TL;DR
Competitor research is an important part of SEO and digital marketing because it helps businesses understand what their competitors are doing, where they are performing well, and where new opportunities exist. How to Do Competitor Research: A Complete Beginner-Friendly Guide explains how to identify competitors and analyse their keywords, content, backlinks, website performance, and SEO strategies. The blog also explains how to find content gaps, study competitor strengths and weaknesses, and use tools such as RankQ and other SEO platforms to collect useful insights. By following a structured competitor research process, businesses can make better marketing decisions, discover new opportunities, and develop a more effective SEO strategy.
What Is Competitor Research?
Let’s say you have started a new website.
You publish content regularly, optimise your pages, and work on SEO.
But there’s one question you can’t stop thinking about:
Why are my competitors ranking higher than me?
This is where competitor research becomes useful.
Competitor research is the process of studying businesses or websites that compete with you in your industry or search results.
You look at things like the following:
• What keywords they rank for
• What type of content they publish
• Where their backlinks come from
• Which pages bring them traffic
• How their website is structured
• What topics they cover
• What they are doing better than you
The goal isn’t to copy your competitors.
The goal is to understand the market and discover opportunities that you can use to build a better strategy.
Why Is Competitor Research Important?
Without competitor research, you are basically making SEO decisions with limited information.
Your competitors have already tested different topics, keywords, content formats, and marketing strategies.
By analysing them, you can learn from what is already working.
Competitor research can help you:
• Find valuable keyword opportunities
• Discover content ideas
• Identify content gaps
• Understand backlink opportunities
• Analyze competitors’ strengths and weaknesses
• Improve your content strategy
• Understand what users expect
• Discover new marketing opportunities
• Make better SEO decisions
Think of competitor research as doing your homework before entering a competition.
You don’t need to copy the other players.
You simply need to understand the game.
How to Do Competitor Research Step by Step
Now let’s look at a practical process you can follow.
Step 1: Identify Your Real Competitors
The first mistake many businesses make is assuming that their competitors are only businesses selling similar products or services.
For SEO, that’s not always true.
Your search competitors can be completely different from your business competitors.
For example, suppose you sell SEO software.
Your business competitors might be other SEO software companies.
But for a search query like the following:
“How to do keyword research”
Your competitors could be blogs, marketing websites, educational platforms, or SEO agencies.
So you should identify two types of competitors.
Business Competitors
These are companies offering similar products or services.
SEO Competitors
These are websites ranking for the keywords you want to target.
Both are important.
Step 2: Search Your Target Keywords
One of the easiest ways to find SEO competitors is to search for your target keywords on Google.
Suppose you want to rank for:
“keyword research tools”
Search the keyword and examine the websites appearing on the first page.
Make a list of the websites that repeatedly appear for your important keywords.
If the same website ranks for many keywords in your niche, it’s probably worth analysing closely.
Step 3: Analyze Their Keywords
Keywords can tell you a lot about a competitor’s SEO strategy.
Look for:
• High-traffic keywords
• Long-tail keywords
• Commercial keywords
• Informational keywords
• Low-competition keywords
• Keywords you currently don’t rank for
This can help you discover opportunities you may have missed.
For example, your competitor might rank for the following:
best SEO tools for small businesses
while you only target the following:
SEO tools
The more specific keyword may reveal a completely different audience and search intent.
SEO platforms such as Semrush, Ahrefs, and RankQ can help you research competitor keywords and identify potential opportunities.
Step 4: Study Their Top-Performing Pages
Don’t just look at a competitor’s homepage.
Find out which pages are actually performing well.
These could be:
• Blog posts
• Product pages
• Landing pages
• Guides
• Comparison pages
• Resource pages
Once you identify their strongest pages, study them carefully.
Ask yourself:
Why is this page successful?
Look at:
• Topic
• Content depth
• Page structure
• Headings
• Images
• Internal links
• External links
• Search intent
• User experience
You may discover patterns that can improve your own content.
Step 5: Analyze Their Content Strategy
Content is often one of the biggest competitive advantages in SEO.
Take a look at what your competitors are publishing.
Do they focus on:
• How-to guides?
• Tutorials?
• Case studies?
• Product comparisons?
• Industry news?
• Statistics?
• Beginner guides?
• Expert opinions?
