# SEO competitor analysis: how to do one in 7 steps (2026)

> An SEO competitor analysis takes 7 steps: find who ranks for your searches, run a keyword gap, compare pages and links, and check who AI answers name.

Canonical: https://www.searchmaxxed.com/research/seo-competitor-analysis
Last updated: 2026-10-27

HOW-TO GUIDE

An SEO competitor analysis takes 7 steps: find who ranks for your searches, run a keyword gap, compare pages and links, and check who AI answers name.

BH

Brenden House

Founder of Searchmaxxed. We build agentic SEO and GEO workflows that help businesses rank on Google and get named in ChatGPT, then turn that search into more customers and revenue.

PUBLISHED 27 OCTOBER 2026 UPDATED 27 OCTOBER 2026 16 MIN READ

An SEO competitor analysis studies the sites that beat you for the searches that bring you customers, to find what they have that you don't. It takes seven steps, from finding your real search competitors to checking who ChatGPT and Google's AI Overviews name for your searches. In between come the results page, a keyword gap, the winning pages, backlinks and technical SEO. You finish with a ranked build list.

I'm Brenden House. I run Searchmaxxed, an SEO and AI SEO agency, and we run this analysis before we build anything for a client. On 27 October 2026 (AEST), I ran the first two steps on this search and a B2B software search, in the US and Australia. Here's what turned up.

## In summary

- Your SEO competitors are whoever ranks for your money searches, so expect review sites, forums, marketplaces and publishers beside your business rivals.
- Analyse each search in each market. On one B2B software search, the US and Australian top 10s shared just 3 results.
- Compare pages, not domains. The page that ranks, its links and its format matter far more than a sitewide authority score.
- Add AI answers. Only one of the seven SEO guides I found on page one treats ChatGPT or AI Overviews as a step.
- Finish with a ranked build list. A slide deck changes nothing.

## What is an SEO competitor analysis?

An SEO competitor analysis compares your site with the sites that rank above you for the searches you want. It tells you why they win. It also tells you what you'd need to build to beat them, which is the part that matters most. It's narrower than a business competitive analysis, which also covers pricing, product and sales.

Eight terms come up constantly:

- **Search competitor:**  any site that ranks for your target searches, whether or not it sells what you sell.
- **Keyword gap:**  their rankings, minus yours.
- **Content gap:**  topics or page types they cover and you've never touched, from integration pages to industry guides and comparison pages.
- **Backlink gap (link intersect):**  sites that link to two or more of your competitors but not to you.
- **SERP features:**  everything on a Google results page beyond the blue links, such as AI Overviews, People also ask, featured snippets, videos and forum threads.
- **Search intent:**  the job behind the search. Learn, compare, buy, or find one site.
- **Citation:**  a source an AI answer links to or names in its reply.
- **Share of voice:**  your slice of the searches or AI answers in your market, measured against your competitors.

Definitions are the easy part. For a marketing or growth lead, what matters is the output: these searches, these pages, this order.

## Who are your SEO competitors?

Your SEO competitors are the sites that rank for your money searches, and they're often different from the companies your sales team loses deals to. Most markets have four kinds. Each kind calls for a different response.

| Type | Who they are | What you do about them |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Business rivals that rank | Companies selling what you sell, ranking for your searches | Beat their pages: better answer, better proof, more links |
| Search-only competitors | Review sites, marketplaces, Reddit, YouTube, publishers, other vendors' "best of" lists | Get listed or mentioned there, or out-answer them with your own guide |
| Aspirational leaders | The strongest site in your category across the whole market | Study their page families and structure, then build what fits you |
| AI answer sources | The pages ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and AI Overviews cite for your category | Get onto those pages, and make your own pages easy to quote |

My view? Benchmark against the best in the category. I look at who ranks best across the whole country, rather than the town, and take their tactics. The three rivals your CEO names are a start. If a global leader owns the page type Google rewards for your search, that's your template, whatever your size.

