21 01.08.2025

21 01.08.2025

Your SEO budget is in the thousands of dollars, your content strategy is planned months ahead and looks impressive, the best marketing team is working on your advertising, but your competitors still remain higher in the search results? To stop guessing why their traffic is growing (unlike yours), you need proper competitor analysis. While you are acting blindly, your competitors already know a lot about you, including:

• Which keywords bring you leads;
• Which new pages you have launched;
• Which links you have purchased.

And now, an unpleasant insight: your advertising campaigns are already being used by competitors (of course, after minor adaptations)! As harsh as it may look, this is fair play. And both sides need to play it. In this regard, below we will present 17 tools that will help you gather the same useful “dossier” on your competitors.

What is Competitor Website Analysis?

Competitor analysis is the systematic and regular analysis of critical metrics on websites owned by companies/brands in your niche. It covers the following aspects:

• Traffic sources;
• Effective and ineffective keywords;
• Types of content, publication frequency, presentation style, and presence of internal links;
• Page structure and overall UX (ease of navigation, placement of CTAs);
• Page loading speed and other aspects of technical SEO;
• Promotion methods used;
• Commercial elements (forms, UTM tags);
• Weak and currently unoccupied areas.
  

Competitor analysis gives you everything you need to learn from others’ experiences without spending months and thousands of dollars on your own mistakes. At the same time, to avoid making such analysis superficial and to prevent wasting hours browsing competitors’ pages manually, it makes sense to use specialized tools.

Why Do You Need Online Competitor Analysis?

No matter how narrow your business niche is, your website will not be the only one in the search results. But with online competitor analysis, you can understand why some sites are higher in search. Moreover, such analytics will help identify trends, find weak, currently unoccupied areas, and ultimately build a sustainable promotion strategy.

Those who will most quickly appreciate the benefits of online competitor analysis tools are:

1. Preparing to launch a new website: in this case, they will be able to focus on market leaders and, following their experience, properly structure the website and select keywords;
2. Facing a sales decline: competitor analysis will indicate what exactly caused it – perhaps competitors have strengthened their content strategy or increased their link mass;
3. Planning to enter the international market: analytics obtained from competitors in new regions will help quickly understand how to adapt the website for different audiences.

The Best Services for Competitor Analysis

Today, there are many competitor analysis services that help you find out where their visitors come from, which advertising channels they use, and which pages and keywords bring them the highest ROI. So, what are these services?

Competitor Traffic Analysis and Source Breakdown

With traffic analysis, you can find out which advertising channels give the best results, how the audience is distributed, and how visitors behave on competitors’ websites. Our top audit tools for these tasks are:

1. SimilarWeb

SimilarWeb is a popular AI-based competitor site analysis solution that allows you to quickly find out which channels (SEO, PPC, social media, or referrals) bring visitors to your competitor and where they go next. Essentially, SimilarWeb is considered the most visual “traffic radar” that does not require code integration on the site, and here is why:

• It visualizes channel shares and also shows data on geography and engagement;
• The dashboard has industry benchmarks for real-time comparison;
• There is also API access, meaning you can create custom dashboards.

Now, about the drawbacks:

• The tool is hardly a good choice for new sites with low traffic (up to 50,000 visits per month) – in such cases, the analytics will be too approximate and averaged;
• Actual conversion rates can only be determined in the Enterprise plan.

As for the price, a basic report can be generated here completely free of charge, while paid plans start at $199 per month.

2. Serpstat

Serpstat is a universal multilingual SEO platform for competitor analysis that provides a detailed snapshot of Russian and Ukrainian competitor traffic by region and keywords. Here, you can generate a semantic intersection map for 5-10 domains in just a couple of minutes. Moreover:

• Serpstat’s regional CIS database is much more accurate than that of global services;
• Keyword clustering is done with just one click;
• Export APIs for BI systems are also available.

As for the disadvantages, they are as follows:

• The free version has a limit of 10 requests per day;
• PPC data is not as detailed as, for example, in SEMrush.

Serpstat offers a free 7-day trial. Paid plans start at $59 per month for individual users and go up to $479 per month for agencies. Discounts are also available for annual payments.

