A practical guide to SEO competitive analysis

Ever feel like you’re spinning your wheels with SEO? You publish content, tweak your site, and do all the "right" things, but your organic traffic chart is stubbornly flat. Meanwhile, you look over at your competitors, and it seems like they're just effortlessly climbing the Google rankings. It’s frustrating, and it feels like you're missing a piece of the puzzle.

That missing piece is often a solid understanding of your competition. An SEO competitive analysis is the key to turning that guesswork into a clear action plan. By understanding why others are succeeding, you can figure out what works, replicate their strategies, and then improve on them to take the top spot.

This guide will walk you through a simple, step-by-step process for analyzing your competition. We’ll cover everything from finding keyword gaps to breaking down their content and backlink strategies. But remember, analysis is only half the battle. Execution is what gets you results. That’s why we’ll also show you how the eesel AI blog writer can bridge that gap, helping you turn all those juicy competitive insights directly into publish-ready, SEO-optimized content.

What is an SEO competitive analysis?

Let's break it down. An SEO competitive analysis is simply the process of researching the search engine optimization strategies of rival websites. The goal is to gather insights you can use to improve your own results and get a leg up. Here's a visual breakdown of what that entails.

Why is an SEO competitive analysis important for growth?

Moving beyond just guessing what might work is a huge step forward. When you ground your strategy in data from your competitors, you unlock some serious benefits.

• Find new keyword opportunities: The most immediate win is finding high-value keywords that your competitors rank for, but you don’t. These are often hidden gems that can attract more qualified traffic right to your website.
• Understand what content actually works: You get a clear picture of what types of content resonate with your shared audience. Are long-form guides winning? Or is it comparison posts and videos? This tells you where to focus your creative energy instead of wasting it.
• Identify backlink sources: A good backlink gap analysis reveals where your competitors are getting their most authoritative links. This gives you a ready-made list of websites to target for your own link-building efforts.
• Benchmark your performance: You can finally set a clear baseline to measure your SEO progress. You'll see where you stand against the competition and, more importantly, where their weaknesses are so you can capitalize on them.

The point isn’t just to copy what everyone else is doing. It’s about learning from their patterns of success to build a smarter, more effective strategy of your own.

A 3-step framework for your SEO competitive analysis

To keep things organized, it helps to break the analysis down into three core pillars. This approach makes sure you cover all the critical on-page, off-page, and technical stuff that Google cares about when deciding who gets to rank.

Step 1: Find competitors and spot keyword gaps

Before you do anything else, you need to know who you’re actually up against. It's important to remember that your SEO competitors aren't always your direct business rivals. They’re any website or domain that’s ranking for the keywords you want to target.

How to find them

The simplest way to start is by searching your main keywords on Google. See which domains consistently pop up on the first page. Those are your primary search competitors.

<quote text="Competitor analysis is helpful, as it gives you ideas and insights of what to do on your own pages that can expand your online presence and solidify it.

To conduct an effective analysis, among other aspects, you should focus on:

• Competitor website structure.
• Competitor website content.
• Used keywords.
• Competitor's backlink strategy and portfolio.
• Micro-niche the given competitor is focusing on.
• Noticing strong and weak aspects of the business and website." sourceIcon="https://www.iconpacks.net/icons/2/free-reddit-logo-icon-2436-thumb.png" sourceName="Reddit" sourceLink="https://www.reddit.com/r/SEO/comments/17qghl4/comment/k8c687g/">

For a more data-driven approach, you can use a tool like Semrush's Keyword Gap tool. It automatically shows you which domains share the most keyword rankings with you. You can even compare your site against up to four other domains at once to get a really clear picture of the landscape.

Conducting a keyword gap analysis

This is where you find the gold. A "keyword gap" is just a term for keywords that one or more of your competitors rank for, but you don't. These are your biggest opportunities.

The process is pretty simple in most SEO tools. You'll find a "Keyword Gap" or "Content Gap" feature. Just enter your domain and your competitors' domains, then apply the "Missing" filter. This will generate a list of all the keywords your competitors are ranking for that you haven't even targeted yet.

When you're sifting through this list, focus on keywords that have three key things: relevant search intent (it matches what you offer), decent search volume, and a manageable keyword difficulty (KD) score. This helps you prioritize the low-hanging fruit.

Step 2: Analyze content and on-page SEO

Okay, so now you know what keywords your competitors are ranking for. This next step is all about figuring out how they're doing it with their content and on-page optimization.

Analyzing top-performing pages

Most SEO tools will let you see which of your competitor's pages are driving the most organic traffic. Dive into these top pages and look for patterns. What content formats are they using? Are they publishing massive 3,000-word guides, short and punchy blog posts, detailed product comparison pages, or are they leaning heavily on video? The answer tells you what's working in your niche right now.

