When it comes to SEO competitor analysis, most guides rely heavily on SEMrush and Ahrefs as go-to tools. But the truth is, there are many lesser-known tactics and tools that can give you an edge over competitors.
To uncover these alternative strategies, I reached out to senior SEOs from agencies, brands and major publishers to find out what they use beyond SEMrush and Ahrefs. Their responses were eye-opening and revealed strategies that go far beyond the obvious.
In this article, I’ve compiled their expert insights into a practical checklist so if you’re ready for a fresh perspective, read on.
[If you prefer to stick with SEMrush and Ahrefs, there are plenty of other articles for that, like this one or this one.]
A Quick SEO Competitor Analysis Checklist
- Keyword Research & Gaps
- Identify competitors’ top-ranking keywords.
- Find keyword gaps between your content and theirs.
- Content Gap Analysis
- Compare your content with competitors to find missing or under-served topics.
- Identify new content opportunities.
- Unique Content & E-E-A-T
- Conduct manual competitor analysis to find unique content angles.
- Ensure your content aligns with Google’s E-E-A-T guidelines.
- SERP & Intent Analysis
- Analyze what content Google rewards for specific search intents.
- Align your content with search intent behind target keywords.
- Backlink Analysis
- Analyze competitors’ backlink profiles.
- Find potential link-building opportunities.
- Technical SEO & Site Performance
- Benchmark competitors’ page speed and technical SEO health.
- Identify any technical strengths & weaknesses in competitors’ sites.
- Branded Search & Awareness
- Track branded search volume over time compared to competitors.
- Measure and analyze brand awareness trends.
- Competitor Keyword Tracking
- Track competitors’ keyword movements over time.
- Monitor ranking fluctuations for important keywords.
- Monitor Content & Backlink Changes
- Keep track of updates competitors make to their content.
- Monitor new and lost backlinks over time to spot opportunities.
1. Keyword Research & Gaps
The foundation of competitor analysis often begins with keyword research. By identifying which keywords your competitors are ranking for—and discovering gaps in your own strategy—you can start building a more effective SEO plan.
Recommended by The Experts
In my conversation with Kirsty Nevison from Breakout Media, she emphasized how identifying keyword gaps is key to outpacing competitors. She explained how tools like SE Ranking allow you to quickly spot those opportunities and create optimized content to fill them.
SE Ranking’s ability to highlight keyword gaps is a great way to find opportunities competitors are missing.
Mollie Ellerton from Hookflash recommended analyzing Share of Search and Share of Voice to identify which brands dominated search visibility for high-priority keywords. She noted that tools like seoClarity and Authoritas were useful for mapping out competitors being searched for the most, providing insights into both business and search competitors – a key part of the process that so many SEOs overlook.
Share of Search helps us understand who dominates search visibility, while Share of Voice reveals which competitors are winning for high-priority keywords.
On the other hand, Andy Mollison from Reflect Digital shared how Sistrix provides clear visibility into competitors’ keyword shifts over time, helping you track how they’re adapting their strategies.
Sistrix’s visibility graphs make it easy to see when a competitor’s rankings increase or decrease, helping you understand why.
Keyword Research Checklist:
- Find Keyword Gaps: Use SE Ranking to export competitor keyword data and compare it with your own. Focus on areas where competitors rank but you don’t. These gaps give you the chance to create highly targeted content to close the competitive gap.
- Analyze Share of Search & Voice: Use tools like seoClarity and Authoritas to help map out which competitors hold the most visibility in search for high-priority keywords, offering insights into who is dominating the search landscape and why.
- Identify Competitors’ Top-Ranking Keywords: Use Sistrix to track competitors’ keyword visibility. This tool helps you monitor how they perform across key search terms and provides insights into visibility shifts, especially around algorithm updates. Seeing how their rankings evolve can highlight trends and opportunities.
2. Content Gap Analysis
After identifying keywords, the next step is analyzing your competitors’ content. This involves discovering which topics they cover that you don’t, analyzing the depth of their content, and monitoring ongoing updates to stay ahead.
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Kirsty Nevison from Breakout Media noted that SE Ranking helps her identify content gaps by exporting blog rankings and pinpointing topics her competitors cover that she hasn’t.