3. SE Ranking

SE Ranking makes sense to use to determine which specific competitor pages capture the most organic and paid traffic simultaneously. This tool displays the top URL addresses with the percentage of visits and keywords. Additionally, it:

• Generates reports on top pages, determining their positions in search results;
• Can be integrated with Google Ads for cross-checking data;
• Has white-label reports for agencies.

However, SE Ranking will not be the optimal choice if you need:

• Aggregated PPC statistics to assess effectiveness and identify areas for optimization;
• Advanced social analytics.

SE Ranking offers a free trial. Paid plans start at $60 per month, depending on the selected features and data volume.

4. SEMrush (Traffic Analytics)

SEMrush Traffic Analytics is a competitor website analysis solution that actively uses AI. It makes sense to use it if you need to assess a competitor’s funnel (that is, to trace the logical chain of visits -> users -> potential revenue). SEMrush has an Audience Insight block that links traffic with payment data from DSP partners (intermediaries between advertisers and SSPs). Additionally, the following advantages of the tool should be highlighted:

• 55+ modules: SEO, PPC, content, PR – all visually presented in one window;
• Historical depth of up to 4 years;
• Rich learning base and certification.

The disadvantages include:

• Availability of a detailed funnel only in the most expensive plans;
• The deeper the report, the more credits are consumed.

SEMrush has a free trial, and paid plans are available from $139.95 per month, reaching $499.95 per month (depending on the selected functionality).

Competitor Ad Monitoring (PPC Tracking)

If competitors actively use paid advertising, it is important to monitor their ads, placement channels, and creatives. This will help optimize your own campaigns and avoid unnecessary costs.

5. Ads Library (Facebook)

Facebook Ads Library is a public archive of ad data displayed across all Meta platforms (Facebook, Instagram, FB Messenger, and Audience Network). It will show you the creatives competitors use on Facebook/Instagram and provide a complete archive of ads, targeting, and ad launch dates completely free of charge. Moreover:

• This is an official source with 100% accurate data;
• Filters by date, country, and format are available;
• You will be provided with free unlimited access.

At the same time:

• The tool does not provide statistics on impressions, CTR, and budget;
• It only covers the Meta ecosystem, without Google/YouTube.

In general, if you are looking for a free tool available to all platform users, Facebook Ads Library will be an excellent choice.

6. SEMrush (Advertising Toolkit)

SEMrush Advertising Toolkit provides tools for analyzing competitors’ paid advertising, visualizing data on keywords, ads, and Google Ads/Meta budgets. Here you can also model your own PPC funnel – for this, the Advertising Toolkit in SEMrush will combine all this data and insert it into the campaign planner with AI recommendations. In addition, this tool provides:

• Competitors’ ad history over 7 years, along with informational and landing pages;
• Forecasts for CPA, CTR, and budget, all on one dashboard;
• The ability to use keywords in PPC.

On the other hand, SEMrush is not good at:

• Analyzing YouTube Ads and TikTok, as its data on these platforms is incomplete;
• Bulk CSV exports – this will consume too many credits.

SEMrush is available on plans starting at $139.95 per month; a free trial is also available.

7. SpyFu

SpyFu is the ideal choice for analyzing competitors’ paid and organic search activity. It should be used when you need to find out a competitor’s actual Google Ads budget and their keyword history over 10+ years – in this case, you will get a list of all expenditures and all ad variations. In addition, the tool provides access to:

• An archive of ad creatives since 2006;
• Unlimited search and export (for all plans);
• A negative keyword generator that helps “protect” your site from unwanted traffic.

It is also important to know that SpyFu has:

• Only an English interface and support;
• Occasionally inaccurate data due to irregular updates.

SpyFu pricing plans range from $39-79 per month. Discounts are available for annual payments.

Competitor Backlink Analysis

Backlinks remain one of the most important ranking factors. The tools in this section will allow you to study competitors’ backlinks and identify their most valuable referring domains.