Deconstructing on-page elements

Once you've identified their best pages, it's time to break down their on-page SEO.

• Title Tags & Meta Descriptions: As the folks at Semrush point out, you should check if they include the target keyword early in the title. Do they use compelling words like "best," "guide," "review," or the current year to grab attention in the search results?
• Content Structure & URL: Look at how they structure their content. Are they using H2s and H3s logically to break up the text? Are they incorporating bullet points, numbered lists, and plenty of visuals to make it easy to read? Also, take a peek at their URLs. Good URLs are clean, descriptive, and include the keyword.
• Search Intent Alignment: This is a big one. Does their content perfectly match what a user is looking for? For example, if someone searches "how to change a tire," they're looking for an informational guide, not a product page selling tires. Make sure your competitors are aligning their content with that intent.

This deep dive provides a blueprint for creating content that is more comprehensive and aligned with user intent.

Step 3: Evaluate backlinks and technical SEO

Content is important, but off-page authority and a technically sound website are what keep the whole operation running smoothly. These are major ranking signals, and you can't afford to ignore them.

Conducting a backlink gap analysis

A backlink gap analysis is just a fancy way of saying you're finding reputable websites that link to your competitors but not to you. Think of every link from another site as a vote of confidence in Google's eyes. The more high-quality votes you have, the more credible your site appears.

Using a tool like Ahrefs or Semrush, you can compare your backlink profile against your competitors'. Filter the results to show domains that link to multiple competitors but not to you. These are your prime targets for outreach because they've already shown they're willing to link to sites in your industry. Focus your energy on acquiring links from high-authority, topically relevant sites to really build your domain's credibility.

Both are great. I prefer Semrush's full suite of tools. I think they do a great job not just for keyword research, but also for competitor and market analysis. Neither is a bad choice, but I lean heavily towards Semrush.

Reddit

Performing a technical SEO health check

Even the most amazing content in the world will struggle to rank if the website has technical issues holding it back. You can run a quick health check on your competitors' sites (and your own!) to spot potential weaknesses.

Here are a few key areas to look at:

• Site Speed: How fast does their site load? You can use Google's PageSpeed Insights tool to check their Core Web Vitals. A slow site is a huge turn-off for users and for Google.
• Mobile-Friendliness: With so much traffic coming from mobile devices, a seamless mobile experience is essential. Pull up their site on your phone and see how it looks and feels.
• Secure Site (HTTPS): Check that all their pages are using the secure HTTPS protocol. It's a basic standard now and a small but important trust signal.

Turn your SEO competitive analysis into action with eesel AI

Let's be honest, an analysis is just a bunch of data in a spreadsheet. It’s interesting, but it doesn't do anything on its own. The real value comes from using that data to create better content and improve your position in search results.

This is where most people get stuck. SEO tools are great at telling you what keywords to target and which sites to get links from, but they leave you on your own when it's time to actually create the high-quality content needed to rank. That's the bottleneck.

From analysis to a published blog in minutes

This is exactly why we built the eesel AI blog writer. It’s designed specifically to help you execute on the insights you uncover during your analysis. It connects the dots between your research and your results.

• Found a juicy keyword gap? Just enter that keyword into the eesel AI blog writer. It will generate a complete, SEO-optimized blog post that’s already structured to rank for that exact term. No more staring at a blank page.
• Noticed competitors use rich media? We did too. That's why eesel AI automatically finds and embeds relevant assets like AI-generated images, infographics, and YouTube videos. This boosts engagement and keeps readers on your page longer.
• Saw they use social proof? Here’s something unique. The eesel AI blog writer can find and embed real, relevant quotes from Reddit discussions. This adds a layer of human context and credibility that other AI tools completely miss.

It's to create content that is comprehensive and addresses the search intent more thoroughly than existing results.

We practice what we preach. Using this exact workflow is how we took our own blog from 700 to over 750,000 daily impressions in just three months. It works.

For a more visual walkthrough of the process, the video below offers a great step-by-step guide to analyzing your competition and finding actionable insights.

This video from Kasra Dash offers a great step-by-step guide to analyzing your competition and finding actionable insights.

Turning your analysis into a real advantage

So there you have it. A practical, three-step framework for diving into your competitors' SEO strategy. You now know how to identify your true search competitors, find keyword gaps, analyze their content, and evaluate their backlink profiles.

The main takeaway is this: a winning SEO strategy isn't a one-time task. It's a continuous cycle of analysis and execution. By regularly checking in on your competitors, you can stay ahead of the curve, adapt to changes, and consistently find new opportunities for growth. Now it's time to turn those insights into a real advantage in the search results.

Ready to act on your competitive insights? Don't let your research gather dust. Try eesel AI blog writer for free and turn your first keyword opportunity into a publish-ready blog post today.