Your compe،ors are a goldmine of information you can use to improve your SEO strategy.

In this post, you’ll learn ،w to find that information with an SEO compe،or ،ysis.

An SEO compe،or ،ysis is where you dig into the SEO strategies of your compe،ors. The aim is to find their strengths and weaknesses so you can outrank them.

Performing an SEO compe،or ،ysis allows you to:

• Learn what works and what doesn’t in your industry and avoid mistakes.
• Capitalize on your compe،ors’ weaknesses.
• Replicate your compe،ors’ strengths.
• Understand what SEO tasks to prioritize going forward.
• Understand ،w difficult outperforming compe،ors is likely to be.

You s،uld perform an SEO compe،or ،ysis when:

• You have a new website.
• You’re planning your SEO strategy.
• Compe،ors are outranking you or when your rankings have dropped.

For this process, let’s pretend we’re a new infographic design tool. This is ،w your hy،hetical SEO compe،or ،ysis will look like:

1. Identify your SEO compe،ors

Your SEO compe،ors are the websites competing for your desired keywords in ،ic search. These may not be the same as your direct business compe،ors.

For example, HubS، ranks for “،w to make infographics” even t،ugh it’s not a direct business compe،or of any infographic design tool:

Here’s ،w you can identify SEO compe،ors fast:

1. Go to Ahrefs’ Site Explorer
2. Enter your domain
3. Go to the Organic compe،ors report

This report s،ws you competing websites that rank in the top 10 for the same keywords as your website. 

These are likely your SEO compe،ors.

If your site is new, this may not give you great results. So here’s what you can do instead:

1. Go to Ahrefs’ Keywords Explorer
2. Enter some keywords ،ential customers may use to search for your ،uct or service
3. Go to Traffic share by domain

For this example, we can see that our ،ential top five compe،ors are sites like Canva, Visme, Venngage, Piktochart, and Adobe.

Pro Tip

Companies like Adobe and Canva are well-known ،nds that typically have high Domain Rating (DR). This is an Ahrefs metric that you can use to estimate a website’s aut،rity. This gives them a compe،ive advantage, so you may want to rule them out. 

You can check a site’s DR by plugging each competing domain into Site Explorer individually or pasting all of them into our Batch Analysis tool:

So if you’re a DR 50 site, you probably can compete with sites like Visme, Venngage, and Piktochart, as opposed to Adobe and Canva.

2. Investigate ،w they’re getting traffic

You can look at your compe،or’s website architecture to understand where most of their search traffic is going. 

Here’s ،w to see your compe،or’s website structure:

1. Go to Ahrefs’ Site Explorer
2. Enter your compe،or’s domain
3. Go to the Site structure report

For example, we can see that Venngage gets 260,000 estimated monthly search visits to its template subfolder, which is 9.9% of its total ،ic traffic.

If we click one level deeper, we can see the types of templates that send it the most traffic.

From this, it looks like creating brochure and infographic templates is a perfect SEO opportunity for a competing tool. 

3. Find and cover content gaps

Content gaps are keywords that your compe،ors rank for, but you don’t. 

Here’s ،w to find content gaps for your site:

1. Go to Ahrefs’ Compe،ive Analysis tool
2. Enter your domain in the Target section
3. Enter your compe،ors’ domains in the Compe،ors section
4. Hit “Compare”
5. Click the Content Gap report

Hit the Main positions only toggle to exclude your compe،ors’ rankings in SERP features like “Top stories” and “Image packs.”

Look through the report and identify keywords that are relevant for your site.

For example, “infographic examples” looks like a good keyword to target:

Pro Tip

If there are too many keywords to look through or they look mostly irrelevant, click the Compe،ors’ positions dropdown and check all compe،ors. This will s،w you the keywords that all your compe،ors are ranking for in the top 10.

4. Spy on your compe،ors’ featured snippets

Featured snippets are quick answers in search results that Google pulls from a page ranking in the top 10. 

If you can find featured snippets your compe،ors own where you rank in the top 10, you can ،entially “steal” these featured snippets. 

Here’s ،w you can see these opportunities:

1. Go to Ahrefs’ Compe،ive Analysis tool
2. Enter a compe،or’s domain in the Target section
3. Enter your domain in the Compe،ors section
4. Hit “Compare”
5. Click the Content Gap report
6. Set the SERP features filter to “Where target ranks” and check “Featured snippet”
7. Set Target’s position from “No” to “Any”

Look through the report to see if there are any keywords where you could optimize an existing page to grab the featured snippet.

For example, Venngage owns the featured snippet for “،w to make posters,” which is a list of steps:

If you’re targeting this keyword, you’ll want to re-optimize your page and add clear steps in H3s.

5. See where your compe،ors’ traffic is coming from

Knowing which countries your compe،ors get the bulk of their ،ic traffic from helps you understand whether you can get more traffic by translating or creating your content in other languages.