## How do you do an SEO competitor analysis?

You do an SEO competitor analysis in seven steps, each answering a single question, and you run them per search group and per market. Why per market? A US competitor set can look nothing like the Australian one.

| Step | The question it answers | What you finish with |
| --- | --- | --- |
| 1. Find your search competitors | Who ranks for the searches that bring revenue? | A competitor list per search group and market |
| 2. Read the results page | What kind of page does Google reward here? | Intent, winning page type, SERP features |
| 3. Run a keyword and content gap | Which searches do they own that you don't? | A filtered list of searches, one target page each |
| 4. Take apart the winning pages | Why does each top page win? | A brief for a page better than all of them |
| 5. Compare backlinks and mentions | Who vouches for them and not for you? | A link and digital PR target list |
| 6. Check technical SEO and structure | Can Google crawl and understand their site better? | Technical fixes and missing page families |
| 7. Check AI answers | Who do the AI engines name and cite? | Sources to get onto and pages to rewrite |

### Step 1: Find your real search competitors

Start from searches, not company names. List the 20 to 50 searches closest to revenue: category terms, "best" and "alternatives" searches, use-case searches and head-to-head comparisons. Record the top 10 for each.

Do it per market. Then group the domains by how often they appear across your list, because the ones that keep turning up are your real SEO competitors.

A tool's competitor report gives a fast first draft. Check it anyway. Tools match competitors on keyword overlap, and that overlap can come from searches that have nothing to do with your revenue.

### Step 2: Read the results page for each search

Look at Google before anyone's site. The results page tells you the intent behind the search and the page type that wins it. If the top five are buyer's guides, a product page won't break in. It doesn't matter how good it is.

For each search, note four things:

1. The winning page type: product page, guide, list, comparison, review site or forum thread.
2. Any AI Overview and its sources.
3. People also ask: your future FAQs.
4. Any video, forum or review-site results, since each one points to a source you'd need to appear on.

### Step 3: Run a keyword gap and a content gap

A keyword gap lists the searches your competitors rank for and you don't. Ahrefs, Semrush and Moz all run one. You enter your domain and a few competitors, and the tool returns every search they share that you're missing, often thousands of rows.

The filtering is where the value sits. Keep a search only if:

- It matches something you sell, or a question buyers want answered before they buy.
- You could out-answer the top ten.
- It's commercial, or it supports a page that is.

Then give each surviving search one owner page, because two of your own pages chasing one search split the signals between them. Content gaps work the same way. They show the page types your competitors publish and you don't: integration pages, industry pages, comparison pages. On client accounts, this map becomes the backbone of our content strategy work.

### Step 4: Take apart the pages that win

Open the top three to five pages for each priority search and note why each ranks: format, depth, proof, schema, links and freshness.

Now find what none of them has. That's information gain.

It might be your own data, a real price, a worked example, a calculator, or a straight answer to a question they all dodge. Copy the average of the top five and you get a sixth average page. The brief you take from this step says two things: what the page must match, and what it must add.

### Step 5: Compare backlinks and mentions

Check the page's backlinks first. A link intersect report finds the sites that link to several competitors but not to you. Those sites already write about your category. That makes them the warmest targets for digital PR and outreach, because the editor already knows the topic and the audience cares.

Sort the results:

- Editorial links you could earn with data.
- Industry lists and review sites where you belong.
- Links not worth chasing.

Skip that third group entirely, and spend the time on the first two. Who links beats how many. On our Agentic Search Engineering plan, this list sets the digital PR and link campaigns.

### Step 6: Check technical SEO and site structure

Check whether their pages load faster and reach Google's index more fully than yours. Run their key pages and yours through PageSpeed Insights for Core Web Vitals, then test their structured data in the Rich Results Test.

Then map their site structure. Their XML sitemap shows their page families: industries, integrations, use cases, locations, comparisons and case studies. A rival with 30 integration pages against your zero has a structural lead that one article won't close.

