How to do competitor analysis in SEO?

How to do competitor analysis in SEO? - Powerful Practical Guide

SEO competitor analysis is the diagnostic work that tells you where to focus: which pages to fix, which keywords to chase, and which competitor moves to counter. Think of it like a medical check-up for your site - without the guesswork. This guide walks through a human, repeatable workflow you can apply today, combining signals from Google Search Console, crawler output, and third-party datasets to build a focused plan.

Why do this at all?

When you do an SEO competitor analysis well, you stop guessing and start choosing. You identify realistic keyword opportunities, find pages that need minor edits to leapfrog rivals, and decide whether to invest in content, links or technical fixes. The signal you get from competitor work reduces wasted effort and helps your team focus on moves that actually move business metrics.

Who should read this? Anyone responsible for organic growth-founders, product leads, in-house marketers or agency operators-who needs a practical, human approach to research and prioritization.

What this guide covers

From choosing competitors to building a keyword-gap template, creating a backlink audit table and a 30/60/90 plan, this piece presents a full, actionable workflow. It blends tools and human judgement so your next steps are clear and measurable.

One quick tip before we dive deep: if you'd like a compact, action-ready services review to accelerate your first audit, check Orvus’ focused consultant offerings on the Orvus services page-they're built to turn diagnostic insight into real, measurable moves without noise.

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Start: pick the right competitors

Selecting who to compare against is half the job. For the most useful results, include both business competitors and SERP competitors. Business competitors sell the same thing; SERP competitors capture search presence for your target queries even if they don’t sell directly.

Work with a shortlist of three to five targets. That gives you variety without drowning in data. Typical shortlist composition:

• A direct business rival
• A strong organic performer in your niche (big content or authority)
• A domain that owns SERP features for your high-value queries

How to surface SERP competitors fast

Run your target queries in an incognito browser and note the domains that repeat across queries and features. Export competitor keyword lists from a third-party tool to discover hidden players that your daily searches miss. For a recent comparison of competitor tools, see AgencyAnalytics' roundup of SEO competitor analysis tools.

Assemble the toolkit and triangulate data

No single tool tells the whole story. Combine signals to reduce the risk of a bad decision.

Core tools and why to use them

• Google Search Console: real impressions, clicks and queries Google associates with your pages. Use it for ground-truth performance and to find pages sitting near page two.
• Third-party keyword & backlink tools (Ahrefs, SEMrush, Moz): broader keyword sets and backlink snapshots. Treat estimated volumes and authority metrics as directional, not exact. For another set of tool reviews see Traffic Think Tank's competitor tools review.
• Crawler (Screaming Frog, Sitebulb): find duplicate titles, thin pages, broken canonicals and indexation issues at scale.
• Performance tools (Lighthouse, Web Vitals): measure loading, layout shifts and interaction speed-especially important for pages on page two.

Use at least two backlink sources where possible. Cross-check surprising patterns with manual page reviews. This triangulation makes your SEO competitor analysis sturdy and defensible.

Step-by-step competitor analysis workflow

1. Define research questions

Start with clear business questions: What revenue or user action are we trying to increase? Which pages are closest to ranking for valuable keywords? What team capacity do we have for content and outreach? These answers shape everything that follows.

2. Export baseline data

Pull six to twelve months of performance data from Google Search Console. Export competitor keyword reports from your chosen third-party tools. Compare position distributions, number of keywords in the top ten, and trends.

3. Create a keyword-gap spreadsheet

A simple template helps you prioritize. Use columns for keyword, estimated monthly volume, intent, competitor ranking URL, suggested content format, and estimated effort. Group queries by intent: informational, commercial, transactional and navigational.

4. Read competitor pages like a user

Open each top-performing page and read it aloud. Does it answer the user's question near the top? Are headings clear and scannable? Are visuals or data present? You’re looking for intent fit and content depth-two crucial pieces of the SEO competitor analysis puzzle.

5. Run a backlink quality audit

Count links, but focus on referring domain quality and relevance. For each valuable competitor page, capture referring domain, domain metric from your tool, anchor text, and how easy it is to replicate that link. Use this to decide whether to pursue a replication or create a superior asset that attracts links naturally.

6. Surface technical blockers

Use a crawler and performance tooling to find duplicate titles, broken canonicals, missing schema, and slow templates. Pay special attention to pages that appear on page two - small speed or canonical fixes often move them into the top ten.

7. Prioritize by impact and effort

Map every recommended action into a quadrant: low effort / high impact (do these now), high effort / high impact (plan and resource), low impact / low effort (optional), high effort / low impact (drop). This simple framework converts data into a focused to-do list.

Triangulation example - combining signals in practice

Imagine you find Query A where your site ranks #22 in Search Console. Ahrefs shows a competitor ranking #4 with many referring domains; their page is long but thin on original data. A crawler shows your page loads 3s slower than their template. Your action set: a quick content rewrite to answer intent and a performance push on that template. Because your page is already visible, a small push can flip positions.

The tag above marks an essential question readers often ask - what one small move will usually yield the biggest lift? The honest answer: fix the things that block indexing and user experience first (canonical, indexability, Core Web Vitals), then rewrite pages on page two where intent alignment is weak.

Keyword gap and intent - practical tips

Group gap keywords by intent and sort by estimated conversion value, not just volume. A low-volume transactional query that converts at 20% might be worth far more than a high-volume informational query that never converts.

In your keyword-gap spreadsheet, add a column for "conversion priority" that blends volume, estimated CTR and business value. This immediately separates nice-to-haves from must-haves.