8. Ahrefs

Ahrefs is one of the most useful tools for backlink and SEO data analysis. It includes useful tools like Site Explorer (for competitor site analysis), Keyword Explorer (for understanding what customers are searching for), Rank Tracker (for monitoring positions in search engines), Web Explorer (for searching all pages and links indexed by Yep), and Brand Radar (for tracking brand visibility in LLMs). In general, if you need to compile a list of your competitor’s top referring domains in literally an hour and see which ones they are losing – Ahrefs will show the daily dynamics of gains and losses. Additional advantages include:

• The fastest backlink database (updated within 30 minutes);
• A loss graph for quickly “intercepting” referring domains;
• The Content Gap tool for simultaneous link and keyword analysis.

Now about the disadvantages:

• Pricing plans are quite high;
• Full API access is available only for Advanced+ plans.

Ahrefs offers several pricing plans starting at $129 per month.

9. Majestic

Majestic is a specialized backlink analysis tool that will help you assess the quality of a competitor’s backlink profile in a minute – Majestic’s unique Trust Flow and Citation Flow metrics show whether it is worth replicating that referring domain. Like the previous tool, it includes Site Explorer (a solution for comparing your site with competitors), a free backlink checker, and Social Explorer. Additionally, Majestic provides:

• Fast domain quality checks;
• Backlink history generation for up to 10 years;
• Free URL overview for up to 10 stats.

The disadvantages include:

• An outdated interface;
• Lags for a couple of days after updates are released.

Majestic offers three pricing plans: Lite – $49.99/month, Pro – $99.99/month, and API – $399.99/month. A free but time-limited version is also available.

Competitor Keyword and SEO Position Analysis

Knowing which keywords competitors are ranking for opens up extensive opportunities for finding and analyzing new keywords and adjusting your own SEO strategy. Here are the analytical SEO tools you can use.

10. KeywordTool.io (Competitor Keywords)

KeywordTool.io is a solution that will help identify long-tail phrases that are not in classic SEO databases. In particular, this service scrapes Google, YouTube, and Amazon autocomplete suggestions and shows search volume. In addition, it:

• Supports 50+ search engines and marketplaces;
• Exports up to 20,000 keywords at a time;
• Analyzes competitor domain suggestions.

It also has disadvantages:

• Search volume and CPC are shown only on paid plans;
• The tool does not provide SERP history.

KeywordTool.io offers a free version, as well as several pricing plans: Pro Basic – $89/month, Pro Plus – $99/month, and Pro Business – $199/month. Discounts are provided for annual payments.

11. Serpstat (Keyword Research)

Serpstat is a universal SEO platform offering tools for keyword analysis, position tracking, and site auditing. In particular, with it, you can quickly find gaps in a competitor’s semantic core in the CIS market (search volume, CPC, difficulty, word form variations). Serpstat will show all this data and immediately group it into thematic clusters. This tool will be especially valuable for those who need to have on hand:

• A service with a deep Russian and Ukrainian language database;
• A “Keyword-Search Volume-CPC-KD” table ready for one-click export;
• Built-in clustering and API for bulk queries.

As for the disadvantages, here they are:

• Data for the US/Europe is less detailed than with SEMrush and Ahrefs;
• The free limit runs out quickly (only 10 requests per day are available).

Serpstat offers a free trial. Paid plans start at $59 per month for individual users and go up to $479 per month for agencies. Discounts are also available for annual payments.

Competitor Content and Page Analysis

Below are services that analyze which competitor materials generate the most audience response.

12. BuzzSumo

BuzzSumo is an advanced solution that allows you to analyze competitor strategies and, in particular, determine which competitor content is going viral and where it is being reposted. For this, BuzzSumo ranks articles by social engagement and shows a list of reposters. Additionally, it offers:

• 24-hour and 7-day filters to identify fresh trends;
• A search for influencers who shared the article;
• Real-time brand mention alerts.

The disadvantages include:

• Access to full history (one year or more) is only available in the Suite plan;
• Unfriendly pricing policy.

BuzzSumo offers several pricing plans: Content Creation – $199/month, PR & Comms – $299/month, Suite – $499/month, and Enterprise – $999/month. A free trial is also available.

