How to do a competitor website analysis (step by step)

Your competitors are already telling you how to outrank them. Their site shows which keywords they target, which pages bring them traffic, who links to them, and where they are weak. A competitor website analysis is simply the structured habit of reading that evidence and turning it into a plan, instead of guessing what to do next.

It is not spying, and it is not copying. Everything in this guide uses public information: search results anyone can see, pages anyone can read, and free or standard SEO tools. The goal is to find the specific gaps they left open and close them first. Done properly, half a day of analysis saves months of wasted work.

What competitor website analysis is, and what it is not

A competitor website analysis is a full check of your search competitors: the sites ranking for the keywords that bring customers in your market. It covers their keyword targeting, the quality and depth of their content, the strength of their backlinks, their local signals, and how well their site works for a real visitor. It is not a one-off report you file away. It is a working document you revisit every quarter, because rankings, pages and links all change.

Two things it is not. It is not a reason to copy: if the top-ranked dentist in your city has a thin implants page, the lesson is that a thorough implants page could take that ranking. And it is not a substitute for fixing your own site. Analysis tells you where to aim; it does not replace building the pages, earning the reviews and fixing the technical problems. If your own site has serious issues, start with a one-time SEO audit first.

Step 1: identify your real competitors

Your business competitors are not always your SEO competitors. The shop across the street competes with you for foot traffic, but on Google you might be competing with a directory, a national brand, or a blog that ranks for your keywords without selling anything. The only reliable way to find your real competitors is to search your money keywords and write down who actually appears.

Pick your five to ten most important keywords: the terms customers type when they are ready to buy, such as "emergency plumber Austin" or "dental implants near me". Search each one in a private window and note the domains that appear on page one again and again. Those are your SEO competitors. Aim for three to five: two or three direct competitors in your area, one or two content competitors such as blogs ranking for your keywords, and one aspirational leader you want to rival eventually. More than five creates data overload. If you have not done keyword research yet, our keyword research guide for local businesses shows how to pick the money keywords this step depends on.

Step 2: map the keyword gap

The keyword gap is the list of terms your competitors rank for that you do not. It is the single most valuable output of the whole analysis, because it tells you exactly which searches you are invisible for. In Ahrefs or Semrush, enter your domain and a competitor's domain and run a content gap or keyword gap report. The free tier of Ahrefs Webmaster Tools covers your own site; for competitors you will usually need a paid plan or a trial. Ubersuggest offers a cheaper starting point for small businesses.

Sort the gap by intent, not by volume. A keyword with 2,000 searches a month from people researching a topic is worth less to a local business than a keyword with 90 searches from people ready to book. Look for the low-hanging fruit: terms with clear buying intent where the competitor ranks on page one but the ranking page is weak, thin or outdated. Those are the terms you can win with one good page. Write down the top ten gap keywords, which competitor ranks for each, and which page of yours should target it, or whether a new page is needed. This list becomes the content plan for your next 90 days, and it slots directly into a 90-day SEO strategy template.

Step 3: read their top pages

Every competitor has a handful of pages that bring most of their traffic. In Ahrefs, open Site Explorer, enter the domain, and look at Top Pages by traffic. In Semrush, the same data is under Organic Research. Pick the top five pages for each competitor and actually read them, as a customer would.

Ask four questions about each page. How deep is it: a 500-word blurb or a 2,500-word guide that answers every follow-up question? What format does it use: text only, or photos, video, FAQs, pricing, and a clear next step? What is missing: the question it does not answer, the detail it skips, the proof it never shows? And how fresh is it: updated this year, or untouched since 2022? A page that ranks well despite being thin or outdated is an open door. Your job is to walk through it with a page that is deeper, clearer, and more useful. Note their headings too: they show which subtopics Google associates with the keyword. Never copy their text. Google rewards the better answer, not the second copy.

Step 4: check their backlinks

Backlinks are still one of the strongest ranking signals, and the gap in links is often the real reason a competitor outranks you. In Ahrefs or Semrush, look at the competitor's referring domains: how many different sites link to them, and which ones are the strongest. Do not be impressed by the total number alone. One link from a local newspaper, a trade association or a supplier is worth more than fifty links from low-quality directories.

Look for links you could realistically earn. Are they listed in a directory you are not in? Did a local paper write about them? Do they sponsor a community event, or appear on a partner's site? Those are all replicable. Also look for broken link opportunities: pages that linked to a competitor's page that no longer exists, or resource pages that list everyone except you. Write down the ten strongest backlinks for each competitor and mark which ones you can pursue. Our guide to white-hat link building for local businesses covers the approaches that work without buying links.