### Step 7: Check who AI answers name

Ask ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Google's AI Overviews the questions your buyers ask. Record the names and the cited pages. Ask each question more than once, since answers change between runs. Most guides ranking for this search skip this step, so it gets its own section below.

## How do you check competitors in ChatGPT and AI Overviews?

Run a fixed set of buyer questions through each AI engine, then record who the answers name and which sources they cite. The cited sources matter most, because those are the pages you need to appear on before an engine will name you.

We ran this on our own market. Across 900 ChatGPT answers about Australian agencies, a single third-party "best agencies" site was cited in 168 of them. The next three were a second listicle, Semrush's agency directory and Clutch. If you want to be recommended, the job is getting onto the handful of pages the model already trusts.

The engines disagree, too. Perplexity cited a review directory (Semrush Agencies, Clutch, DesignRush and the like) in 36 of 44 agency answers. ChatGPT did it in 20 and Claude in 15. One agency's Clutch profile had six reviews and was cited 20 times.

Those are snapshots. They come from single-day runs in our own category, in late September and early October 2026, so treat them as direction rather than law. Your category has its own list. Finding that list is the AI half of a competitor analysis.

Here's the routine I'd use:

1. Write 15 to 30 questions your buyers ask, such as "best contract management software for mid-size legal teams".
2. Run each one at least twice in ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Google's AI Mode or AI Overviews.
3. Log every name and cited URL.
4. Count the most-cited domains.
5. Split them into competitors' own pages, third-party lists and review sites, and forums.
6. For each of the top ten cited pages, choose one action from three: a listing, a mention or a better page of your own.

Our managed packages include this tracking. If you'd rather have software run those questions every month, our guide to [AI visibility tools](https://www.searchmaxxed.com/research/ai-visibility-tools) compares the main options side by side.

## What did I find when I ran one on 27 October 2026?

I tested steps 1 and 2. I pulled results for two searches through Firecrawl search, once with US settings and once with Australian settings. Both show why your competitor list must come from the results.

### A B2B software search: "contract management software"

Picture a contract management software company selling in both markets, and here's who it's up against for its head search.

| Page type in the top 10 | US | Australia |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Vendor product pages | 2 (ContractSafe, PandaDoc) | 4 (Gatekeeper, Workday, Thomson Reuters, Procore) |
| Vendor-written guides and "best of" articles | 4 (Juro, Icertis, Sirion, Ironclad) | 1 (Juro) |
| Lists from vendors in other categories | 1 (Zylo) | 1 (Proposify) |
| Review sites and marketplaces | 1 (Microsoft Marketplace) | 2 (Gartner Peer Insights, Capterra) |
| Reddit thread and YouTube video | 2 | 2 |

Three things stand out.

Only 3 of the 10 results appear in both markets: Juro's buyer's guide, one Reddit thread and one YouTube video. A team that analyses the US and assumes Australia matches would be benchmarking against the wrong sites.

The winning page type flips. In the US, guides outnumber product pages four to two. In Australia, product pages lead four to one, so a vendor moving between the two markets needs a different lead page in each.

Four of the ten US results come from a forum, a video, a marketplace or a vendor in another category. None is a contract software company's own site. They still take the clicks, and some of them are pages you can get onto.

### This search: "seo competitor analysis"

| Page type in the top 10 | US | Australia |
| --- | --- | --- |
| SEO tool or feature pages | 5 (SpyFu, SE Ranking, Seobility, Semrush, Serpstat) | 4 (SpyFu, SE Ranking, Seobility, Semrush) |
| How-to guides | 4 (Moz, Competitive Intelligence Alliance, Siteimprove, Ahrefs) | 4 (Online Marketing Gurus, Moz, Ahrefs, StudioHawk) |
| Tool round-up | 1 (Zapier) | 1 (Zapier) |
| Video | 0 | 1 (YouTube) |

Then I read all six SEO-specific step-by-step guides on those two pages, from Moz and Ahrefs to the two Australian agencies. Not one includes AI answers. Moz's guide carries "Last Updated: May 2024", and StudioHawk's is dated 1 November 2023.