Meanwhile, Tom Neale from Octo SEO shared how Google’s NLP Tool allows him to dig deeper into competitor content and spot important entities that can improve your own content quality.
Use Google’s NLP tool to compare content and see if competitors are mentioning relevant entities that you can incorporate into your own content.
Both Harry Clarkson-Bennett from The Telegraph and Adam Vowles from Immediate Media use custom tools or scripts to monitor competitors’ new content through XML sitemaps. This allows them to track how competitors are expanding their content strategies, especially during key events or emerging trends, keeping their own teams ahead in publishing volume and content strategy.
Custom tools that scrape competitors’ XML sitemaps allow us to track content output and publishing strategies, especially during key events.
Once these content gaps are identified, tools like Rankalyzer can help by monitoring updates competitors make to their content, including changes to meta descriptions, page titles, and on-page elements. This ensures that you stay updated on competitors’ evolving content strategies and can adjust your own content accordingly.
Content Gap Analysis Checklist
- Identify Content Gaps: Use SE Ranking to export competitor blog rankings and pinpoint topics they rank for that you haven’t covered. This gives you a clear view of which areas they have successfully targeted and where you need to create or optimize content.
- Analyze Content Depth: Once you’ve identified the gaps, use Google NLP Tool to analyze how deep competitors go into these topics. This helps you identify important “Entities” and improve your content by addressing key areas they mention but you haven’t.
- Monitor XML Sitemaps for New Content: Monitor competitors’ XML sitemaps and identify when new content is published. This is especially useful during major events or trends where fresh content is crucial.
- Track Competitor Content Changes: After creating content to fill these gaps, use Rankalyzer to monitor competitors’ content updates, such as changes to titles, meta descriptions, headings, and on-page content. This allows you to adapt to their evolving strategies.
3. Unique Content & E-E-A-T
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When speaking with Robert Mitkow from Publicis Media, he highlighted that while automated tools are valuable, manual desk research is essential for finding unique angles. By manually reviewing competitors’ sites, forums, and social media platforms, you can uncover unique user pain points and emerging trends.
Rankalyzer can help you monitor and track conversations on platforms like Reddit and Quora, where user-generated content and real-time discussions often reveal insights into what people are really looking for. Monitoring these forums allows you to identify content opportunities that competitors may not be addressing, and create content that truly meets the needs of your audience.
Providing unique content that will gain search visibility and attract traffic is not only about writing high-quality original copy but also sharing a different perspective on a subject matter versus the competition. This unique spin is what will make your pages stand out and score highly on Google’s E-E-A-T search quality guidelines.
Unique Content & EEAT Checklist:
- Conduct Manual Competitor Analysis: Spend time reviewing competitors’ websites to find unique angles and perspectives for your content.
- Monitor User Forums: Use Rankalyzer to track discussions on forums like Reddit, Quora, and other platforms to stay ahead of user concerns, new trends, and unique angles competitors may miss.
- Leverage Unique Selling Points (USPs): Highlight what makes your products or services different, and incorporate these into your content.
- Align with E-E-A-T Guidelines: Ensure your content demonstrates experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness.
4. SERP & Intent Analysis
Recommended by The Experts
Always refer back to Google directly to take inspiration for your strategy.
Ben Johnston from Harvest Digital highlighted the growing importance of search intent and natural language processing (NLP). By focusing on matching content intent to target keywords and closing the intent gap, SEOs can better align with what Google expects.
NLP and search intent are key in closing the gap between your content and user needs, allowing us to stay ahead of shifts in search behaviour.
Meanwhile, Itamar Blauer from StudioHawk recommended using Keyword Insights to analyze SERP similarity, helping to decide whether multiple keywords should be targeted on the same page or through separate pieces of content.
Keyword Insights’ SERP similarity feature helps identify what content Google is rewarding for different search intents, allowing us to refine our strategies accordingly.
SERP & Intent Analysis Checklist
- Evaluate Competitors’ Content: Review the top-ranking pages for your target keywords and analyze how they satisfy user intent. Look for common themes in the content type—whether Google is favoring guides, transactional pages, or comparison articles—and use this to inform your content approach.
