Competitive analysis strategies
Four strategies that start from the search results instead of a battlecard. Each one puts a number on a single question: which domains own the results you are chasing, where their coverage ends and yours begins, and whether their advantage still looks real under scrutiny.
How to run a competitive analysis for SEO
Work in order. First establish which domains own the results you are chasing, then take the brand terms out of the comparison, then test how much of their advantage survives scrutiny. Build last. Reversing that sequence is how a quarter gets spent chasing a number.
Find who actually ranks against you
The site winning your queries is rarely the firm on your battlecard. Put a keyword set against the results and sort the domains that return into real rivals and shelf results.
02Run a keyword gap without the brand noise
Strip brand terms from both sides before you read a gap report. What survives is a short, buildable list of terms where a rival has coverage and you have none.
03Read competitor traffic estimates honestly
A domain overview reports a model, not a measurement. What feeds the headline number, why keyword counts inflate, and how to use the estimate without planning a quarter around it.
04Judge a competitor's link profile, not their link total
A backlink count says little on its own. Look instead at which domains link, how much spam they carry, and how many links are dead: that is how you tell a real authority advantage from a repeated one.
Why a competitor template will not tell you what to build
The standard template asks you to list rivals, line up their pricing, and grade their strengths. Worth writing. It will not choose next week's page for you.
Search is settled one query at a time. A rival you never bid against may own none of your results, while a directory you could not name holds three of the ten positions. That is the reason every strategy in this library starts from measured results rather than a list of names.
What competitor tools actually measure
Ranked keywords are the most reliable item in a competitive report: a crawler saw the position. Everything past that is modeled. Traffic estimates combine ranked keywords with assumed volumes and click rates. Authority scores are invented by the vendor and read by nobody at Google. Read the report as tiers and direction and it becomes useful. Read it as fact and you will build a quarter's plan on a figure nobody can act on.
The measured parts run fine through Doverity's domain overview and backlink checker. Hand the same job to an agent over the Doverity MCP and it can line up two domains, list what each one ranks for, and walk the link profile while it works. Two agent skills, competitive landscape and competitor analysis, package those steps as commands it can repeat.
Where this hands off to keyword research
The output of a competitive analysis is a list of terms, which is exactly the input the keyword research library works from. Three handoffs matter.
- Compare competitors on words customers use, not on your own category page. That discipline comes from seeding keywords from conversation.
- Gap terms still need grouping before they can become pages, which is what the topical hubs and intent mapping strategies are for.
- Of everything in this exercise, only your Search Console queries are measured rather than estimated. Check any competitor number that looks better than it should against them.
Competitor analysis FAQ
What does competitor analysis mean in SEO?
It means mapping which domains hold the results you want, which terms they cover that you have never touched, and what actually props their positions up: content, links, or brand. That is a different exercise from sizing up business rivals. Search ranks individual pages, so the site that takes your traffic is frequently nothing like the firm that takes your customers.
How do I work out who my SEO competitors are?
Pick a set of queries you want to win and read the results across all of them. Whoever keeps appearing is who you are up against, and that list always runs past the names you expected: comparison sites, marketplaces, and video platforms holding positions no single article can take.
What kinds of competitors show up?
Three kinds, and they need different handling. One group sells what you sell and is chasing the same queries. Another is a shelf: a directory or a marketplace sitting in the results because of what the page is, not because it earned the spot. The last turned up on the back of one strong page and usually will not repeat it. Treating all three alike is where most competitive work goes wrong.
Can I do competitor analysis without paying?
The reading half costs nothing: the results pages, your competitors' own pages, and your Search Console. Money becomes necessary for competitor keyword and backlink data, which is why the established suites start around $100/month. Doverity starts you off with credits at sign-up, the paid tier runs $10 a month for $10 of usage, and self-hosting is free if you would rather pay nothing.
How much should I trust a competitor traffic estimate?
As a direction, never as a figure. An estimate is assembled by combining ranked keywords with assumed volumes and assumed click rates, so it carries whatever error each of those inputs has, and it rolls every business line on a domain into one total. Read it as a rough magnitude and nothing finer.
What does a keyword gap actually measure?
The terms where a rival has coverage and you have none. Brand terms have to come off both sides first. Until they do, most of what the report shows you is the plain fact that two businesses are called different things, which tells you nothing worth building.
Run these with your own agent
Every strategy includes a prompt. Paste it into an agent with the Doverity MCP connected and it pulls the data itself.