Here's the odd part. Google's own AI Overview for the US search listed seven steps, and the seventh was "Track AI Search Visibility". One of its sources was a guide from Olostep. That guide does have an AI step. It turned up at number 10 when I pulled the US results again later that day, in place of Serpstat.

So the AI step exists on page one. It sits in one guide out of seven, some of the time. That's the gap this article fills, and it's the kind of gap step 4 should find for you. It also shows why you check results more than once.

## Which tools do you need, and can you do it for free?

You can do a basic SEO competitor analysis for free with Google, Search Console, PageSpeed Insights and the AI engines' free tiers. Paid tools add keyword gaps, estimated traffic and backlink data for other people's sites, which you can't get any other way. This is my own selection.

| Tool | What it's good for in this analysis | What to watch |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Google search (per market) | Who ranks, page types, AI Overviews, People also ask | Results vary by location, so check each market |
| Google Search Console | Your own queries, pages, clicks and positions | Shows your site only, never a competitor's |
| Semrush | Domain Overview, Organic Rankings, Traffic Analytics and its AI Visibility Toolkit | Competitor traffic is an estimate |
| Ahrefs | Site Explorer's Organic competitors, Content Gap and Link Intersect reports | Competitor traffic is an estimate |
| Moz Pro | Domain Overview, keyword gap and link research | Competitor traffic is an estimate |
| PageSpeed Insights and Rich Results Test | Core Web Vitals and structured data on any public page | One page at a time |
| ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity | Who AI answers name and cite | Answers change between runs |

Treat competitor traffic as a guess. Tools model it from rankings and expected click rates, so a single high-volume search a site ranks for by accident can inflate the whole number. Compare pages and rankings instead. If you're choosing between the two big suites, see [Semrush vs Ahrefs](https://www.searchmaxxed.com/research/semrush-vs-ahrefs).

## What should a finished SEO competitor analysis look like?

A finished SEO competitor analysis fits on one page. It lists the searches, the winner of each, the reason, and your build order. Sixty slides won't get acted on.

Use this as a template:

| Search group | Market | Who wins now | Why they win | Our gap | Action | Priority |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| "contract management software" | US | Vendor buyer's guides | Guide format, depth, links | Product page only | Build a buyer's guide that links to the product page | 1 |
| "[product] alternatives" | US and AU | Rival comparison pages | They own the page type | No comparison pages | Build one honest comparison page per rival | 2 |
| "best [category] for [industry]" | AU | Review sites and lists | Third-party trust | Not listed | Get onto the cited lists; build industry pages | 3 |
| Buyer questions in ChatGPT | Both | Rivals named | Cited on two listicles | Absent from both | Digital PR to those publishers | 3 |

Rank the actions by three things: closeness to revenue, odds of winning and build cost. The top rows should be work you could ship this month.

## How often should you do an SEO competitor analysis?

Do a full analysis before a site build, a migration, a product launch or a move into a new market. After that, check your priority searches monthly and rerun the whole thing each quarter.

Rerun it early when something moves. A Google update, a new name in the top three or a new brand in the AI answers all count. Last year's analysis describes last year's market.

## How does Searchmaxxed do SEO competitor analysis for clients?

Searchmaxxed is an SEO and AI SEO agency for enterprise, B2B SaaS, venture-backed, manufacturing and public-sector companies. Competitor analysis is part of every account. We build the pages and fixes it points to, then measure them against the same competitors every month.

I learned it by hand. Before Searchmaxxed, I built Radiant Roof Repairs from zero to more than A$1 million a year in revenue using SEO as the only marketing channel. Three high-intent Gold Coast roofing searches reached number one within 90 days. I did the pages, research, competitor checks and updates manually.

