How to Use Competitor Analysis for SEO: Examples and Tips
Understanding what competitors do well in search rankings can reveal exactly where opportunities exist to gain visibility and traffic. This article breaks down practical competitor analysis techniques for SEO, backed by insights from industry experts who have used these methods to achieve measurable results. The examples and tips that follow show how to identify gaps, replicate successful strategies, and build a stronger organic presence.
Outshine Neighbors in Map Packs
For one of my retail bathroom showroom clients, I optimised the Google Business Profile by analysing competitors' profiles before applying Google's best practices.
Through the competitor analysis, I noticed that most competitors didn't have complete profiles. Their business description didn't include local keywords, they had random, grainy images, and no business response to poor customer reviews.
Here's what I did to improve the local map pack visibility:
1. Added detailed service descriptions with local keywords
2. Uploaded high-quality, descriptive product and showroom photos
3. Encouraged happy customers to share positive reviews and created a professional business response for negative reviews
4. Built consistent local citations across trusted directories to reinforce location signals
Despite being a small market player, these changes helped the client outrank publicly listed companies in the local map packs.
Differentiate With Transparent Methodology and Proof
I use competitor analysis to find content gaps and positioning opportunities, not to copy what's working. The goal is differentiation, not imitation.
Here's the specific process: when targeting a keyword, BSM Copilot analyzes the top 10 ranking pages and identifies what topics they cover, what questions they answer, and critically, what they're missing. That gap becomes our angle.
Real example: analyzing "Denver SEO agency," every competitor ranking top 5 had identical messaging. "We're a full-service agency," "We deliver results," "Proven track record." Pure commodity positioning. Nobody differentiated.
The gap we identified? None of them explained their actual methodology. They listed services but didn't explain how they work or why their approach differs. It was all generic marketing speak.
Our positioning response: we created content explaining Micro SEO Strategies in detail. Not just "we do SEO." Specifically "we focus on moving your existing pages from positions 11-30 to page one, which delivers faster results than ranking new content from scratch." We explained the exact methodology competitors kept vague.
Results: within 90 days, we ranked position 2 for "Denver SEO agency" and position 1 for "Boulder SEO agency." More importantly, our close rate increased because prospects understood our differentiation before the sales call.
The second competitive insight: none of the top-ranking agencies had published case studies with specific metrics. They had vague testimonials but no "this client went from position X to position Y in Z months" proof.
We published detailed case studies with Google Search Console screenshots showing actual ranking improvements. That transparency became a massive competitive advantage because we could prove results while competitors just claimed them.
Third competitive gap: nobody was optimizing for AI citations. All competitors focused purely on traditional Google rankings. We built content specifically designed to get cited in ChatGPT and Perplexity responses about SEO expertise. Now when people ask AI platforms for SEO recommendations, we get mentioned and competitors don't.
The methodology: find what everyone else is doing, then do something meaningfully different that provides more value. Competitor analysis isn't about copying best practices. It's about identifying where the market is commoditized and differentiating there.
Tailor City Hubs to Local Needs
For one of our clients, a multi location home services brand, we noticed competitors were ranking higher in local search results. They used city and service pages that looked simple but felt more relevant to users. Many brands were just changing place names, which made pages feel repeated and weak. We reviewed top pages and saw they included local details, common issues, and real photos that matched each area.
We rebuilt the pages by focusing on local problems people often face in each city. We added short sections that answered real questions people ask in those areas. We also improved the internal links so users could easily move from city pages to service pages. Within ten weeks, the brand saw better visibility in key cities and more calls from users who felt the content matched their needs.
Strengthen Authority With Relentless Consistency
Hello Marketer Magazine team,
You know, I use competitor analysis kind of like a gut check. It shows me where the baseline is and where the real upside sits. With Rice & Kendig, we dug into firms that were consistently winning and looked past the obvious stuff like design or basic keywords.
