In the online world, you're not alone. You can't expect to do everything right and win. Rather, you have to do everything better than everyone else to be in the lead.
To know what everyone else is doing, you must determine how much traffic they get, where they get it from, which strategies they use, and how often they use them. This, in a nutshell, is competitor traffic analytics.
Analyzing your competitors' traffic shows you the prime sources for audience attraction, along with the content that does best among your target audience. Similarly, you can learn from their mistakes, compare them with your own strategies, and improve yourself.
In this respect, competitor traffic analysis fits right within your data-driven marketing strategy. With over 70% of marketers always using data to guide decisions, it's imperative that you follow suit. It will pay off in the long run with a higher audience share, more revenue, better brand recognition, increased conversions, and more.
Let's help you get to all these outcomes with the right strategies and tools.
- Quick-Start Guide: Core Steps in Competitor Traffic Analysis
- Multi-Channel Strategy: Capture Competitors' Best Traffic Sources
- Competitor Content Breakdown: Create Content That Steals Their Audience
- Building a Long-Term Strategy: Using Competitor Trends to Drive Future Growth
- Turning Insights Into Action: Crafting a Data-Driven SEO and Content Strategy
- Competitor Analysis to Steal the Show (and the Traffic)
- Frequently Asked Questions
Quick-Start Guide: Core Steps in Competitor Traffic Analysis
Let's kick things off with the basics. Competitor traffic analysis can sound like a lot, but at its core, it's about understanding how your rivals are pulling in visitors and turning them into loyal customers.
It's sort of like building a playbook. These core steps will show you where competitors are winning traffic and how you can take a slice of the action for yourself. Here's the overview before we explain individual strategies.
Identify Your Real Competition
First, you have to determine who you're actually competing with for traffic. Yes, you've got the obvious ones, but some of the most valuable insights come from niche players or those targeting similar customer pain points. Look beyond the big names to discover companies quietly dominating specific areas you may be missing.
Let's say you're just starting to get into a new market. In that case, the Semrush Market Explorer tool is your ally. It shows your competitors by how established or niche they are. The tool categorizes competitors by four factors: game-changers, leaders, established players, and niche players. You can then dig into each group to see how they drive traffic and where they're succeeding.
Semrush market explorer tool
It also helps to look at your competitors' audience because they'll often have similar audiences to yours. In the Market Explorer tool, go to the Audience tab. Here, you'll see the following about their audience:
- Demographics: Their age and sex.
- Socioeconomics: Their household income, education level, household size, and employment status.
- Behavior: Their interests and social media usage.
Market audience summary
You can see the percentage of each of these factors to get an idea of the type of content and marketing language or material that appeals to their audience. Similarly, the social media usage section shows you where their audience is most active.
Audience social media usage
When crafting your own social media strategy, these insights will be invaluable as you share your audience with them. Based on this information, you can focus on platforms with high consumer activity or get further insights from your competitors' social media content.
Analyze Competitors' Traffic Sources
Where are competitors getting their visitors? Are they focusing on organic search, pouring money into ads, or getting shared all over social media?
For you, this means seeing where they're doubling down and where there's potential for you to make waves. Maybe they're ignoring a key channel where your audience is waiting. These insights open up untapped traffic sources for your brand.
The Semrush Traffic Analytics tool can be of help here. With the competitors that you found in the Market Explorer tool, you can create a list in this one and then analyze them in detail. The tool shows you the trend in unique visits and purchase conversions on your competitors' websites.
Semrush traffic analytics
You can also see the top sources of traffic for your competitors, including Google, direct, referral, paid search, organic social, paid social, email, and display ads. Suppose they're getting most of their traffic from paid social. This may indicate that paid ads on social media are effective for their audience and could be worth exploring for your brand, too.
Semrush traffic channels
Focus on Geography and Device Preferences
Knowing where your competitors' traffic comes from geographically and on which devices adds another layer to your strategy. For example, they're seeing success with mobile traffic in certain regions, it's a hint that you should tailor campaigns to match that behavior. Your audience is likely highly active on mobile phones and tends to make purchases on the go.
