Leveraging Competitor Analysis for Better SEO Strategy

UNDERSTANDING COMPETITOR ANALYSIS 

Within the world of SEO, competitor analysis refers to exploring the on-page and off-page elements of a competitor’s website that contribute to their rankings.  

Exploring competitor websites manually will help you to familiarize yourself with their on-page elements and evaluate them from a user experience perspective. SEO tools like Ahrefs, SEMrush, and Screaming Frog provide insights into keywords, backlinks, and traffic, complementing manual evaluations.

While a site should be evaluated holistically, it can be helpful to focus on core pages of the site. For ecommerce sites, this would include the homepage, category pages, and product pages. Use your best judgment to determine which areas of the site are the most critical to evaluate.

TYPES OF COMPETITORS

Before you begin a competitive analysis, determine which competitors to select. When considering the competitors to include in your analysis, ask yourself:

• Is this competitor in my industry?
• Is this competitor offering similar products or services?
• Does this competitor target the same audience or customer base as my business?

Selections should include both indirect and direct competitors, which are characterized by:

• Direct Competitors: Companies offering similar products/services.
• Indirect Competitors: Businesses that don’t directly compete but target a similar audience.

Client Example: For a baby skincare brand, we analyzed niche competitors for product ideas and broader ones for audience insights, revealing opportunities to target parents seeking safe skincare products.

This analysis yielded new blog topics to target—plus updates to the format of existing site content, strengthening our client’s standing in the marketplace.

We recommend prioritizing three to four competitors for in-depth analysis, with a focus on direct competitors.

KEY COMPONENTS OF COMPETITOR ANALYSIS FOR SEO

After competitors are selected, the next step is to begin evaluating based on key elements of on-page and off-page SEO. We have included the main elements of on-page and off-page SEO strategy below.

On-Page SEO Tactics

Keyword Analysis

Keyword analysis is a critical part of SEO competitor analysis and involves determining target keywords for your website and benchmarking them against queries that competitors are ranking for. Keyword analysis tools like SEMRush and Ahrefs can be especially helpful for this analysis, showing ranking information while providing additional data like monthly search volume and keyword difficulty. Keyword intent is another important consideration to keep in mind when determining target keywords. For an ecommerce site, you will rely more heavily on keywords with transactional intent, whereas for a blog, you will rely more heavily on keywords with an informational intent.

Client example with quick results! We analyzed keywords with informational intent to identify blog opportunities and transactional intent to identify product opportunities. We discovered that a top competitor was ranking for informational keywords related to haircare guides. We created a haircare blog for our client and saw an impressive increase in rankings within three months.

Content Analysis

Content analysis refers to reviewing the types of content your competitors create (blogs, infographics, etc.) and determining if there are any gaps in your content offering to emulate. Take note of how competitors might really stand out, and look for:

• Do they use engaging images with alt text?
• Do they include relevant internal links?
• Are there appropriate calls to action?

Consider how each of the pages reviewed demonstrates experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness (EEAT), and think about how you can incorporate these principles into your own content strategy. Assess whether your competitors' content successfully establishes their credibility and provides value to their audience. The goal with this step is to find opportunities where you can create unique content that competitors lack.

Metadata Analysis

When evaluating a page’s metadata, consider the following key elements:

• Title Tag: The title of the page that shows in the search engine results pages (SERPs). The title should reflect the content of the page concisely, using target keywords where possible. Title tags are a direct ranking factor for SEO.
• Meta Description: The meta description of the page provides a description of the page’s content and is used to entice readers to interact with the page. The meta description, while not a direct ranking factor for SEO, plays a crucial role in improving your page's click-through rate (CTR) from SERPs.
• Headings: Headings are a crucial element of on-page SEO as they provide structure and organization for your page, as well as present an opportunity to leverage target keywords. The H1 header is the main header of the page, signaling to users and search engines what the content of the page is about.
• Schema: Schema markup is a collection of code snippets that can be placed on any page of a website in order to call out specific aspects of the page in the search results. Pages with structured data tend to receive higher click-through rates than those without as the snippets are more engaging and attractive to searchers (often called rich snippets).

What this looks like in practice: We uncovered structured data opportunities to optimize product schema for a client. Since implementing this schema, we enabled richer search results, including star ratings, product availability, and price details, which increased the visibility and appeal of these listings on search engine results pages.

Off-Page SEO Tactics

Backlink Profile Analysis

The main component of off-page SEO is a website’s backlink profile. This refers to the number of linked mentions your site receives. High-quality backlinks signal trustworthiness to search engines, improving rankings. Use tools like Ahrefs to analyze backlinks, domain ratings, and anchor text.

Social Media Presence

Another off-page SEO consideration is the competitor’s social presence. Some questions to consider when evaluating social presence include:

• Does the competitor have verified social profiles?
• How does the competitor engage with their audience via social profiles?
• Do they use social media to promote their website content, driving traffic back to their site?

Analyzing these aspects of your competitor's social media strategy can provide valuable insights into their approach to audience engagement, content distribution, and brand visibility, informing your own social media and off-page SEO strategies.

SEO COMPETITOR ANALYSIS: KEY TAKEAWAYS

A comprehensive competitor analysis provides a roadmap for boosting your SEO efforts. From keyword targeting and content optimization to backlink strategies and technical improvements, each component of your analysis offers actionable insights. Effective SEO isn’t just about optimizing your own site but also about learning from what others are doing correctly—and using that knowledge to craft a more robust and effective SEO strategy that drives sustainable growth.

At Stella Rising, our multi-award-winning SEO team helps brands outshine competition and stand out via organic search, connecting with consumers and driving revenue. If you’d like to chat about how we can support your SEO efforts, connect with us.