What really stood out was authority and consistency. Those competitors had stronger reviews, tighter local SEO, and way better coverage across directories. So we leaned into those same areas and made sure their content actually showed real expertise.
Pretty quickly, things started to stack up. Their visibility grew across Google and AI search, and the leads got noticeably better. At the end of the day, it only works if you actually execute better, not just take notes.
Sasha Berson
Co-Founder and Chief Growth Executive at Grow Law
501 E Las Olas Blvd, Suite 300, Fort Lauderdale, FL 33301
About expert: https://growlaw.co/sasha-berson
Website: https://growlaw.co/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aleksanderberson
Headshot: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1OqLe3z_NEwnUVViCaSozIOGGHdZUVbnq/view?usp=sharing
Capture Top Funnel With Education Assets
Competitor analysis is most useful when it's treated less like "copying what others rank for" and more like identifying gaps in intent, content depth, and format.
A practical approach we use is to map out which competitors consistently rank for high-value queries, then break down why they're ranking—whether it's stronger informational content, better internal linking, or more complete coverage of a topic cluster.
For example, when reviewing a competing jewelry retailer, we noticed they were capturing a lot of traffic from educational queries like "how to choose diamond clarity" and "diamond vs moissanite differences." Our site was mostly focused on product and category pages, so we were missing that entire top-of-funnel layer.
Instead of trying to outrank them on product terms, we built out a structured content cluster around diamond education—guides, comparison articles, and FAQ-style pages—and internally linked them to relevant collection pages. Within a few months, we started ranking for similar informational keywords, and those pages began feeding qualified traffic into our product pages.
The key insight was that competitor analysis didn't just show us what keywords to target, but what stage of the customer journey we were under-serving.
Chase Value Queries, Answer Precisely
I run competitor analysis in two stages. First, I pull a competitor's top organic pages in Ahrefs sorted by traffic value, not traffic volume. Traffic value shows which pages bring visitors worth the most in equivalent ad spend. That tells me where the money is.
Second, I read those pages. Not scan. Read. I look for what they covered poorly, what questions they skipped, and where they used generic statements instead of specifics.
Here's a concrete example. A dental clinic client in Dubai had zero content about teeth whitening. Their main competitor was pulling 40% of organic traffic from four blog posts on whitening costs. Generic content, just listing price ranges without any context.
We built two pages. One broke down actual costs in AED (800 to 2,500 per session depending on method), explained what drives the price difference, and included real before-and-after cases. The other compared in-office vs. at-home whitening with specifics from the clinic's own patient data.
Both pages had FAQ schema targeting "People Also Ask" queries. Within four months, the cost page ranked position 3 for "teeth whitening Dubai price." The comparison page hit position 5 for "best teeth whitening Dubai." Together they brought 1,200 new monthly visits that didn't exist before.
The whole gap analysis takes about two hours in Ahrefs. Building the better content is where the real work happens. But competitor data removes the guessing. You know exactly which topics to target and exactly what bar you need to clear.
Model Demand Paths to Drive Revenue
We treat competitor analysis as a revenue map, not a ranking report. First we isolate three to five direct rivals by paid visibility and organic share. Then we model intent clusters, page types, and conversion paths that drive their traffic. We confirm those hypotheses with Search Console gaps, crawl data, and SERP feature tracking.
For a Shopify brand, a rival dominated "best plus size leggings" with comparison content and rich snippets. We built a single hub page, added expert sizing tables, and connected it to optimized category filters. We also created supporting guides targeting long tail questions competitors ignored, and structured everything for FAQ and Product markup. Within twelve weeks, organic sessions rose thirty two percent, and revenue from organic increased twenty five percent.
Dominate With Scalable Suburb Clusters
Whenever I take on a new client, competitor analysis is one of the first things I run in Ahrefs before touching anything else on their site.
Competitor analysis tells me where the real gaps are before I waste time optimising pages that were never going to move. More usefully, it shows me where not to fight early on. Going head to head with a high authority domain on a well-established page in month one is a losing bet.