The Traffic Analytics tool has a Geo Distribution section, where you can see your competitors' site visits and traffic by countries, business regions, and geographical regions. From here, you get an idea of where your competitors' target audience is located so that you can focus on the same areas to capture their traffic.
Traffic geodistribution
To get the full view of each metric, click on "view full report," and it will take you to Semrush's One2Target tool, where you can see in-depth data. While some sections, such as Socioeconomics, show data for all devices (since there's no distinction based on device), others, like Behavior, divide the percentage of visitors by desktop and mobile.
Semrush One2Target
Suppose you see that the majority of your competitor's traffic is from mobile. This means you should also amp up your mobile advertising efforts and optimize your site for utmost mobile-friendliness.
Monitor Traffic Trends Over Time
For every business, some seasons are more favorable than others. For example, eCommerce businesses see a lot of traffic and conversions during the holiday season, while SaaS businesses see more traffic during the end of the financial year.
Look at your competitors' traffic trends throughout the year to see when you should schedule your main campaigns. The tools we've mentioned above can help you find this information, too.
For example, the Traffic Analytics tool allows you to filter traffic trends by day, week, month, and quarter. So, you can go as deep or as broad as you like to get a clear picture of your competitors' traffic patterns.
Traffic analytics filters
Also, you can track back to up to a year or since the start of your competitor's website to see how traffic has changed over time. Set the filters according to the time you want to monitor and notice how traffic influx, unique visits, and purchase conversions have changed. If you see a spike, this could be a sign that running your sale or promotion during this time could be successful.
Multi-Channel Strategy: Capture Competitors' Best Traffic Sources
As we've touched on earlier, websites don't only get direct traffic. Most of your competitors likely have multiple traffic sources, such as paid search ads, social media campaigns, email marketing, and more. So, you need to look beyond organic traffic to make a true comparison.
The four main traffic channels are:
- Organic
- Paid
- Social
- Referral
While organic traffic is important, your competitors' paid ads could be driving a significant amount of traffic and conversions. The same is true for referrals, especially if they have a strong network and partnerships. Here's how you can monitor all these traffic sources and use them to your advantage.
Boost Organic Visibility
Having a solid SEO strategy is a no-brainer. But why not take it a step further and see how your competitors are performing in terms of SEO? You can learn a lot from them.
For example, analyzing the keywords they're using in their content can give you an idea of high-potential terms you may have missed. The Semrush Keyword Gap tool helps you find keywords you're not ranking for, but your competitors are. From here, you can come up with a plan to create content around those keywords and outperform currently ranking rivals.
Semrush also shows you the intent for every keyword you're missing out on. This way, you can include them in existing clusters if they fit the intent.
Semrush keyword gap analysis
Besides missing keywords, you can also see Weak keywords in this tool. These are the terms your domain ranks lower for than your competitors, even if you have the same domain authority. You might just be missing one feature or a more specific long-tail keyword that they're using to rank higher.
Semrush keyword gap
Identify these gaps and fill them with quality content so that you can be at par with your competitors in organic search. If your rival websites are already highly established, you can filter the keywords by low difficulty and focus on those terms first, building your authority along the way.
Target Competitors' Paid Traffic
As important as organic efforts are, they can sometimes fall short, especially in newer or highly competitive industries. Paid traffic can give you the boost you need to get ahead of your competitors.
But before you can do that, it's helpful to see which paid channels your competition is using. Are they focusing on Google Ads or social media ads? Maybe they're using a blend of both. If a certain channel has worked out well for your competitors, that's a sign it would likely be a good investment for you due to the similarities in your audience's preferences.
To find this information, go to the Semrush Advertising Competitors tool. Here, you can see which websites compete with yours for Google Ads campaigns for paid keyword rankings. The first thing the tool shows you is an overview of the keywords they rank for, the traffic they get for those keywords, and the cost of that traffic.
Semrush advertising competitors
Since you're likely interested in the keywords, scroll to the bottom. Here, you'll find the number of paid keywords on their website. What you want to check is the SE Keywords column. These are the keywords your competitors appear for in the top paid search results.