13. Surfer SEO

Surfer SEO is a content optimization tool that provides recommendations for improving texts based on an analysis of top search results. It will create a ready-made technical task for rewriting an article, comparing it with the top 10 SERP results and providing precise recommendations (TF-IDF, length, headings). Additionally, it includes:

• A Content Editor with online SEO density scoring;
• An AI humanizer for rewriting AI-generated texts;
• A site audit for poor-quality content from an SEO perspective.

The disadvantages of this tool are:

• Fully English interface without a Russian TF-IDF dictionary;
• The Essential plan has a limit of 30 articles per month.

Surfer SEO offers several pricing plans: Essential – $99/month, Scale – $219/month, and Enterprise – upon request. Discounts are provided for annual payments.

Comprehensive Competitor Analysis

If you need an overview of all aspects of competitors’ online activities, from website technologies to marketing tools, use the following solutions.

14. BuiltWith

BuiltWith is a useful tool for analyzing the technologies used on competitor websites. It allows you to identify the CMS, CDN, A/B testing tools, frameworks, and analytics tools used – BuiltWith simply scans the domain and outputs the full stack. Its additional advantages are:

• Displays disabled technologies that “did not work out”;
• Market Lists function for exporting all sites on the desired CMS;
• Free tools for targeted checks.

However, there are also disadvantages:

• Prices for bulk exports are high, starting at $295/month;
• The base language of the program is English.

BuiltWith offers several pricing plans: Basic – $295/month, Pro – $495/month, and Enterprise – $995/month. It is also completely free for individual users.

15. Wappalyzer

Wappalyzer is a worthy alternative to the previous tool, helping you instantly find out which CMS, A/B tests, and marketing scripts a competitor’s site is using. The Wappalyzer extension will give you an instant breakdown of the stack and also enable bulk exports via API. Additional advantages include:

• Fast scanning via Chrome plugin;
• A lead list where you can export sites using specific technologies;
• API access for integration into your own CRM and BI systems.

The disadvantages include:

• Metadata deeper than the page level (e.g., about CDN and WAF) is limited;
• Paid plans here are more expensive than BuiltWith (especially for bulk queries).

Wappalyzer offers several pricing plans: Pro – $250/month, Business – $450/month, and Enterprise – $850+/month. Registration provides time-limited free access to functionality. Also, with annual prepayment, you get two months of free tool usage.

Competitor Analysis on Social Media

Tools in this category will help evaluate competitors’ SMM strategies and understand the level of audience engagement.

16. Brandwatch

Brandwatch is an advanced platform for social media monitoring and user behavior analysis. The service allows you to understand how competitors are being talked about on social media and in what tone – for this, Brandwatch will analyze millions of mentions and build a sentiment map. Advantages of this solution include:

• Cross-channel coverage – the tool covers Twitter, TikTok, as well as Reddit and other forums;
• Local segmentation by country and language;
• An influencer marketing module is available.

Regarding the disadvantages:

• The cost is above the market average;
• A steep learning curve for beginners.

Brandwatch pricing is available upon request.

17. Socialinsider

Socialinsider is the last tool on our list, which is used to compare engagement, reach, and content format of your and competitor brands on social media. Socialinsider creates side-by-side reports for Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, X, LinkedIn, and YouTube. In particular, it:

• Generates “your account vs competitor” reports with explanations on which post formats perform best;
• Shows niche benchmarks for ER and CPM;
• Offers an API for auto-loading your own pages and creating custom dashboards.

The disadvantages include:

• No data on ad spend (only organic data is available);
• The starter plan allows analysis of only one social network at a time.

Socialinsider offers a 14-day trial period and pricing plans starting at $99 per month.

How to Choose a Competitor Analysis Tool?

If you are overwhelmed by the variety of tools we shared above, don’t worry. Here is a mini-guide to help you make a quick and, importantly, correct choice.

Step 1. Determine the Scope of Work

Here you need to start by answering a simple question: what exactly do you need to find out about your competitors? For example, if you need to:

• Find out which keywords competitors are ranking for – look for tools that perform semantic and organic keyword analysis;
• Understand where competitors’ traffic comes from – pay attention to solutions that identify traffic sources, as well as its geography and channels;
• See who is linking to competitors’ sites – choose solutions that analyze backlinks and anchors;
• Understand competitors’ structure and content – then you need a tool with meta tag analysis and a sitemap scanner;
• Assess technical condition – here tools for technical audits, load speed assessment, and Core Web Vitals analysis will help;
• Track keyword positions – look for tools that monitor positions and compare competitors’ sites by region.