Step 5: check their local signals

For a local business, the website is only half the competition. The other half is the Google Business Profile, reviews, and local presence. Search your main keywords and look at the map pack: who appears, how many reviews they have, how recent those reviews are, and whether they post photos and updates. Then open each competitor's profile and note their categories, their services list, the quality of their photos, and how they respond to reviews.

Read their last ten reviews, good and bad. Customers will tell you exactly what the competitor does well and where they disappoint: slow replies, unclear pricing, great work but hard to reach. Those complaints are your marketing. If customers keep saying a competitor never answers the phone, your own fast response becomes a selling point worth putting on your homepage. Our guide to whether Google reviews help SEO explains how review volume, recency and responses feed local rankings, and our map pack guide covers the profile work that moves a business into those three spots.

Step 6: test their site like a customer

Now stop analysing data and use the site. Open it on your phone, the way most local customers will. How fast does it load? Is the phone number visible without scrolling? Can you book, call or get a quote in under a minute? Is the pricing clear, or hidden behind a form? Does the site look trustworthy: real photos, real names, a real address, recent work?

Run their homepage and main service pages through PageSpeed Insights and note the mobile score. Check whether the site has the trust signals customers look for: guarantees, before-and-after photos, testimonials with names, and clear next steps. Also note what they offer that you do not: online booking, instant quotes, financing, a warranty, or a service you have not thought to list. None of this is about design taste. It is about friction. Every extra tap between a searcher and a phone call loses customers, and a competitor with a faster, clearer site will convert the traffic you both rank for.

Turn the findings into a plan

Analysis without action is just reading. Put everything into one sheet per competitor, then pull out the three biggest gaps and turn each one into an action with an owner and a deadline. A gap might be: they rank for "emergency dentist" and we have no page for it; they have 140 reviews and we have 30; they are listed in three directories we are missing. Each of those becomes a task: write the page by a date, start the review routine this week, submit the listings by Friday.

Prioritise by impact and effort. A missing service page for a high-intent keyword is high impact and a few hours of work. Closing a 400-link gap is high impact and months of work, so it becomes a long-term goal, not a first step. Sequence the work the way our 90-day SEO strategy template does: foundation first, then pages, then content and links. And track the result: record your position for the gap keywords before you start, then check them weekly. Our guide to how to track your Google ranking shows how to record positions properly, so you can tell whether the plan is working or whether you are watching noise. If the numbers do not move after 60 days, re-check the analysis: the gap may have been misread, or a technical problem on your own site may be blocking progress.

How often to repeat it

Run a full analysis once a quarter. Rankings shift, competitors publish new pages, and new businesses enter your market. A quarterly check is frequent enough to catch changes early and infrequent enough to be worth the half day it takes. Between full analyses, keep a light watch: check your top five gap keywords monthly, glance at the map pack weekly, and note when a competitor launches something new, such as a new service page or a surge of reviews.

Also re-run the analysis whenever something changes on your side: a new service, a new location, a website redesign, or a sudden ranking drop. A drop often has a competitor-shaped cause: a rival published a better page, earned a strong link, or improved their profile. Knowing that saves you from rewriting a page that was fine, when the real fix was a missing page somewhere else.

Mistakes to avoid

Five mistakes show up in almost every first analysis. The first is analysing too many competitors. Ten domains produce a spreadsheet nobody reads. Three to five produce a plan. The second is trusting tool estimates as facts. Traffic estimates from Similarweb or Semrush are modelled numbers, not real visitor counts; use them to compare competitors with each other, never as precise figures. The third is copying. A copied page ranks worse than the original and teaches you nothing about your own customers.

The fourth is ignoring the local signals. A business can have a weaker website and still win the map pack on reviews and profile strength, so an analysis that only looks at the website misses half the contest. The fifth is analysing and then doing nothing. The analysis is worth nothing without the three actions it produces. If you finish the analysis and cannot name the three things you will do next, you analysed the wrong things. The right tools help here: our guide to the best AI SEO tools for 2026 covers which tools do the keyword, content and tracking jobs in this analysis, and which ones are worth paying for. And if you want the analysis done for you, with a prioritised fix list, our SEO audit is $349, one-time, and you can book a free call to talk through what it would cover for your market.