A successful search engine optimization strategy includes competitive analysis. The tools available today offer incredible value, generally at a reasonable fee.
They help users get more done in less time, and many may find the tools so useful that they basically pay for themselves. Here are 10 popular SEO competitive analysis tools, their prices, and how you can use them to boost the success of your SEO strategy.
1. Semrush
Not only does Semrush provide good data for search engine analytics, but everything works as you’d expect; it is very easy to use.
There is no need to read manuals to use Semrush’s SERP analysis tool.
Every link, button, and header has a tooltip that explains what it is, so it all makes sense.
Semrush Tooltip Explains SERP Analysis Tool Data
Screenshot from Semrush, January 2023
Semrush Tooltip Explains Jargon
Semrush screenshot modified by author, Jan 2023
Semrush’s Authority Score is assigned to each URL listed in the SERP Analysis.
Like any third-party metric, the Authority Score is simply a score based on factors such as backlinks, traffic, and referring domains.
The measure makes it easy to make a quick judgment about a web page without having to spend hours researching all the factors of each web page.
The research has already been done; that’s Semrush’s Authority Score.
That’s just one part of Semrush SERP analysis, but it’s the part that directly relates to competitor research.
Semrush is useful for researching competitor backlinks. Ease of use makes link research workflow a pleasure.
No need to read a manual. Everything is self-explanatory.
Starting an analysis consists of entering a domain name or a full URL.
As a result, the page displays several metrics that help you see the competition at a glance, literally.
There is a graph showing the growth of referring domains and backlink growth year over year, organized by time to give you an idea of how aggressively they are building links.
Semrush screenshot modified by author, Jan 2023
Below that graph is another visual representation of backlinks organized by referring domain categories.
Categories are general niches that include backlinks.
Screenshot from Semrush, January 2023
When you click on a category, the tool presents a filter where you can add a word, phrase, or TLD, ie Top Level Domain (.net or .org), to find all relevant links.
There’s also a dropdown menu to select “Zones by TLD”, but I’ve found that typing in the TLD works better.
Or you can get granular and click the view full report button to see all the categories in detailed detail.
It’s easy to recommend Semrush because it’s designed for competitor research and link building.
Competitive research tools are easy to use and provide a visual snapshot of their activities and provide a useful user interface to drill down by category.
2. Ahrefs SERP Checker (Free And Paid)
Ahrefs has a free SERP checker that shows the same SERP data as the paid version, only for top positions.
The paid version has more data. But if you’re on a budget, the free version is a useful start.
Below is a screenshot of the SERP overview, listing the parts that are featured, people are also asking, and sitelink improvements.
This additional data provides an overview of how SERPs look, as well as page and domain ranking metrics.
Screenshot from Ahrefs, December 2022
Here is a screenshot showing more data from the SERP analysis tool.
All column headings display tooltips that explain what each column means.
Screenshot from Ahrefs, December 2022
Ahrefs is a good choice for competitor analysis of search results.
3. Serpstat
Serpstat is an SEO platform that offers SERP analysis tools at an affordable price. You can register for free to try it out.
Serpstat focuses on analyzing search results and is useful for backlink analysis and competitor analysis.
4. SpyFu
SpyFu is a very reasonably priced service that is specifically dedicated to competitive research and offers useful features.
The advantage of the tool is that it generates all the data necessary for competitive research.
SpyFu basically takes the “research” part from competitive research tasks and provides the data.
The free SERP Analysis tool provides unique insights, such as indicators of whether a website is moving up or down in search results.
Screenshot of SpyFu, January 2023
Another interesting feature is that it provides a Ranking Difficulty Score, whether .gov or .edu sites are ranked, and the number of homepages that rank in the top 100 positions.
SpyFu screenshot modified by author, Jan 2023
SpyFu Backlinks Report
Another unique feature is how SpyFu identifies the most powerful web pages to get a link from.
Enter a keyword phrase in the search box, and SpyFu searches for backlinks from the top 5,000 ranking sites, including some similar keywords, and identifies all the backlinking domains that the ranking sites have in common.
Even better, SpyFuk allows users to filter those web pages by backlink type.
Types of backlinks that can be filtered are .gov/.edu/, sites with affiliate links, blogs, news sites, forums, and directories.
Filtering for forums shows the strongest forum backlinks, filtering for .edu domains shows the best .edu sites to get a link from and more.
Another cool feature is called Backlink Kombat.
Screenshot of SpyFu, January 2023
This tool allows you to enter two competing domains and then exclude your domain. Then the competitors will show you all the links that your site doesn’t have.
I like to use tools creatively to get more or better data.