Here's how we do it now. We build AI agents that plug into your Search Console and GA4. The agents scrape competitors' sites and read the Google results in each market. They also check what ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and AI Overviews say about you and your rivals. That data feeds the Managed Search Loop, which shows which page, fix or link should bring in the most enquiries first. We build the pages on a website you own, our Agentic Website. Off your site, the Off-Page Source Layer builds the links, digital PR and mentions that AI answers draw on.

So the template above becomes shipped work, through our [SEO content strategy](https://www.searchmaxxed.com/services/content-strategy) service. We map every search to one owner page. Then we build the pages your competitors have and you don't.

| Package | Who it suits | Competitor work it includes |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Growth System | A company growing in one or two markets | 30 page releases a month, AI visibility tracking, measurement against competitors in a monthly decision memo |
| Agentic Search Engineering | A crowded, national or multi-market category | 50 page releases a month, comparison and industry page families, digital PR and link campaigns, AI answer tracking across ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and AI Overviews, a quarterly competitor review |
| Custom & Enterprise | Several brands, several markets or a large site | Dedicated engineering, custom reporting and original first-party research |

A page release is an approved new page or a substantial rebuild of one. Want the analysis alone first? Our AI SEO Audit takes five business days. It maps where buyers search without finding you and what your site is doing to itself. Then it ranks every fix by what it's worth.

Searchmaxxed's work has generated more than A$10 million in revenue through search for its clients.

## Is Searchmaxxed right for you?

We suit marketing and growth teams that want the competitor analysis turned into pages, fixes and links every week, across Google and AI answers. If you only want the analysis as a document, a one-off audit or a good tool may be enough.

| Searchmaxxed is a good fit if | Look elsewhere if |
| --- | --- |
| You compete in a crowded or multi-market category and need to beat named rivals | You want a competitor report and nothing built |
| You want SEO and AI search handled by one team | You only want to monitor AI mentions; a visibility tool costs less |
| You want to own your site, repository, content and data | You want strategy advice with no changes to your site |
| You want direct access to the people doing the work, with no account managers | You need search to fill this month's pipeline on its own |

## Frequently asked questions

### Can you do an SEO competitor analysis for free?

Yes. Search each target search in each market you sell in, then record who ranks and read the pages at the top. Search Console covers your own data. PageSpeed Insights covers speed, and the free tiers of ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity cover AI answers. Paid tools add keyword gaps and backlink data for other sites.

### How do I find my SEO competitors?

Search your 20 to 50 most valuable searches and record the top 10 for each, in each market. The domains that keep appearing are your SEO competitors. A tool's organic competitors report speeds this up, but check its list against the live results before you trust it.

### What are the four types of competitors?

The usual four are direct, indirect, substitute and aspirational competitors. For SEO, a more useful split is business rivals that rank, search-only competitors such as review sites and forums, category leaders, and AI answer sources.

### How do you do a competitor analysis with Semrush?

Enter a competitor's domain in Domain Overview, then open Organic Rankings to see the searches and pages that bring them traffic. Its gap tools compare keywords and backlinks. The AI Visibility Toolkit shows where AI answers cite competitors.

### What's the difference between an SEO audit and an SEO competitor analysis?

An SEO audit checks your own site for problems: crawling, indexing, speed, content and links. A competitor analysis compares your site with the ones beating you and shows what you'd need to build to pass them. Read [what an SEO audit covers](https://www.searchmaxxed.com/research/what-is-an-seo-audit) for the other half.

### How many competitors should you analyse?

Look at the full top 10 first. Then pick the three to five domains that recur most often across your list. Add one aspirational leader from your category, even if it doesn't rank in your market yet.

### How long does an SEO competitor analysis take?

It depends on scope. Our AI SEO Audit, which includes this work across Google and AI answers, takes five business days.

## What should you do next?

Write down the 20 searches closest to revenue. Search each one in every market you sell in, and record who ranks and what kind of page wins. Then ask ChatGPT the same questions. If you'd like us to run the full analysis and build what it finds, [let's talk pricing](https://www.searchmaxxed.com/contact).

[Get an AI visibility audit](https://www.searchmaxxed.com/contact)

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