How to Do Competitor Analysis in SEO: 7 Steps, a Worked Example and a Report Template

To do competitor analysis in SEO, find the sites that outrank you for the keywords you want, then work out why they win: which keywords and pages bring them traffic, which links back those pages, and what their pages do better than yours. The output is a short, prioritized list of pages to create or upgrade and links to pursue.

Below is the full 7-step process, each step with the exact reports to open and a running example, plus a template for the SEO competitor profile and the final report. If you have half an hour rather than a few days, use the 30-minute SEO competitor audit instead.

#What is SEO competitor analysis?

SEO competitor analysis is the process of identifying the websites that rank above you in organic search for your target keywords and reverse-engineering why they rank: their keywords, content, backlinks and technical setup.

It is narrower than a full competitor website analysis, which also looks at paid traffic, pricing and conversion paths. SEO competitor analysis answers one question: what would it take to outrank these sites for these keywords?

The answer usually falls into one of three gaps:

• Content gap: they cover topics or search intents you don't, or cover them better.
• Authority gap: their pages have more (and better) referring domains.
• Technical gap: their pages are easier to crawl, faster or better structured.

Most sites have some of each. The analysis tells you which gap to close first.

#The 7 steps at a glance

The running example. To make each step concrete, we'll follow a hypothetical invoicing app for freelancers. Its blog gets some traffic, but it sits on page two for most of the keywords that bring sign-ups, such as "invoice template for freelancers" and "how to invoice a client".

#Step 1: Pick your keywords and find your real SEO competitors

Start with the keywords that matter commercially. Pull them from three places:

1. Search Console: Performance → Search results → Queries. Use the branded queries filter (available to all eligible sites since March 11, 2026) to keep only non-branded queries, then sort by impressions.
2. Your product pages: the problems your product solves, in your customers' words.
3. Keywords you want but don't rank for yet.

Aim for 20 to 50 keywords. Search each one in a private browser window and note every domain on page one. The domains that show up for several keywords are your SEO competitors.

Then confirm with a tool. Semrush's Organic Rankings report, Ahrefs Site Explorer (Organic competitors) and SE Ranking's Competitive Research all list the domains that share the most ranking keywords with yours. The free SEO Competitor Finder in Outrank's SEO tools does the same without an account.

Keep 3 to 5 competitors. Include at least one site that is roughly your size, because a competitor with ten times your authority shows you the destination, while one at your level shows you the next step.

#Step 2: Build an SEO competitor profile

An SEO competitor profile is a one-page summary of a competitor's search footprint, built from the same fields for every competitor so you can compare them side by side. These are the fields worth including:

Fill the first eleven fields now and the last one after step 6. If authority scores are new to you, our guide to Domain Rating vs Domain Authority explains the difference.

#Step 3: Benchmark rankings and share of voice

Single rankings mislead. What matters is how much of the traffic for your whole keyword set each competitor captures. That is share of voice: the estimated clicks a domain gets across your keyword set, divided by the estimated clicks available.

To estimate it, multiply each keyword's monthly volume by the expected click-through rate at the position each domain holds, then add it up per domain. Rank trackers with competitor tracking (Semrush Position Tracking, SE Ranking, Ahrefs Rank Tracker) calculate visibility scores like this for you. Search Console can't, because it only reports your own site.

Be careful with the CTR assumptions. First Page Sage's 2026 data, from Search Console accounts covering 3.67 billion impressions, put the average CTR of position 1 at 22.6% on results without an AI answer and 3.6% on results with one. Two keywords at the same position can be worth very different amounts.

Our list of the best rank checking tools compares the trackers that follow competitors.

#Step 4: Run a keyword gap

A keyword gap lists the keywords a competitor ranks for that you don't. Put your domain and 2 to 4 competitors into Semrush Keyword Gap, Ahrefs Content Gap or SE Ranking's Competitor Comparison, then:

• keep keywords where at least one competitor ranks in the top 10,
• remove branded and irrelevant terms,
• tag each keyword with its intent (informational, commercial, transactional),
• group keywords that one page could rank for.