Click on the keyword number, and you'll be directed to a list of all the keywords your competitor is bidding on. You can also see the intent, position, traffic, and volume for each keyword. Use this data to identify high-performing keywords that you can use in your own paid campaigns. Again, you can target paid keywords by difficulty if you're competing with a giant like Amazon.
Semrush competitor research
If you need some insights into which keywords to use in your ad copies or how to structure them, go to the Ads Copies tab. You'll see all ad copies your competitor is using or has used. To find specific ones, type the product title in the search bar, and you'll see all the ad copies related to that product.
Semrush ad copies
Every ad copy also has a list of keywords that trigger it. You can expand this section to get more information about these terms, such as their volume, competition, trend, and CPC. All these details further assist you in choosing the right keywords not just by relevance but also by budget-friendliness and competitiveness.
Semrush ad keywords
Optimize for Social Traffic
Social media platforms are a big traffic source for websites, particularly in industries where the target consumer is very active on social media. If you're unsure which social media channels to focus on, take a look at your competitor's presence.
First off, see which platforms they use. We've already discussed earlier how you can use Semrush One2Target to find the social media usage patterns of your competitors' audiences. You can also see the age groups and genders they cater to, which further helps you determine the right platforms to target based on industry research about different demographics on each social media site.
The Market Explorer tool also gives more information about your competitors' social media strategy. In the Benchmarking tab, filter the results by Organic Social. The graph will show you the trends for how much traffic your competitors get from social media.
Semrush organic social traffic
Compare these numbers to your own. Are they getting more or less traffic from social media? If they're doing much better, go through their top-performing posts to identify what's working for them. Also, look at the types of content they post. Experiment with a similar content approach and see if you notice better results.
The Semrush Social Tracker is also helpful here. Add the competitors you want to analyze and start tracking them. Go to the Overview tab to choose the platforms where you wish to monitor them.
Semrush social tracker
The Engagement tab will then show you the relevant metrics for their social media accounts, such as comments, shares, reactions, likes, etc. This tells you how their audience is responding to their content.
Semrush engagement tab
Also, go through their post frequency and engagement patterns to see if they have a consistent posting schedule or if they only post sporadically. Use this as a benchmark for your own social media posting habits.
You can make this easier by going to the specific tab for the social media platform of your choice in Social Tracker. Let's say it's X. You can filter posts by type, such as status, link, photos, and videos. See which format is bringing the most engagement and replicate it in your own posts.
Semrush Social Tracker
If you want a deeper view into what exactly people are saying about you and your competitors, use the Media Monitoring app. The Mentions tab of this tool shows you the actual comments and reviews people are leaving about your brand and your competition.
Semrush media monitoring
In the Analysis tab, you can see how your mentions compare to those of your competitors. It shows you the total number of mentions along with the number of positives and negatives. If you notice a high negative sentiment for your rival and see what people are complaining about in the Mentions tab, you can use this as an opportunity to present your brand as an alternative — a solution to their problems.
Semrush media monitoring
Build Referral Partnerships
Let's say both you and a competitor post stellar content and tons of traffic. However, the Semrush Traffic Analytics tool showed you that they get a ton more referral traffic than you do. Since your content is similar, it's likely that the websites referring to them would also be interested in your content.
However, for that, you need to find out who they are and then build partnerships with them. The SemrushBacklink Gap tool is handy in this regard.
Semrush backlink gap tool
It shows you the websites linking to one of your competitors but not to you. You can reach out to these websites and offer them valuable content in exchange for backlinks.
Semrush backlink gap analysis
Semrush ranks referring websites based on their Authority Score and monthly visits. You can use this information to prioritize your efforts and start building relationships with high-authority websites that can drive more referral traffic to your site.
This not only increases traffic influx but also improves your domain's authority since Google sees backlinks from high-authority websites as a thumbs-up for your content.
Competitor Content Breakdown: Create Content That Steals Their Audience
Competitor website checkers can show you how your competitors are getting their traffic and how much of it they receive. However, the reason behind this traffic is their content.
So, take a closer look at the type of content your competitor creates and how it is performing. Then, you can attempt to create similar content that outranks theirs or speaks from a different angle on the same topic.
First of all, find the top pages on your competitor's site that are driving the most traffic. The Top Pages tab in Semrush Traffic Analytics provides this information. Here, you'll see which of their pages are trending up and which have spiked recently.
