Search competitor list
The sites actually occupying your priority rankings, which frequently includes players outside your assumed business competitive set.
SEO service
Competitor analysis built on your search rivals, not your sales rivals
The company you compete with for customers and the sites you compete with in search results are often different companies entirely. We analyze the ones actually occupying the rankings you want.
Ask most business owners who their competitors are and they will name the two or three companies they think about at trade shows or in sales calls. Ask a search engine the same question and the answer is often completely different: a directory site, a review aggregator, a national brand that entered the category recently, or a local competitor nobody in the boardroom has ever mentioned. Competitor analysis for SEO starts by finding out who is actually ranking, not who you assume is.
That distinction matters because strategy built against the wrong competitor wastes effort. If your real business rival has weak organic presence, matching their content and backlink profile gets you nowhere in search, even if it matters in a sales pitch. Conversely, a site you have never heard of might own six of the top ten positions for your most valuable queries and deserve the bulk of your attention.
We run this analysis across four lenses: where content coverage has gaps, how much share of voice each player holds across your priority queries, how backlink profiles compare in both size and quality, and which SERP features, map packs, featured snippets, People Also Ask boxes, are being won by whom. Each lens tells a different part of the story, and none of them alone is enough to build a plan on.
The output is not a competitor spreadsheet you file away. It becomes direct input into keyword research, content strategy, and link building, because knowing exactly what a competitor is doing well only matters if it changes what you do next.
What it is
What competitor analysis actually covers
Gap analysis compares the topics and queries a competitor ranks for against the ones your site does, surfacing the exact list of subjects they cover that you do not. This is the fastest way to find content opportunities with proven demand, since the competitor's ranking is evidence the topic can be won.
Share of voice measures what percentage of visibility across a defined set of priority queries each player controls, factoring in both ranking position and estimated search volume. It answers a bigger question than any single keyword can: who actually dominates this category in search, and by how much.
Backlink comparison looks at the volume, quality, and topical relevance of links pointing at competing domains versus yours. A competitor with fewer but more relevant, higher-authority links can outrank a site with a larger but low-quality link profile, so we evaluate quality first and volume second.
SERP feature ownership tracks who holds the map pack, the featured snippet, the People Also Ask entries, and other non-standard result types for your priority queries. These features often get more clicks than the traditional first organic result, and winning one requires a different tactic than winning a standard ranking.
Fit
Who this is for, and who it is not for
We would rather say no early than sell a program that cannot work.
Good fit
- Businesses entering SEO for the first time and unsure where the real opportunity sits.
- Teams that have been publishing content without a clear read on what's actually working for competitors.
- Companies that have lost visible ground and need to know specifically who took it and how.
Not a fit
- A brand-new category with no established search competitors to analyze yet.
- Anyone looking for a one-time report with no intention of acting on the findings.
- Businesses whose only concern is a competitor's pricing or product, not their search visibility.
Deliverables
What you get
A written competitive picture across content, links, visibility, and SERP features.
Content gap report
Every topic a competitor ranks for that your site does not, ranked by estimated value and difficulty to close.
Share of voice breakdown
Visibility percentage across your priority query set for you and each named competitor, so dominance is measured, not assumed.
Backlink comparison
A side-by-side read on link volume and, more importantly, link quality and topical relevance across competing domains.
SERP feature ownership map
Which map packs, snippets, and PAA boxes are currently held by which competitor, and what it would take to contest each one.
Prioritized action list
The specific gaps worth closing first, ranked by opportunity size, feeding directly into content and link building plans.
How we run it
How we run it
We identify real search competitors before comparing anything against them.
Step 1: Identify search competitors
We pull the actual domains ranking across your priority queries, which is often a different list than the businesses you compete with commercially.
Step 2: Run the four comparisons
Content gaps, share of voice, backlink profiles, and SERP feature ownership get analyzed against each identified competitor.
Step 3: Rank the opportunities
Findings get scored by realistic opportunity size, not just by gap size, since a huge gap against an unbeatable domain is a poor use of budget.
Step 4: Hand off to execution
The prioritized list feeds directly into keyword research, content strategy, and link building so the findings actually change the plan.
What is SEO competitor analysis?
SEO competitor analysis compares your site against the domains that actually rank for your priority queries, covering content gaps, share of voice, backlink profiles, and SERP feature ownership. It often surfaces different competitors than the ones you compete with commercially.
Where this connects
Where competitor analysis connects
Findings here only matter once they change what gets built next.
Content gaps found here get turned into an actual publishing plan through content strategy so the gap becomes a page instead of staying a line item.
Backlink comparisons directly inform which placements are worth pursuing in link building since matching a competitor's link quality matters more than matching their count.
The query set we analyze share of voice against comes from keyword research which defines the priority terms before any competitor comparison begins.
A full technical and content picture of your own site gets built in an SEO audit which runs alongside competitor analysis to show both sides of the comparison.
Some of the fastest-moving competitors in a category win through spend rather than rankings, which is worth understanding through paid media and a look at who is actually buying the queries you're trying to earn.
Questions
Competitor analysis questions we get asked
Find out who is actually winning your search results
We start by identifying your real search competitors, not just your sales rivals.