How to Do A Proper Competitor Analysis in 2025?

Are you finding it difficult to rank higher in the search engines? Don't worry; here is a guide to understanding how to succeed through SEO competitor analysis. 

Imagine knowing every other step of your opponent while playing chess; wouldn't it be easier to win? In the same way, SEO competitor analysis helps you understand your competitors' SEO strategies and procedures so you can outrank them.  

The SEO competitor strategy involves identifying your competitors and analysing their strategies. This helps you learn from their strengths and avoid their missteps and weaknesses. 

"It's said that a wise person learns from his mistakes. A wiser one learns from others' mistakes. But the wisest person of all learns from others' successes." ~John C. Maxwell

Similarly, in this article, you will learn how to analyze and exceed your competitor's SEO strategies to improve your CTR (click-through rate) in the search engine!  

What is SEO Competitor Analysis? 

SEO competitor analysis is a broad concept, but keeping it in simple terms, we can understand that evaluating your competitor’s SEO strategy to identify their strengths and weaknesses is SEO competitor analysis. 

It aims to help you identify and adapt to your competitors’ strengths and avoid their missteps. Further, through this guide, we help you discover why and when you need to perform SEO competitor analysis. 

When Should You Perform An SEO Competitor Analysis?

It is best suggested to perform the analysis; 

• Before you launch a new website or before you plan a new SEO strategy because guessing games do not help whether you want to rank your website or plan strategies, analyze and understand the strategies your competitors use to rank high and use it as your roadmap to the top.  
• If your keywords are getting ineffective or if you notice your ranking fluctuation in the search engine. Due to the frequent changes in market trends, your keywords might be affected, or due to the increase in competition and updates in Google's algorithm, your rankings might be affected. That is when it is suggested to perform SEO competitor analysis. 

What are the benefits of SEO competitor analysis?

SEO competitor analysis helps you find who your real competitors are because they might not always be who you think your competitors are. 

Find out the correct keywords, analyze their content structure, and improvise on their existing content. 

With the help of SEO competitor analysis, you can not only replicate their strengths into yours, but you also understand the potential mistakes and drawbacks of your competitor’s SEO strategies and can easily avoid them.

Through this analysis you get insights into profitable keywords, better content strategies, improved SEO strategies, and algorithm updates, which will help you create strategies to rank higher and gain more organic traffic.  

How Do You Perform SEO Competitor Analysis?

Find Your SEO Competitor

As we already mentioned, guessing games do not always work for SEO competitor identification because your competitors are not always who you think they are. 

Search and analyze your keywords on search engines like Google to figure out your top-ranking competitor pages, or you can use tools from websites like Ahrefs, SEMrush, Moz Pro, etc. to figure out your SEO competitor.

You can use SEO tools to trace websites with backlinks of the competitors and to analyze further the performance of your competitor’s website and their keyword rankings. 
Keyword Analysis 

Evaluate, research, and choose the right keyword to rank higher.

With proper analysis, understand what your audience is searching for and what keywords your competitors are using to gain traffic, and properly place the keywords in your content to increase ranking and engagement.

Use SEO tools from Ahrefs or SEMrush, enter your competitor’s domain and use the tool’s “Organic Keywords” feature, and identify the high-traffic keywords.  

Keyword Gap

Analyze your competitor’s usage of keywords; if you find any keywords missing in your content, then improvise your content, grab the opportunity and use such keywords to outrank your competitors. 

You can manually go through the blogs and FAQs sections to analyze and find their keywords, or you can use the “Keyword Gap” feature in SEMrush to find the same, or you can also use the “Content Gap” feature from Ahrefs to find the missing keyword your competitors rank for that is missing in your content strategy. 

Content

Inspect your competitor’s content and understand the structure of their content: where they place the keywords, their length, their information, and their sources to understand which part of their content is engaging the users and use it effectively in your content. 

You can use GA4 to identify which websites are getting more engagement. Further to find which competitor’s blogs get the most shares, you can use tools like BuzzSumo.

Content Structure 

Analysis of a content structure means analyzing the length, details, and elements of the content, which may include images, videos, or other media. 

We suggest you keep your content detailed and informative, which shall make the users keen to know more and stay longer on your website. 

Use short paragraphs and bullet points to improve readability and make it look organized. 

Backlink Analysis 

Evaluate which external websites are linking to your competitor’s sites and understand how your competitors gain authority to rank higher. Identify the high-authority sources and find the opportunities to build links. 

You can use Ahrefs’s “Backlink Profile” feature from “Site Explorer” to analyze your competitor’s backlink, or you can use SEMrush and Moz for the same.

You can also use Google Search Console for your website’s backlink. 

It is mostly believed the more quality backlinks, the higher the site’s authority. We also advise you to check the domain’s authority because high-authority sites yield better results. 

Make sure the backlink has at least 50+ domain authority (DA).

Internal Linking

Analyze how your competitors link their pages, which helps them with ranking and improves user engagement. 

You can use the “Crawl Competitor Site” tool from Screaming Frog or tools from SEMrush and Ahrefs to identify the competitor’s internal links. 

Orphan pages, the pages with no internal links, get less traffic, and the pages with more internal links hold higher ranking power, which will further improve your content structure. 
Social Media and Brand Presence Strategies 

Analyze what strategies your competitors use on online media platforms to gain brand authority and improve their reputation and visibility.

Social media has become a valuable weapon in today’s era; it helps your brand gain more visibility as it links users to your website directly.

Social media helps brands gain expertise, authority, and trustworthiness for better rankings. 

You can use tools like BuzzSumo to identify top shared content and Social Blade to track followers’ growth. 

With the help of Fanpage Karma, you can track competitor content trends and stay active on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Quora, etc.

Conclusion 

More than just beating your competitors, SEO competitor analysis helps you build long-term visibility and hold authority. Through the analysis, find your real competitor, improvise and adapt their strength, and improve your rankings. 

With proper study, use data-driven SEO strategies to identify high-impact keywords, grab the link-building opportunity, and stay updated about the market trends.

Analyze and always stay on top in today’s fast-paced world of SEO.