• Videos?
• Tools and calculators?
Understanding their content strategy can help you identify what your audience expects.
But don’t simply create a copy of their article.
Find a way to make your content more useful, more accurate, more current, or easier to understand.
Step 6: Find Content Gaps
This is one of the most valuable parts of competitor research.
A content gap exists when your competitors cover a topic or keyword that your website doesn’t cover properly.
For example:
Competitor A ranks for 500 relevant keywords.
Competitor B ranks for 700.
Your website ranks for only 150.
That doesn’t mean you should create 550 random articles.
Instead, look for keywords that are
• Relevant to your business
• Valuable to your audience
• Realistic to target
• Closely related to your existing content
You can then build content around those gaps.
Example
Suppose you have a digital marketing website.
Your competitors have content about:
How to create backlinks
How to perform competitor analysis
But you don’t have a detailed guide about technical SEO.
That could be a content opportunity.
Step 7: Analyze Their Backlinks
Backlinks can show you how competitors are building authority.
Look at:
• Which websites link to them
• Which pages attract the most backlinks
• What type of content earns links
• Whether they receive links from industry websites
• Which publications mention them
You don’t need to copy every backlink.
Instead, look for patterns.
For example, you might discover that competitors frequently earn links through original research.
That could be a signal that creating your own research report may be a good strategy.
Step 8: Analyze Their Internal Linking
Internal links are links connecting different pages on the same website.
A strong internal linking structure can help users navigate a website and help search engines understand relationships between pages.
When analysing competitors, check the following:
• How they link blog posts together
• Whether important pages receive internal links
• How they structure categories
• Which pages appear to be their priority
For example, a competitor might have a main guide about SEO that links to smaller articles about the following:
• Keyword research
• Link building
• Technical SEO
• On-page SEO
This creates a clear topic structure.
You can use a similar concept while creating your own unique content architecture.
Step 9: Study Their Website Structure
Take a look at how your competitors organise their websites.
Check:
• Navigation
• Categories
• URLs
• Blog structure
• Product pages
• Service pages
• Breadcrumbs
• Internal links
• Mobile experience
A clean website structure can make it easier for both users and search engines to find important information.
Don’t copy their design.
Instead, identify what makes their website easy to navigate and think about how you can improve your own structure.
Step 10: Analyze Their On-Page SEO
Now take a closer look at individual pages.
Check their
• Title tags
• Meta descriptions
• H1 headings
• H2 and H3 headings
• URLs
• Image optimization
• Internal links
• Content structure
• Keyword usage
You can use these observations to identify patterns.
For example, if most high-ranking competitors have detailed comparison pages for a particular topic, that could indicate that searchers prefer comparison content for that query.
Step 11: Compare Content Quality
Don’t just compare word counts.
A 5,000-word article isn’t automatically better than a 1,500-word article.
Instead, compare the usefulness of the content.
Ask:
• Does it answer the main question quickly?
• Does it provide examples?
• Is the information accurate?
• Is the content updated?
• Does it cover related questions?
• Is the page easy to read?
• Does it provide original insights?
• Does it solve the reader’s problem?
Your goal should be:
Create the best resource for the searcher’s needs.
Not:
Create something longer than your competitor.
Step 12: Study Their SERP Strategy
SERP means Search Engine Results Page.
Look at how competitors appear in search results.
For example, you may notice:
• Featured snippets
• FAQ sections
• Video results
• Product results
• Local results
• Image results
• Comparison pages
Understanding the SERP can help you choose the right content format.
If Google consistently shows detailed guides for a keyword, publishing a five-line article probably won’t satisfy the intent.
Step 13: Use SEO Tools for Competitor Research
Doing everything manually can take a lot of time.
SEO tools can make competitor research much easier.
Some commonly used tools include:
RankQ
RankQ can be useful for monitoring SEO performance, researching competitors, and identifying opportunities based on keyword and ranking data.
It can help you understand where competitors are performing well and where your website may have opportunities to improve.
Semrush
Semrush provides tools for keyword research, competitor analysis, backlink research, traffic insights, and SEO performance tracking.
Ahrefs
Ahrefs is widely used for competitor keyword research, backlink analysis, content research, and SEO analysis.
Google Search
Never underestimate Google itself.