A home services client recently was a good example of this. A direct competitor was quietly ranking across dozens of suburb-specific pages my client had never built. Each page pulled maybe 50 to 100 searches a month individually, but across 40 suburbs that's a meaningful traffic pool. We built them out with genuinely localised content, not a copy-paste template with suburb names swapped, and four months later that cluster was outperforming their main service page for qualified leads.
I revisit competitor gaps quarterly now rather than once at the start. The opportunities that exist today won't still be sitting there in 12 months.
Explain the Missing Mechanics With Numbers
Competitor analysis becomes useful when it moves beyond copying keywords and starts revealing what your audience still is not getting from existing content. At Scale by SEO, we look closely at pages that rank in the top three positions and study how they are structured, how long people stay on them, and where they fall short. Sometimes the gap is obvious, like a guide that ranks well but skips pricing context or real examples. Other times it shows up in engagement signals, where a page ranks but has high bounce rates, which usually means it did not fully answer the search intent.
A clear example came from a client targeting "owner financed land Texas." The top results all covered basic definitions and benefits, yet none explained how payments actually break down month to month. We built a page that walked through a realistic scenario with numbers, showing how a $1,500 down payment and a 10 percent interest rate translated into a monthly payment over five years. That single addition increased average time on page from under two minutes to over five and pushed the page into the top results within a few months. The insight was simple. Competitors showed what the topic was, but not how it worked in practice, and that gap made all the difference.
Pursue Overlooked Questions With Purchase Signals
Most SEO professionals get competitor analysis backward. They waste time copying keywords, chasing the same backlinks, and duplicating content without understanding what actually moves the needle.
I've learned to take a more strategic approach. Instead of following the crowd, I look for gaps where competitors fall short. This reveals valuable opportunities where we can establish market leadership rather than just playing catch-up.
Let me share a concrete example from my work with a SaaS client. Their competitors were locked in an expensive battle over high-competition keywords, but we spotted something they all missed: specific, question-based search terms that showed clear buying intent from their target audience.
We created targeted content for these overlooked topics and saw immediate results: organic traffic jumped 38% and demo requests increased 26%. This success proved that effective competitor analysis isn't about copying what others do well, but finding the opportunities they've missed.
Lead With Depth and Verifiable Scoring
Honestly, my most valuable competitor analysis wasn't studying what competitors do — it was understanding what they can't do. Most SaaS comparison sites rely on vendor-submitted data or aggregate user reviews. When I analyzed their content, I noticed none of them offered a structured, evidence-based scoring methodology applied consistently across hundreds of categories. That gap is what I built WhatAreTheBest.com around: a six-category weighted scoring system with cited evidence for every product across 900+ software categories. The SEO advantage isn't a keyword trick — it's content depth that can't be easily replicated. Any competitor can publish a "Top 10 CRM" list. Nobody else has scored 7,500+ products on the same weighted framework with verifiable citations for every grade.
Albert Richer, Founder, WhatAreTheBest.com
Use Gaps to Shape Useful Formats
Instead of thinking of competitor analysis as spying, we think of it as a free research source.
Keyword gap analysis can help you find out which keywords your competitors are using to get traffic that you aren't using, but the most important question to ask is why. Is it because of how they put their content together? Or do their backlinks help them get better rankings for certain terms?
When you look at your competitors' data, the problem is often not just a few keywords but a whole new type of content. The issue is that your competitors are using informational keywords to get higher rankings, but you're only using keywords related to your products and services. Buying guides, comparisons, and FAQs are some types of content that come to mind.
One of our clients who does vehicle towing had a website that only had one page with very little valuable information. Their competitors, on the other hand, were quietly getting more visitors to their websites by writing blogs about safety on the road, what to do if your car breaks down, or how much it costs to tow a car. We learned what their competitors were doing, made content that was useful to them, and their organic visibility went up in just a month.