Free alternatives: Google Keyword Planner's "Start with a website" option suggests keywords from any URL, and Outrank's free content analyzer shows a competitor's keyword gaps and topic clusters. Our competitor keyword analysis guide covers every filter and method, and our keyword competition guide shows how to judge which gaps are realistic.

#Step 5: Analyze the pages that outrank you

For each priority keyword, open the top 3 results next to your own page and compare them on the same points:

Note where you can do better, not just where you match. Copying the top result gets you a page Google already has.

#Step 6: Run a backlink competitive analysis

Competitor backlink analysis is the review of which websites link to your competitors, which of their pages earn those links, and how they earned them, so you can find link opportunities and the content worth building to win them.

Work through it in four passes:

1. Compare link profiles. Referring domains (unique linking sites) and authority for each competitor. A gap of 10% is noise; a gap of five times is a strategy problem.
2. Find their most linked pages. In Ahrefs (Best by links) or any backlink tool, sort their pages by referring domains. Usually a small number of assets (original data, statistics pages, free tools, templates) earn most of the links.
3. Find link intersects. Ahrefs' Link Intersect lists sites that link to two or more competitors but not to you. These sites already cover your topic, so they're your warmest prospects.
4. Read how the links were earned. Guest posts, resource pages, PR mentions, partner pages, directories. Skip anything that looks bought or manipulative: link schemes break Google's spam policies.

Outrank's free Backlink Checker in our SEO tools shows who links to any domain if you don't have a paid tool. For the full playbook, read how to build backlinks.

#Step 7: Write the SEO competitor analysis report and prioritize

An SEO competitor analysis report turns the research into decisions. Keep it short enough that someone reads it. Use the checklist below as the template.

Score every opportunity on impact, confidence and effort, then sort. In practice the top of the list is usually a mix of quick wins (keywords where you already rank 11 to 20), one structural build (a page type you're missing) and one linkable asset.

The plan usually fails at the publishing step, not the planning step. If your report calls for 30 new pages and your team ships four a month, Outrank can carry the volume: it researches keywords with live volume and difficulty, writes and publishes an SEO article a day to your CMS, and builds backlinks through its exchange.

#FAQ

#How do I do competitor analysis for SEO?

List 20 to 50 target keywords, search them and note the domains that keep appearing on page one; those are your SEO competitors. Profile each one, compare rankings across your keyword set, run a keyword gap and a backlink gap, and compare their top pages with yours. Finish with a report that names the 5 to 10 actions you'll take in the next 90 days.

#What is competitor backlink analysis?

Competitor backlink analysis is the review of the websites linking to your competitors, the pages that earn those links and the methods behind them. Its goal is to find link prospects (especially sites linking to several competitors but not to you) and to learn which kinds of content earn links in your niche. Referring domains, the most linked pages and link intersects are the three reports that matter most.

#What should you include in your SEO competitor profile?

Include authority (Domain Rating or Authority Score), referring domains, estimated organic traffic and its trend, keywords in the top 3 and top 10, overlap with your keyword set, top pages, main content types, publishing pace, most linked pages, SERP features they own, Core Web Vitals and a one-line strength and weakness. Pull every number from the same tool so the profiles are comparable.

#What goes into an SEO competitor analysis report?

A summary of the three biggest findings, the keyword set and competitors analyzed, benchmark tables (profiles, share of voice, traffic trends), the gaps (keywords, page types, backlinks, technical) and a prioritized 90-day plan with owners. Keep it to a few pages; the plan matters more than the data.

#How do I check my SEO ranking against competitors?

Use a rank tracker that follows competitor domains, such as Semrush Position Tracking, SE Ranking or Ahrefs Rank Tracker, with the same keyword set for everyone. Look at visibility or share of voice across the whole set rather than individual positions. Search Console only shows your own rankings, so it can't do this comparison.

#How often should you do an SEO competitor analysis?

Run the full analysis once a quarter and a lighter check every month: ranking changes on your keyword set, new competitor pages and new referring domains. Re-run it sooner after a major Google update or when a new competitor starts appearing on page one.