Last Updated: March 2024
This may sound obvious, but before you can start digging into an SEO competitor analysis, you need to know who your SEO competitors actually are. You may think you know, but until you dive into the data, it's not always apparent.
Enter your target keyword in Google
Export the results to a spreadsheet
Identify which domains are ranking
To get more accurate results for a topic, repeat steps 1-3 for three to five keywords per cluster
Combine the results into one spreadsheet
Calculate which domains appear in which positions and the most frequently
You’ll need to repeat the above steps for every product, service, and content topic on your website.
Phew, talk about exhausting!
This process is laborious and really only possible if you rank for a handful of keywords. But realistically, most sites rank for far more. What about hundreds of keywords, thousands, or tens of thousands? The most popular sites on the web can even rank for millions of keyword phrases! Checking rankings by hand becomes a cumbersome - and often inaccurate - process.
To make your life easier, various SEO tool solutions can automatically look at all of the keywords you rank for in their databases, and accurately tell you who your true search competitors are.