The competitor keyword data shows the gap, and knowing what the keywords mean fills it.
- Mitchell Gibb, Trusted Digital | trusteddigital.com.au
Build Instant Tools to Solve Tasks
One way I use competitor analysis is by identifying gaps between what they explain and what users actually need to do. For example, I noticed many competitors ranking for "compress image" were writing long guides but not offering a quick solution. So instead of competing with more content, I focused on building a fast, no-friction tool page that solved the task instantly.
That shift helped those pages rank faster and reduced bounce rate, because users could complete the action immediately instead of reading through instructions.
Outdo Rivals With Complete Topic Architecture
We use competitor analysis mainly to identify gaps in both content depth and structure, not just keywords.
Instead of copying what competitors are doing, we look at what they are missing. That includes unanswered questions, weak internal linking, thin content sections, or lack of supporting pages around a core topic. From there, we build a more complete version of that topic and connect it properly across the site.
For example, in a grill cleaning and repair niche, competitors were ranking with basic service pages targeting main keywords. We mapped out the full topic and created supporting content around maintenance, common issues, repair vs replacement, and seasonal care, then internally linked everything back to core service pages. That allowed us to outrank pages that were more keyword focused but less comprehensive.
Name: Dillon Hill
Title: Founder and Director of Astonishment
Company: Cosmoforge.io
Outrank Stale Posts With Fresh Specifics
The best thing it does for us is surface the content gaps we didn't know existed. I'm not particularly interested in what keywords a competitor ranks for if the content is generic. What I'm looking for is where they're ranking for something specific and the page isn't actually that good, because that's the real opportunity.
A concrete example. So I noticed a competitor ranking on page one for a pretty specific Shopify performance query with a post that was three years old and hadn't been updated. The information was partially outdated and didn't address some of the newer Shopify rendering changes. We wrote a more current, more specific version, structured it to answer the question faster, and within a couple months it was outranking theirs.
Leverage Internal Links for Quick Wins
At Marketix Digital, competitor analysis is not about copying, it is about identifying what is already working in the market and then building a better, more conversion-focused version.
We start by isolating competitors that are winning on high-intent keywords, not just traffic. Then we break down three areas: page structure, internal linking, and authority signals. The key is to identify gaps, not similarities.
For example, we worked with a Sydney-based electrical company where a competitor was ranking in the top three for "Level 2 electrician Sydney." Instead of rewriting the entire page, we identified that the competitor had stronger internal linking from relevant service content.
We implemented a targeted internal linking strategy, adding exact-match anchors from related pages and removing conflicting links that caused cannibalisation. Within weeks, the service page improved in rankings without needing a full rebuild.
That is how we approach competitor analysis, focused on leverage, not volume.
Analyze True SERP Owners, Not Vendors
One of the biggest mistakes in SEO competitor analysis is assuming your organic search competitors are the same as your business competitors. They're often not. When you shift from comparing against direct vendors to analyzing the domains that actually dominate your target SERPs, you uncover major intent gaps.
For example, a B2B compliance SaaS client spent months trying to outrank three direct competitors by optimizing product, feature, and benefits pages—focusing on backlinks and keyword density. But when we analyzed the top-ranking domains across 5,000+ mid-funnel keywords and mapped domain overlap, those competitors barely appeared.
Instead, the real SEO competition came from legal publishers, industry glossary sites, and compliance template aggregators—domains winning non-branded, intent-driven queries.
This insight completely changed the strategy. Rather than doubling down on product pages, we rebuilt the content architecture around long-tail, informational intent. We analyzed how these publishers covered regulatory changes and scaled a resource center focused on answering policy-specific queries and use cases.
By aligning with the actual search competitors—those capturing organic visibility for relevant, non-branded queries—the results improved significantly. Organic conversion rates increased from 0.6% to 2.15% within five months.
The takeaway is simple: don't benchmark SEO strategy against your commercial competitors. Instead, analyze keyword clusters across your industry, identify which domains consistently rank, and map overlap to find true competitors in search.