Step 2. Study the Interface and Check Which Languages It Supports

If it is critical that the selected solution has a Russian-language interface, provides support in Russian, and works with local search engines (for example, Yandex), pay attention to Serpstat, SE Ranking, Facebook Ads Library, and TopVisor.

Step 3. Clarify Which Regions the Selected Solution Covers

A tool may turn out to be useless if it lacks data for your region or industry. To narrow down your search, pay attention to which countries and languages the service is focused on (for example, SEMrush works better with English-language sites), and how much data is collected for Yandex and local domains. It is also important to clarify whether the tool has a database for mobile search results.

Step 4. Compare Pricing Policies and Conditions

Always start with tools that offer freemium access or a free trial period. Also, check if there is functionality for team collaboration and white-label reporting.

How to Use Competitor Audit Programs?

No matter how advanced the analytical tool you use is, it is important to know how to correctly interpret and apply the analytics. Here is an example scenario for a basic competitor audit:

1. Find out where your competitor’s traffic is coming from. To do this, enter the domain in SimilarWeb or SEMrush and find out where the users are coming from (these can be search engines, social media, referral sites, etc.). This way, you will understand which sources the competitor is focusing on.
2. Analyze keywords. Here you can use Ahrefs (open Site Explorer and go to the Organic keywords tab). You will see the top queries, leading pages, search volume, and positions. All this needs to be saved and added to your existing semantic core.
3. Assess structure and content. Open the competitor’s site and scan it through Screaming Frog. This way, you will get a sitemap, H1, H2, and meta tags, and also understand whether there is a blog and what the structure of the landing pages is.
4. Study the backlink profile. Open Ahrefs again (go to Backlinks, and then to the Referring domains tab). Here you will see who is linking to the competitor (which means these resources can also publish your guest posts), as well as which anchors they use and what format they are (do/nofollow).
5. Compare loading speed and overall technical condition. Check the competitor’s URL through Lighthouse or PageSpeed Insights – here it is important to evaluate the Core Web Vitals indicators, the size of HTML/JS/CSS, and responsiveness.

Common Mistakes When Analyzing Competitor Websites

Now, a few words about typical mistakes in the process of analyzing competitor websites. They include the following:

• Mindless copying of others’ strategies. When you simply copy, you have no chance of surpassing the object you are imitating. The goal of analysis is not to repeat but to come up with an improved version of the strategy chosen by the competitor.
• Insufficient segmentation. Competitors can be direct (they are competing for the same audience) and informational (they simply occupy positions in the search results but are not aimed at commercial activity) – this is why it is important to understand exactly who you are competing with and for what.
• Lack of context. Tools show data but do not explain the reasons. For example, if a specific web page with an article has received a large amount of traffic, the reason for this may not be SEO but its promotion through advertising.
• Neglecting mobile traffic data. Today, most users access the internet via smartphones, so ignoring analytics on mobile users is definitely not a good idea.

Frequently Asked Questions About Online Competitor Analysis

Is it possible to analyze competitors for free?

Yes, you can use SimilarWeb (with limited detail), Ahrefs Webmaster Tools (here you have access to data on your site and partial competitor analytics), as well as Google Search Console with browser extensions.

Which competitor analysis tool is best for beginners?

Beginners are better off starting with the Russian-language Serpstat and SE Ranking, as well as Ahrefs if working with an English-speaking audience.

Which competitor analytics metrics should be checked first?

The priority metrics when checking competitor websites are traffic volume, sources and dynamics, organic keywords, external and internal links, top pages with the highest traffic volume, as well as website speed and UX.

SEO

Technical SEO Without Pain? How a Developer Can Work with an SEO Specialist

Read More

25.07.2025

Digital Marketing

How to Fill Out Your LinkedIn Profile to Get Noticed: From A to Z

Read More

18.07.2025

SEO

What Are Low-Frequency Keywords & How to Promote a Website Using LFKs

Read More

24.06.2025