Competitor Research

1. What is Competitor Research in SEO?

Competitor research in SEO involves analyzing the strategies, keywords, content, backlinks, and ranking positions of other websites in your niche or industry. The goal is to understand what’s working for them so you can improve your own SEO performance.

Why it’s Important:

• It helps identify keyword gaps and content opportunities.
• You can learn which backlinks are helping competitors rank.
• You understand how difficult it is to rank in your niche.
• You get inspiration for improving on-page and off-page SEO.

2. Types of Competitors

Before you begin, you need to identify two types of competitors:

• Direct Competitors: These sell the same or similar products/services as you and target the same audience.
  Example: A digital agency competing with another agency.
• SEO Competitors: These may not be direct competitors, but they rank for the same keywords you’re targeting.
  Example: A blog ranking for “best yoga mats” even though they don’t sell them directly.

Help your students identify both using search engines and keyword tools.

3. Key Areas to Analyze

Teach your students to focus on the following components while analyzing competitors:

a) Keyword Strategy

• What keywords are they ranking for?
• Are they targeting short-tail or long-tail keywords?
• Which keywords bring the most traffic?

Tools:
Ahrefs, SEMrush, Ubersuggest, Google Keyword Planner

b) Content Analysis

• What kind of content are they publishing? (blogs, videos, guides, etc.)
• What’s the content length, structure, and tone?
• How frequently is content updated?

Tip: Students should look for content gaps—topics competitors haven’t covered in-depth.

c) Backlink Profile

• How many backlinks does the competitor have?
• What’s the quality of those links (authority of referring domains)?
• Which websites are linking to them?

Tools:
Ahrefs, Moz Link Explorer, SEMrush

d) On-Page SEO

• How are title tags, headers, and meta descriptions written?
• Are they optimizing images, URLs, and internal links?
• Is the site mobile-friendly and fast?

Use browser extensions like MozBar, SEO Minion, or tools like Screaming Frog.

e) Technical SEO & UX

• How is their website structured?
• Are there broken links or poor loading times?
• How user-friendly is the navigation?

Tools:
Google PageSpeed Insights, GTmetrix, Sitebulb

4. Step-by-Step Competitor Research Process

1. Identify top 3–5 SEO competitors using Google searches and keyword tools.
2. Analyze their keyword rankings using a keyword tool.
3. Review their top-performing pages—check content structure and depth.
4. Study their backlink profile—note high-authority links.
5. Compare technical and on-page SEO—identify areas for improvement in your own site.
6. Document your findings in a research sheet or report.

Encourage students to organize data in a Google Sheet or Excel with columns like:
Competitor | Top Keywords | Top Pages | Backlinks | On-page Strengths | Weaknesses

5. Using Competitor Research Strategically

• Create better content than your competitors (longer, deeper, more visual).
• Target missed keywords that your competitors rank for but you don’t.
• Earn similar backlinks by reaching out to the same sites.
• Improve your technical SEO based on competitor strengths.