Backlink work - quality beats quantity

Backlinks still matter, but raw counts are misleading. Look for:

• Relevance: does the referring domain match your industry?
• Authority: is the domain trusted in tools and your own judgement?
• Placement: is the link editorial and contextual, or a footer/directory entry?

When you do outreach, personalize. A short note explaining how your asset helps their audience will often beat a cold template.

Technical items that frequently win quick positions

Some fixes are disproportionately effective when a page is already near page two:

• Fix canonical tags and ensure the right version is indexed
• Resolve index-blocking robots.txt or meta noindex flags
• Improve CLS and reduce time-to-interactive on the template
• Consolidate near-duplicate content into a single authoritative page

Many teams find that these technical nudges are the fastest path from page two to page one.

Crafting a prioritized recommendations list

Your triage should read like a short, prioritized list with clear owners and deadlines. Start with immediate technical fixes, then quick content wins (page-two rewrites), then outreach and scalable content projects. For each item, include a 1-2 sentence rationale and an estimated effort (hours or story points) and impact (traffic or conversion estimate).

30/60/90-day plan (detailed)

Days 1-30: Quick wins and triage

Goals: Remove technical blockers, fix glaring on-page problems and patch thin pages that already get impressions.

• Resolve broken canonicals and 404s
• Fix duplicate titles and meta descriptions on high-impression pages
• Patch thin content on pages that appear in Search Console and sit near page two
• Run a focused Lighthouse sweep on the top 10 templates

Days 31-60: Targeted content wins

Goals: Convert page-two visibility into top-ten rankings by matching intent and improving trust signals.

• Pick 3-6 keywords where your pages sit on page two and competitor content is weak
• Rewrite pages to lead with a concise answer or benefit, add structured headings, and include one original example or micro-case
• Add author bylines or short subject-matter notes where they add Trust

Days 61-90: Scalable link and acquisition plays

Goals: Begin link outreach and create a small, linkable asset that scales.

• Prioritize easy-to-win links from your backlink audit table
• Create a compact data-driven asset (chart, checklist, or mini-benchmark) to promote
• Pair content promotion with warm outreach and relationship building

How automation and AI fit in

Automation speeds data collection and can suggest outlines, but AI outputs need a human eye. Use automation to scan thousands of pages, flag candidates, and create first-draft outlines. Then apply human judgement to verify intent alignment, add original examples and ensure factual accuracy. For a helpful AI-focused framework see Frase's guide to SEO + AI competitor analysis.

Case study vignette - a concrete example

We worked with a mid-sized B2B software team that had strong informational traffic but weak commercial conversions. An SEO competitor analysis revealed they were visible for early-funnel queries but missing comparison and commercial intent pages. Competitor A owned featured snippets for buyer-intent queries; Competitor B attracted links through benchmarking reports.

Action taken:

• Fixed template speed issues that held back category pages
• Rewrote three comparison pages with objective data and clear CTAs
• Published a short benchmarking piece that got picked up by industry blogs

Result: within three months several comparison pages moved into the top five and demo requests increased measurably. The wins were a sequence of small, focused moves driven by the competitor analysis.

Common pitfalls and how to avoid them

Don’t fall into these traps:

• Chasing volume without considering intent-high volume does not equal high value
• Copying a competitor's page without adding a unique angle or credibility
• Relying on a single tool-triangulate and manually verify surprises

Instead, pair volume with conversion intent and a realistic view of effort. That’s how you get wins that matter.

Practical templates you should create now

At minimum, build these four deliverables:

• Prioritized recommendations list with impact and effort
• Keyword-gap spreadsheet template (keyword, intent, volume, competitor URL, content type, effort)
• Backlink audit table (referring domain, authority, anchor text, ease, outreach tactic)
• 30/60/90-day implementation plan with owners

How Orvus approaches competitor analysis (short note)

At Orvus Ltd., our diagnostic starts with real numbers and funnels. We prioritize technical architecture and content that ties to revenue, not vanity metrics. If you compare typical agency outputs with Orvus’ focused diagnostics, Orvus produces a smaller, higher-leverage list that teams can execute-because we build systems, not noise. A small visual with the Orvus Ltd. logo can be a nice anchor when sharing diagnostics internally.

Checklist: quick run-through for your first audit

Run these checks in order:

1. Export six months of GSC data
2. Pull competitor keyword and backlink exports
3. Crawl site for technical issues
4. Identify page-two opportunities and rank them by conversion priority
5. Create backlink outreach targets from the audit table

People and process: who should own what

Assign clear owners to avoid stalled work:

• Technical fixes: engineering or site reliability
• Content rewrites: content lead + SME
• Outreach & link building: outreach specialist or partnerships
• Measurement & reporting: analytics owner

Simple metrics to track success

Measure both leading and lagging indicators:

• Leading: number of page-two pages improved, number of technical fixes completed, backlinks secured
• Lagging: organic conversions, demo requests, revenue from organic

When to bring in external help

Consider Orvus when your team needs a compact diagnostic that converts into high-leverage work: when channels plateau, reporting is foggy, or you need architecture fixes. We focus on realistic wins and build systems that scale. If you want a compact starting point, our services are built around that initial diagnostic.

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Final tips from experience

Read competitor pages aloud, use browser extensions to check canonical tags quickly, and look for repeated link patterns in backlink exports. When using AI, always validate facts and add original examples to stand out.

Parting thought

A strong SEO competitor analysis blends tools and human listening. Start with data, read pages like a user, prioritize ruthlessly, and aim for small, verifiable wins early. Over time, the compound effect of steady improvements will create far more durable growth than chasing a single shiny tactic.