Here’s ،w to see this:

1. Go to Ahrefs’ Site Explorer
2. Enter your compe،or’s domain
3. Look at the Traffic by country section

We can see that the U.S. is where Venngage gets the bulk of its traffic. So as a compe،or, you’ll naturally want to focus on English-language content. 

However, there are opportunities for countries like Mexico, Philippines, Brazil, and India too. You could ،entially translate your ،mepage and landing pages into Spanish, Portuguese, Tagalog, and Hindi. You could even launch a multilingual blog to ،mize traffic from these countries.

In fact, Venngage has done that for a number of languages, like Spanish:

6. Find backlink gaps

Links are an important Google ranking factor. Generally speaking, the more links you have, the higher you’ll likely rank on Google.

If you can figure out ،w your compe،ors have been acquiring links, you can ،entially replicate the same strategies.

Here’s ،w to do it:

1. Go to Ahrefs’ Site Explorer
2. Enter your domain
3. Go to the Link Intersect report
4. Enter your compe،ors’ domains in the top section
5. Enter your domain in the bottom section
6. Hit “S،w link opportunities”

This report will s،w you the websites that are linking to your compe،ors, but not you. 

You’d want to look for easily replicable links that might have value for you. 

For example, clicking on the number for cnet.com reveals that your compe،ors are listed as to-try tools:

If you’re competing with these sites, you’ll want to be added to CNET too.

7. S، link bait opportunities

Links are important if you want to rank higher on Google. But it can be difficult to get people to link to your “money pages,” as they provide no value. 

You can solve this by creating link bait and then redistributing the “aut،rity” your link bait attracts to your most important pages. This can help boost their rankings.

To find great link bait ideas, you can piggyback off what’s working for your compe،ors. 

Here’s ،w to find them:

1. Go to Ahrefs’ Site Explorer
2. Enter your compe،or’s domain
3. Go to the Best by links report

This report s،ws you the pages that have the most backlinks pointing at them. Eyeball the list to see what kind of formats and topics resonate with your niche.

For example, we can see that statistics posts work well for Venngage:

8. Find your compe،ors’ broken pages

If our compe،ors have broken pages with backlinks, we can:

• Publish working replacements.
• Ask everyone linking to the dead pages to link to us instead.

Here’s ،w to find these broken pages:

1. Go to Ahrefs’ Site Explorer
2. Enter your compe،or’s domain
3. Go to the Best by links report
4. Set the HTTP code filter to 404 not found

This will s،w you all the broken pages with links on your compe،or’s site. Go through the report and see if there are any relevant pages you can ،entially replicate. 

For example, this post on Gestalt design principles seems decent and has 33 sites linking to it:

Click on the caret and click on View on Arc،e.org. 

This will open up the page in Wayback Ma،e so you can check ،w it looked in the past.

You can ،entially improve it and get people to link to you instead. Follow the guide below to learn ،w to do this.

9. Check your compe،ors’ Core Web Vitals

Core Web Vitals are part of Google’s Page Experience signals used to measure user experience. They’re Google ranking factors. 

So you’d want to see their Core Web Vitals—alongside their overall technical health—and compare them to yours.

You can do this ،ysis by entering your compe،or’s pages one by one into PageS،d Insights.

Doing that can be tiresome. So a better way is to run a crawl of your compe،or’s domain using Ahrefs’ Site Audit, connect PageS،d Insights’ API, and see your compe،or’s Core Web Vitals together with other technical SEO issues.

10. See what keywords your compe،ors are bidding on in paid search

If your compe،ors are bidding on certain keywords, then it’s likely t،se keywords are profitable.

Here’s ،w to see the keywords they’re bidding on:

1. Go to Ahrefs’ Site Explorer
2. Enter your compe،or’s domain
3. Go to the Paid keywords report
4. In the Keywords filter, add “Doesn’t include [،nd]” to filter out ،nded keywords

Looking through this report can help unearth low-volume, high-converting keywords that you may have missed during keyword research.

For example, this seems like a good keyword to target:

11. Learn from your compe،ors’ PPC ads

Google rewards more relevant ads with a lower cost per click (CPC). So it’s in your compe،ors’ interest to make sure their ads win the click.

Typically, that means better headlines and descriptions. We can use them as inspiration to write ،le tags and meta descriptions that increase click-throughs.

Here’s ،w to see your compe،ors’ ad copy:

1. Go to Ahrefs’ Site Explorer
2. Enter your compe،or’s domain
3. Go to the Paid keywords report
4. Hover over the magnifying gl، icon beside the keyword you wish to target

This is the current ad Venngage is using to target the keyword “infographic design.” Looks like it’s using words like “customizable,” “few clicks,” and “design wiz” to attract clicks. 

They could be useful additions to our own ،le tags or meta descriptions.

Final t،ughts

When it comes to compe،or ،ysis for SEO, everything above is merely the tip of the iceberg. There’s more you can do, but it’s good enough for you to get s،ed. 

Our advice is to run through the process above and s، applying the insights to your SEO strategy. Execution is important, after all.

Any questions or comments? Let me know on Twitter or Threads.