- Analyze SERP Similarity: Use Keyword Insights to identify which URLs rank for multiple queries. This gives you insight into competitors that are effectively targeting user intent across different search terms. Understanding these patterns helps you decide whether to group similar keywords on the same page or target them with separate content.
- Refine Your Content for Intent: Once you have a clear understanding of what Google is rewarding, optimize your content to better meet the intent behind those queries. For example, if you notice competitors ranking for transactional intent with product comparisons, consider adding a similar structure to your own pages.
5. Backlink Analysis
What Did The Experts Say?
Ed Watkinson from GRV Media, noted the importance of tracking competitors’ backlinks using tools like Majestic. He emphasized that understanding where competitors are earning authoritative backlinks is essential for replicating their link-building success.
For backlinks, it would have to be Majestic.
Additionally, Jelo Guia, Outreach Team Lead at Position Digital pointed out that Rankalyzer plays a critical role in helping monitor changes to competitors’ backlink profiles over time, showing you which links they’ve gained or lost.
Rankalyzer allows us to monitor new and lost backlinks for all our competitors, providing our outreach team with a fresh list of new link opportunities every month.
Backlink Analysis Checklist
- Analyze Competitor Backlink Profiles: Start by using Majestic to get an overview of your competitors’ backlink profiles. Focus on identifying their high-value referring domains, as these represent the strongest opportunities for you to pursue in your own link-building strategy.
- Identify Link-Building Opportunities: Look for referring domains that link to multiple competitors but not to you. This is often an indicator of a valuable link source that is relevant to your industry. Reach out to these domains with quality content or relationship-building efforts to secure backlinks.
- Monitor Backlink Changes: Use Rankalyzer to monitor how your competitors’ backlink profiles evolve over time. Tracking new and lost backlinks allows you to spot opportunities as they happen. If a competitor loses a valuable backlink, you can potentially step in to claim that link.
6. Technical SEO & Site Performance
What Did The Experts Say?
Rodrigo Lasanta from Digivate explained how Screaming Frog can help analyze competitors’ on-page optimizations, such as meta titles and internal linking. Similarly, Davide (Binh) Tien from RICH Digital Performance uses it to crawl competitors’ categories to extract their content and product range, providing valuable insights into their site structure and offerings.
I use Screaming Frog to gain insights into competitors’ website structures and SEO practices. It helps me analyze their meta data, H1 tags, and internal linking strategies, and identify strengths or weaknesses.
I use Screaming Frog to crawl the competitors’ categories, specifically extracting either the copy on each or the full product range.
Tom Neale from Octo SEO suggested comparing competitor page load speed and core web vitals’ metrics. Rankalyzer is a great tool for this as it tracks competitors’ site performance over time, particularly focusing on core web vitals like page speed and responsiveness, showing how their speed updates impact rankings.
I’d recommend comparing page load speed and core web vitals’ metrics with your competitors.
Technical SEO & Site Performance Checklist
- Analyze Competitor On-Page Optimization: Use Screaming Frog to assess competitors’ meta titles, headers, internal linking strategies, and content structure. This helps you understand how they optimize for target keywords and identify areas where you can improve.
- Benchmark Competitors’ Site Speed: Use Rankalyzer to compare your site’s speed and core web vitals against your competitors. Look for areas where they outperform you in loading speed, first input delay, and cumulative layout shift (CLS), and use these metrics to optimize your site for better performance.
- Track Site Performance Changes: Use Rankalyzer to monitor how your competitors’ site performance evolves over time. This tool can help you track changes in core web vitals like page load speed and responsiveness, ensuring you stay up-to-date with their optimizations.
7. Branded Search & Awareness
What Did The Experts Say?
When I reached out to Dominic Bryce from Click2Convert, he emphasized the importance of measuring branded search demand over time. He shared how tools like Google Trends and Keyword Planner allow you to monitor competitors’ branded keywords and track how they’re building awareness compared to your own efforts.
Tracking branded search demand reveals how competitors are building awareness, helping us fine-tune our strategy to stay ahead.
Branded Search & Awareness Checklist
- Track Branded Search Volume: Use Google Trends to compare branded search volumes for your competitors. This tool helps you visualize how their brand awareness is evolving over time, indicating whether they’re gaining traction in the industry.