From there, reverse engineer their content strategy—page types, topic depth, and coverage—and build for the intent search engines are rewarding.
In SEO, your real competition isn't who you sell against—it's who owns attention in the SERPs.
Answer Fast Above the Fold
We look at competitors to find friction points we can remove. We evaluate their top pages and ask what makes them easy to trust fast, layout, clarity, and relevance. Then we run a gap review on intent modifiers like "cost," "timeline," and "Malaysia." Competitors that win often answer these directly and keep the page lightweight for mobile.
A specific case was a brand targeting corporate decision makers. Rivals ranked because their pages delivered quick proof and then deeper detail. Our content had depth but lacked a clear first screen. We restructured pages so the first scroll answered the main question, added concise FAQs based on competitor PAA data, and improved internal links from related articles. In six weeks, average ranking for the target set improved by 9 positions and conversions from organic increased by 22 percent.
Blend Technical and Editorial for Cohesion
We do competitor analysis in two steps. The first step is technical. We check Core Web Vitals, how pages are indexed, and how well key content is shown. The second step is editorial, where we look at how competitors answer search intent, what they leave out and how they guide readers to the next step.
A recent example was updating a trend forecast hub. We studied competitors who used clear categories and consistent names. We improved our internal links so trend pages connected to guides and updates. We also updated headings and copy to match search terms, which helped our pages rank better together.
Add Interactivity, New Stats, and FAQs
Hi there,
Chris here — I run Visionary Marketing, specialist SEO and Google Ads agency. Competitor analysis isn't something we do quarterly and file away — it's embedded into every content and keyword decision we make.
Our process uses Ahrefs to reverse-engineer what's actually working for competitors, not what they claim is working. We pull three datasets: their top pages by organic traffic, the keywords they rank for that we don't, and their backlink profile by referring domain. Each dataset tells a different story.
Top pages by traffic reveals their content strategy priorities. Keywords they rank for that we don't reveals our content gaps. And their backlink profile shows which of their content assets attract links — which tells us what format and depth the market rewards.
Here's a specific example. One of our SEO clients operates in the UK legal services space. Their main competitor had a page ranking position 2 for a high-intent keyword generating an estimated 3,400 monthly visits. We pulled that page into Ahrefs and analysed everything — word count, heading structure, the 47 other keywords it ranked for, its backlink profile, and how long it had held that position.
What we found: the page was comprehensive but entirely text-based, hadn't been updated in 14 months, and several of the statistics it cited were outdated. It had strong backlinks but the content was showing its age.
We created a competing page that covered the same core topic but added three things the competitor's page lacked: an interactive cost calculator that visitors could use immediately, updated 2025 statistics from primary sources, and a structured FAQ section targeting the long-tail question keywords that the competitor's page ranked for weakly in positions 8-15.
Within four months, our page reached position 3 for the primary keyword and position 1 for 12 of those long-tail question variants. The competitor still holds position 2 for the head term, but we're capturing more total traffic across the keyword cluster because we targeted the full intent spectrum rather than just the primary keyword.
Chris Coussons
Founder, Visionary Marketing
chris@visionary-marketing.co.uk
Surface Proprietary Data in Comparison Tables
We lean on competitor analysis a lot at ClearCasinos, but it's mostly to decide which features to build next.
Here's one that worked well for us: we'd been collecting detailed withdrawal data for each casino we review - exact processing times, limits, broken down by payment method. But it was just sitting in our database, not really surfaced anywhere on the site. Then we started digging into what competing review sites were ranking for, and noticed withdrawal-related queries had solid search volume, but everyone was giving the same vague "1-5 business days" answers with no real specifics.
That was the nudge we needed. We built structured comparison tables using the data we already had, and it turned into one of our strongest differentiators - because we weren't making up a content angle, we were just finally putting real data in front of people who were already searching for it. Honestly, the biggest shift in how I think about competitor analysis is finding gaps that you can cover in a short period of time.