What I would suggest doing with the SpyFu Backlink Kombat tool is to compare sites that are not your direct competitors. This will help you discover opportunities that you might not otherwise have.
So if your topic is plumbers in city X, compare roofers in city X.
Competitor backlink research with SpyFu is very easy. I would like the flexibility to search by keyword (such as Favorite Sites) or by TLD (to find .org or .us domains).
A limited amount of this data is free, while the full data set is available to paid subscribers.
SpyFu is an interesting tool because it takes the extra step of presenting data by narrowing down the research.
It’s easy to use, specific to competitor research, and reasonably priced.
5. Sandboxweb.io SERP Analysis Tool
Sandboxweb.io offers a SERP analysis tool that provides data on top competitors.
This tool shows outline types, Core Web Vitals data, and word count.
You can click on each competitor in the SERP to research more.
The free version of this tool provides a lot of information. But it is limited to 10 keywords per month.
The data is limited, but it provides a quick analysis.
6. Screaming Frog
Screaming Frog has a SERP analysis feature. It’s not easy to use, but it’s not too difficult.
I’d like to see Screaming Frog make this type of analysis easier to do without getting too technical.
If you take the time to figure it out, Screaming Frog can scrape the SERPs and provide analytics.
It is also useful to analyze competitors individually to find out what sites they are linking to, how much content they have, their linking patterns, headings used on the site and many other competitor data points.
7. Inlinks
Inlinks is a content optimization tool that can extract relevant data from search results and competitors.
Inlinks offers a SERP analytics feature that provides a variety of data points about sites in search results, such as semantically related topics and user intent data.
The user intent data and topic suggestion features are quite unique.
There’s also a Topic Analysis feature that provides topics related to competitors and other data useful for content creation.
Other SERP Analytics tools look at the top 100 out of the top 5,000 for their analysis.
But in my opinion, what really matters is the top 10 search results, as not all sites in the top 100 are competitors.
So, I really appreciate Inlinks’ SERP analysis tool for focusing on the top 10.
Inlinks SERP analysis tool provides data on:
I asked one of the founders, Dixon Jones, to explain what Inlinks does when it comes to competitor analysis.
“Inlinks analyzes ten competing pages for any given Keyword. It aggregates the number of times the entity is used in the SERP and uses it to build a Knowledge Graph of entities related to a given search.
It is then compared to the content entities on YOUR competition page, highlighting any material gaps in your content.
At the site level, Inlinks can build a knowledge graph of any site, but currently doesn’t have many tools for comparing entire sites.
We analyze the verbs used to describe entities (on pages competing for a SERP) and group them into verb-based intents.
This helps content publishers respond to a genuine user query, rather than using words in the wrong context.”
Inlinks offers more tools; It’s more than competitor analysis.
There is a free, professional and enterprise level.
8. MarketMuse
MarketMuse is an AI-powered content analysis tool that works across the entire content creation workflow, from research to short content and more.
What I appreciate about MarketMuse is that it looks at top-ranking pages and provides keyword insight into topics.
A key competitor analysis feature in MarketMuse is called Compete.
The Compete tool analyzes the competition and suggests what to write about and ways to do better than the competition, such as covering overlooked topics.
Compete’s unique selling proposition, in my opinion, is focused on helping users create content that is better than the competition.
My understanding of MarketMuse is that it is not only focused on helping users beat the competition.
The tool streamlines the entire content creation workflow, making competitor research a part of the process.
There is a learning curve at MarketMuse.
9. SimilarWeb
SimilarWeb is a unique competitor analysis tool.
It’s focused less on SEO and more on providing a clear picture of the differences between the two websites.
There are various data related to traffic, keywords, traffic share by country and even a comparison of audience demographics.
SimilarWeb offers a free and paid version.
The free version offers a wealth of data that helps users compare competitors.
10. LinkResearchTools
LinkResearchTools is an enterprise-grade link research tool.
It is the most sophisticated and complete link building tool I have ever used.
I find that one of my favorite features is the extensive inventory of crawled links.
The tool makes it easy to find links with a simple search, such as adding a TLD, but you can also find links that many sites have in common.
Most of the functionality is aimed at businesses that want to exclude backlinks, which is useless for link builders.
I would like to see a tool that removes all functions related to link rejection and just researches competitor backlinks.
One can subscribe to most other lower priced tools and use the combined backlink research features of competitors and still pay less than LinkResearchTools.
For most people, that’s enough.
But LinkResearchTools’ data is, in my experience, perhaps the most comprehensive backlink data available.
Backlink Analysis
Backlink analysis is more than just looking for competitor keywords.