- Monitor Branded Keywords: With Keyword Planner, track the performance of branded keywords that are driving traffic to your competitors. This gives you insights into how effective their branding and marketing strategies are, and where your brand stands in comparison.
- Leverage Search Volume Data: Once you’ve analyzed the branded search volume, you can adjust your own branding strategy based on where competitors are excelling. If competitors are seeing growth in branded searches for a particular product or service, consider focusing more of your efforts on that area.
8. Competitor Keyword Tracking
What Did The Experts Say?
When I spoke with Yvie Ansari from Snaptrip Group, she recommended setting up bespoke visibility reports in Looker Studio to track not only keyword rankings but also domains and pages, categorized by intent, topic, and target audience. This granular approach allows you to dig into specific areas where you’re underperforming compared to competitors.
The way I usually look at competitor tracking is by having a visibility report… This data really helps me dig into specific areas and what could be leveraged based on what competitors are doing.
Roman Rohoza from Sitechecker highlighted the importance of tracking competitor SERP dynamics, and Mihaela Sfartz from The Lotter Enterprises advocates using AWR for detailed rank-tracking reports.
Sitechecker allows us to monitor competitors’ SERP dynamics and keyword shifts, helping us stay on top of evolving strategies.
AWR provides valuable insights into how competitor rankings evolve over time, helping us track the impact of their SEO updates.
Competitor Keyword Tracking Checklist
- Create Bespoke Visibility Reports: Use Looker Studio to set up custom reports that track your domain and competitors’, keywords (categorized by intent and topic), and pages. This helps you identify specific areas where you can improve.
- Track Competitor Keyword Movements: Use Sitechecker to track competitors’ keyword visibility and SERP performance. By observing shifts in keyword rankings, you can adapt your own strategy to target high-value terms where competitors may be slipping.
- Monitor Keyword Ranking Trends: Use AWR helps you monitor how your competitors’ keyword rankings fluctuate over time, allowing you to track long-term trends and identify areas where competitors are gaining or losing visibility.
9. Monitor Competitor Content & Backlink Changes
What Did The Experts Say?
When speaking with Andrew Holland, Director of SEO at JBH, he pointed out the value of tools like Rankalyzer for monitoring competitors’ website changes and understanding how those changes impact their search rankings. By tracking these fluctuations, you can adjust your own strategy to either exploit opportunities or defend against potential ranking losses.
Rankalyzer collects a lot of data that will help assess the impact of competitor actions, like page title changes, on rankings. It’s a tool with real potential for understanding how competitors’ adjustments affect their performance.
Sanjay Purewal from HUB also highlighted the importance of regularly analyzing how competitors’ content evolves over time. He suggested using tools like the Wayback Machine to manually track and compare past versions of competitor pages, documenting content updates and changes to strategy.
However, this manual method can be time-consuming. A more efficient solution is to use Rankalyzer, which automates this process by tracking changes to on-page content and backlinks on a weekly basis, providing detailed insights into how those changes are influencing competitors’ rankings.
Analyzing how competitors’ content evolves over time is key to understanding their strategies. By reviewing changes, you can spot patterns that might explain shifts in rankings.
Content & Backlink Monitoring Checklist
- Track Competitor Content Updates: Use Rankalyzer to monitor competitors’ updates to their meta titles, descriptions, and on-page content. This allows you to see which optimizations competitors are implementing and how those updates might affect their rankings over time.
- Monitor Backlink Gains and Losses: Track your competitors’ backlink profiles to see which new backlinks they’re acquiring and which they’re losing. When a competitor loses a high-quality backlink, it opens up an opportunity for you to acquire that link for your own site.
- Analyze the Impact of Changes on Rankings: One of the key benefits of Rankalyzer is its ability to show how competitors’ website changes, including content updates and backlinks, affect their rankings. This insight helps you adjust your SEO strategy by capitalizing on competitors’ missed opportunities or replicating what’s working for them.
Monitor Your Competitors with Rankalyzer
Rankalyzer is a competitor monitoring tool which tracks the top 30 pages in Google for your chosen keywords, and monitors website and backlink changes for each result. This provides a full understanding of exactly which SEO changes affect competitor rankings, giving you actionable insights.
Track your comeptitors’ every move with Rankalyzer – click here to learn more.