>Link-worthy content:<\/strong> Which competitor pages earn the most backlinks? This reveals what content formats attract links in your niche.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Link velocity:<\/strong> How fast are competitors gaining new links? This tells you how aggressive your link building needs to be.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Step 5: Technical SEO Comparison<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Site speed:<\/strong> Test competitor page speed with PageSpeed Insights \u2014 are they faster than you?<\/li>\n<li><strong>Core Web Vitals:<\/strong> Check their CWV scores \u2014 if theirs pass and yours fail, this is a ranking disadvantage<\/li>\n<li><strong>Mobile experience:<\/strong> Test competitor sites on mobile \u2014 Google uses mobile-first indexing<\/li>\n<li><strong>Site structure:<\/strong> How is their content organized? What is their URL structure and internal linking approach?<\/li>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/autorank.so\/free-tools\/schema-markup-generator\">Schema markup<\/a>:<\/strong> What structured data do they implement? Rich results provide SERP advantages.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Step 6: Find Your Competitive Advantages<\/h2>\n<p>Competitor analysis should reveal where you can win, not just where they are strong.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Content gaps:<\/strong> Topics they have not covered or have covered poorly<\/li>\n<li><strong>Quality gaps:<\/strong> Their content is outdated, thin, or poorly structured<\/li>\n<li><strong>Experience gaps:<\/strong> You have first-hand experience or original data they lack<\/li>\n<li><strong>Technical gaps:<\/strong> Your site is faster, more mobile-friendly, or better structured<\/li>\n<li><strong>Authority gaps:<\/strong> You have access to link sources or PR opportunities they do not<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Turning Analysis into Action<\/h2>\n<ol>\n<li><strong>Prioritize keyword gaps by opportunity:<\/strong> Focus on gaps where you have both business relevance and realistic ranking potential<\/li>\n<li><strong>Create superior content:<\/strong> For your highest-priority keywords, create content that is more comprehensive, more current, and better structured than anything currently ranking<\/li>\n<li><strong>Replicate their best link sources:<\/strong> If a site links to your competitor&#8217;s resource, they may link to yours if it is better<\/li>\n<li><strong>Fix technical disadvantages:<\/strong> If competitors have better site speed or CWV, address these technical issues<\/li>\n<li><strong>Monitor ongoing:<\/strong> Set up rank tracking for shared keywords and repeat competitor analysis quarterly<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<h2>Tools for SEO Competitor Analysis<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Ahrefs:<\/strong> Best for backlink analysis and keyword gap identification<\/li>\n<li><strong>SEMrush:<\/strong> Best for comprehensive competitive intelligence including traffic estimates<\/li>\n<li><strong>Google Search Console:<\/strong> Shows your actual performance data to benchmark against<\/li>\n<li><strong>Screaming Frog:<\/strong> Crawl competitor sites to analyze their technical SEO and site structure<\/li>\n<li><strong>PageSpeed Insights:<\/strong> Compare page speed and Core Web Vitals<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>SEO competitor analysis reveals what is working for sites that already rank for your target keywords \u2014 their content strategy, backlink sources, technical advantages, and keyword gaps you can exploit. Instead of guessing what Google wants, you study what Google is already rewarding. Step 1: Identify Your Real SEO Competitors Your SEO competitors are not [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":435,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rank_math_title":"","rank_math_description":"How to do competitor analysis in SEO step by step. Learn how to identify competitors, analyze their keywords, content, backlinks, and technical SEO to find opportunities.","rank_math_focus_keyword":"SEO competitor analysis","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[314,130,25,42,195],"class_list":["post-434","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-backlink-analysis","tag-competitor-analysis","tag-content-strategy","tag-keyword-research","tag-seo-strategy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/autorank.so\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/autorank.so\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/autorank.so\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/autorank.so\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/autorank.so\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=434"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/autorank.so\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/434\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/autorank.so\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/435"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/autorank.so\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=434"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/autorank.so\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=434"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/autorank.so\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=434"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}