Searching your target keywords manually can reveal a lot about:
• Search intent
• Content formats
• Competitor websites
• SERP features
• User questions
Tools provide data.
Google helps you understand the actual search experience.
How to Create a Competitor Research Report
Once you’ve collected your data, organise it.
A simple competitor research report can include:
| Research Area | What to Analyze |
| Competitors | Main business and SEO competitors |
| Keywords | Important keywords and ranking opportunities |
| Content | Topics, formats, and top pages |
| Backlinks | Link sources and link worthy content |
| On-Page SEO | Titles, headings, URLs, internal links |
| Website Structure | Navigation and page organization |
| Content Gaps | Topics competitors cover that you don’t |
| Strengths | Areas where competitors perform well |
| Weaknesses | Areas where competitors can be beaten |
| Opportunities | New keywords, content, and link opportunities |
Keeping this information organised makes it much easier to turn research into an actual SEO strategy.
Competitor Research Example
Let’s say you run a website about digital marketing.
Your main keyword is:
“SEO tools”
You search Google and identify several websites ranking on the first page.
After analysing them, you discover the following:
Competitor A has strong backlinks but outdated content.
Competitor B has fresh content but very few backlinks.
Competitor C has excellent keyword coverage but poor user experience.
Now you have useful information.
Instead of trying to beat everyone at everything, you can build a strategy around the gaps.
For example:
• Create more updated content than Competitor A
• Build stronger authority than Competitor B
• Provide a better user experience than Competitor C
This is what makes competitor research powerful.
You’re not just looking at what competitors do well.
You’re looking for where they leave opportunities open.
Common Competitor Research Mistakes
Copying Competitors
Competitor research is about learning, not copying.
If you simply rewrite your competitor’s content, you’re unlikely to create something genuinely valuable.
Looking Only at Keywords
Keywords are important, but they are only one part of competitor research.
You should also analyse content, backlinks, website structure, user experience, and search intent.
Ignoring Smaller Competitors
Don’t only analyse huge websites.
Smaller websites can sometimes have excellent strategies and rank for valuable keywords.
Focusing Only on Traffic
Traffic numbers can be useful, but they don’t tell the whole story.
A competitor with less traffic may have better conversion-focused keywords.
Not Turning Research Into Action
Research is useless if you don’t use it.
After completing your competitor analysis, create a list of specific actions.
For example:
• Create three missing topic pages
• Improve five existing articles
• Target ten relevant keywords
• Build internal links between related pages
• Create an original research report
That’s how research becomes strategy.
How Often Should You Do Competitor Research?
Competitor research isn’t something you need to do every day.
A detailed analysis every few months can be useful, especially if your industry is competitive.
You should also monitor competitors when:
• A major competitor launches a new website
• Search rankings change significantly
• A competitor publishes a large content campaign
• Your industry changes
• New competitors enter the market
Regular monitoring helps you stay aware without wasting time constantly checking what others are doing.
Frequently Asked Questions About Competitor Research
What is competitor research in SEO?
Competitor research in SEO is the process of analysing competing websites to understand their keywords, content, backlinks, rankings, website structure, and overall SEO strategy.
How do I find my SEO competitors?
Search for your target keywords on Google and identify websites that consistently appear in the results. These websites are your SEO competitors for those specific searches.
What should I analyse when researching competitors?
You should analyse competitor keywords, content, backlinks, internal linking, website structure, on-page SEO, search intent, top-performing pages, and content gaps.
Which tools are best for competitor research?
Tools such as RankQ, Semrush, and Ahrefs can provide useful competitor and SEO data. Google Search is also valuable for manually analysing search results and understanding search intent.
Is competitor research the same as copying competitors?
No. Competitor research is about understanding what works in your market and finding opportunities to create something better and more useful.
Final Thoughts
Competitor research gives you something that guessing never can: context.
Instead of creating content randomly, you can see what is already working, understand what your competitors are targeting, identify gaps, and build a strategy around real opportunities.
Start by identifying your actual SEO competitors.
Then analyse their keywords, content, backlinks, website structure, and top-performing pages.
Look for weaknesses.
Look for gaps.
Most importantly, look for ways to create something genuinely better.
Because the goal of competitor research isn’t to become a copy of your competitors.
The goal is to understand the competition well enough to build a stronger strategy of your own.
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