It’s a way of understanding what the barrier to entry might be, that is, how easy or difficult it might be to compete.
Competitor links can be a starting point for building better links.
Sometimes a group of links can stand out, giving you an idea of the direction to take.
Building strong links requires a flexible backlink analysis tool.
Competitor Research
There are many useful SEO tools available today. They don’t do SEO for you, but they make it easier to get better results faster.
The tools also provide time-saving access to large amounts of data that would normally take days.
Saving time, being more productive and having the data to make informed decisions is what sets all these SEO tools apart.
Featured image: Paulo Bobita/Search Engine Journal
How can I check my website traffic for a competitor?
Comparing Website Traffic: 5 Tools to Track Competitor Traffic
- Google Analytics Benchmarking. Google Analytics (Universal Analytics) benchmark report. …
- Similar website Similarweb is a free tool (with an optional Chrome extension) to compare web traffic from sites you don’t have access to. …
- Ahrefs …
- Alexa. …
- Semrush.
Can you check a website’s web traffic? All you have to do is enter a website’s URL and Semrush will provide you with information about its traffic, top organic keywords, landing pages, backlinks, and more. It also gives you a feature called Traffic Analytics.
How can I check traffic to my website for free?
similarweb.com provides you with a free estimate of website traffic with total number of visits, average visit duration, pages per visit and bounce rate at a combined level for both desktop and mobile web traffic. semrush.com also has a free version of website traffic statistics available.
How do I see traffic to my website using Google Analytics?
To get started, go to Statistics » Reports » Overview. Here you can see the traffic overview report and the overall performance of your website. If you scroll down, you can see the Device Breakdown report that shows what device your visitors are using to view your site.
How do you manually Analyse a website?
What does website analytics include? Website analytics is the process of testing and reviewing website performance for key metrics such as speed, traffic, search engine optimization (SEO), and user experience. Each of these elements is a factor in the success of your website, which means they directly affect the performance of your company.
What are the 3 variables of analyzing competitors?
Three additional variables that every company should monitor relative to competitors are: market share (competitors’ share of sales in the target market), share of mind (percentage of customers who name a competitor when asked which company comes to mind first in an industry. ), and share of heart (percent. ..
What are the variables of competition? lack of economic scale. risks of excessive dependence on a single product or a single market. Companies that successfully exploit a niche will attract competition. vulnerable to market changes.
What is SWOT analysis of competitors?
What is SWOT Analysis? SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) analysis is a framework used to assess a company’s competitive position and develop strategic planning. SWOT analysis evaluates internal and external factors as well as current and future potential.
How is SWOT analysis used for competitive advantage? A Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) analysis is a strategic planning technique designed to determine how well a company is positioned and what opportunities exist to create a competitive advantage.
What do you analyze in competitor analysis?
A competitive analysis should look at your competitors’ characteristics, market share, pricing, marketing, differentiators, strengths, weaknesses, geography, culture, and customer feedback.
What is 4 components of competitive analysis explain?
There are four key components to a strong competitor analysis framework: Porter’s Five Forces. SWOT Analysis Business models. Customer journey maps.
What is the difference between SWOT analysis and competitor analysis?
Porter’s 5 forces is a comparative analysis strategy that examines the market forces in an industry. SWOT analysis analyzes the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of an individual or organization to analyze its internal potential.
Is competitor analysis part of SWOT?
What is a SWOT analysis? A SWOT analysis is an analysis carried out by a person or company to identify internal strengths and weaknesses, as well as external opportunities and threats or those of competitors.
Is competitor analysis and SWOT analysis the same?
A competitor SWOT analysis is simply a way to assess your competitor’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats so that you can better understand their business and, in turn, yours.
What is competitor analysis?
Competitor analysis, also called competitive analysis, is the process of identifying competitors in your industry and researching their different marketing strategies. You can use this information as a point of comparison to identify your company’s strengths and weaknesses with each competitor.
Should you do SWOT analysis on competitors?
Have you ever considered doing a SWOT analysis of your competition? By properly evaluating your competitors, you can learn to counter their strengths, exploit their weaknesses, take advantage of the opportunities they present, and manage the threats they pose.
Why do we need to analyze your competitors SWOT?
Competitor SWOT analysis turns the exercise inside out, determining what your competition is doing. Of course, this has the beautiful byproduct of defining competitive landscapes and empowering your team to make strategic moves.
Do you need to analyze all your competitors?
Competitor analysis is important because: It will help you know how you can improve your business strategy. It will tell you how you can outperform your competitors in these areas to keep your customers’ attention. Gain a competitive advantage over others in your industry.