I don't believe you should follow "the gaps" because if you're focused on one niche - let's say casinos, if you lean a LOT towards crypto casinos, you'll start to stretch and cover nothing meaningful.
Surpass Authorities Through Usability and Clarity
Competitor analysis is most valuable when it reveals what competitors do badly, not what they do well. The gaps in their execution are where the ranking opportunities sit.
The clearest example from my work is a healthcare SaaS client that needed to rank for pricing data queries dominated by .gov domains with decades of authority. My first instinct was to avoid those SERPs entirely.
An audit of the actual pages ranking for these queries told a different story. Three gaps stood out to me:
- The first was cluttered UIs. The information existed but was buried under navigation and unrelated content. Bounce rates were high.
- The second was incomplete data. Government pages showed partial information, forcing users to visit multiple sources to get a full picture.
- The third was no comparison capability. Visitors couldn't benchmark their own numbers against the data being shown.
That audit defined the entire strategy. Instead of trying to outwrite .gov sites with blog content, me and my clients built programmatic pages that surfaced the answer immediately, enriched every page with data points competitors didn't show, and let visitors compare their own situation against market data.
The result was 71K+ monthly organic visits from roughly 1,000 in 12 months, outranking government domains at a Domain Rating of 28 (started at 12). Monthly traffic value reached $27K+.
This quick competitor content gap analysis is usually the step SEO teams I've worked with most often skip.
Go Deeper on Real User Considerations
Competitor analysis has driven some of the most useful SEO decisions I've made for Doggie Park Near Me, and I'd honestly say it's one of the most underutilized tactics for small sites trying to find their footing. The example I keep coming back to: we identified a competitor that was ranking well for 'pet-friendly parks' content but had almost no coverage of specific amenities — things like water stations, agility equipment, or small dog sections. Their pages were thin. Ours started ranking above them within a few months simply because we went deeper. Here's the specific process I use. I take three to five competitors who are ranking for terms I want, run their top pages through Ahrefs or a similar tool, and look at two things: what keywords are they ranking for that we're not targeting, and where do their pages seem weak — thin content, poor structure, no schema markup, not answering the actual user question? The gaps are where I focus. If a competitor ranks for a term but their page is basically a list of addresses, I build a page that actually describes each location, answers common questions, and adds context a user would care about. I also look at who's linking to their top-performing pages and go after those same sources, because if a site linked to a competitor's resource on a relevant topic, they might link to a better one. The key mindset is that competitor analysis isn't about copying. It's about learning what's already working in your space and then identifying where you can do it more thoroughly or more helpfully.
Create Focused Services With Support Articles
I use competitor analysis to find gaps, not to copy. I look at which pages bring them traffic, how they structure service and blog content, what keywords they target by search intent, how deep their pages go, and where they earn links. Then I compare that against my own site to spot missing pages, weak internal linking, or content that does not match user intent.
A practical example: I noticed competitors ranking for "WordPress SEO services" had dedicated landing pages plus supporting articles around audits, technical SEO, and speed optimization. Instead of keeping everything under one generic SEO page, I created a focused service page, added related supporting content, and linked them properly. That helped improve relevance and organic visibility.
On top of that I also check their backlinks, and see if I can obtain a backlink on any of those.
Expand Search Coverage and Strengthen Structure
I use competitor analysis to understand what's already ranking and then improve on it rather than copy it.
I analyze competitors across three areas: keywords, content structure, and backlinks. This helps identify gaps like missing topics, weak sections, or untapped long-tail keywords.
For example, one of my "area code" pages started losing traffic. After reviewing competitors, I found they were covering more intent-based queries (like scams and time zones), using better FAQ structures, and internally linking related pages. I updated my content with expanded keywords, improved FAQs, and stronger structure.
The result was a recovery in rankings within weeks. Competitor analysis works because it replaces guesswork with data-driven improvements.