Semrush top pages
Click the ''view more'' button to see more metrics about each page, such as their traffic share, one-year traffic trend, unique page views, traffic channels (organic, direct, referral, paid social media, paid search, email, etc), and unique visitors.
Semrush traffic analytics
If you want to analyze a certain page, you can type the specific topic in the search box. For example, Flavor Fix, a cannabis brand, used the Semrush Keyword Gap tool to find terms they could target for higher exposure. Based on this information, they identified which weed strains were popular among their customers.
Keyword gap analysis
With this knowledge, they could then create strain-specific pages and offer information that their competitors weren’t. Specifically, they noticed none of their competitors provided insights on how each strain pairs with certain foods, music, or drinks, so they added this information. As a result, they were able to outrank their competitors who had been on the top of the SERPs for years.
Here are some other ways to do better than your competitors in the content department.
Find Content Gaps
Sure, you can follow the same content trajectory as your competitors to replicate their success. However, you may want to find new and untapped opportunities that your competitors haven't capitalized on yet and can help you differentiate yourself from them.
We've already shared how the Semrush Keyword Gap tool finds the keywords your competitors haven't yet targeted or ones you rank lower for than they do. You can further expand on these keywords to create a content strategy.
Use the Semrush Keyword Magic Tool for this. Let's say one of the keywords you feel would be great for your site is ''gaming PC.'' Put this term in the Semrush keyword tool to get a detailed analysis.
Semrush keyword magic tool
First, the tool shows you all keywords related to this one, along with their content and volume. These keywords' rankings on the SERPs are mentioned alongside them.
If you enter your domain, the tool will also show you a Personal Keyword Difficulty percentage, which is the difficulty of ranking for that keyword specifically for your website. You can use this information to find easy-to-rank-for keywords to target in your content.
Since Google search generative experience is commonly used by people, you also need to include questions in your content. Select the Questions filter in the Keyword Magic Tool, and you'll get a list of questions people search for related to this keyword. Use these in your content to make it more voice search and generative engine search-centric.
Semrush keyword magic tool
If you want to find the exact content your competitors have published about a topic, use the Topic Research tool. Enter the topic you want to analyze and then type the domain on which you want to find this content. This would be your competitor's domain.
Semrush topic research
You will see cards showing every topic your competitor has written on, along with its search volume and keyword usage. Click on ''show more'' to see the headlines and questions that are frequently used related to the topic.
Semrush topic research
You can then click on the three dots next to each topic and select ''Create SEO Template'' to generate a content template for that specific topic. Semrush takes the data from the top SERPs to create this outline. So, your resulting content will be intent-specific and well-optimized.
Semrush SEO template
Alternatively, you can go to the competitor's web pages for each content and scan it manually.
Optimize Around Competitors' Best Keywords
When it comes to digital marketing competitor analysis, capitalizing on keywords that have already proved to be successful for your competitors is a smart move. It sort of acts like a case study in keyword selection. You now have to find these keywords and then use them in your content to share your competitor's fate.
Semrush Organic Research can help you find these keywords. The Top Keywords section shows you the terms for which your competitor ranks the highest. You can also see how much SERP traffic they get and the search volume for each keyword.
Semrush organic research
In the Pages tab, you can further see which pages on their website rank highest for specific keywords. Under the Keywords column, click on the number of keywords, and Semrush will take you to a page showing all of the keywords for which the page ranks. This is the goldmine for your content strategy.
Semrus top pages
Target these keywords in your content, especially focusing on the ones you have a low Personal Keyword Difficulty %. If you're dealing with well-established competitors, target low-difficulty keywords to help gain a foothold in the market.
Semrush keyword data
Building a Long-Term Strategy: Using Competitor Trends to Drive Future Growth
Thanks to competitor analysis tools, you can build a long-term strategy based on insights from your competitors. The data doesn't have to be a one-time snapshot. Instead, it can be an ongoing process that informs your decision-making. Since Semrush's data updates regularly, you're getting new information every time you refresh the report.
But how exactly can you use these insights? Let's share a few ways.
Monitoring Traffic Trends for Strategic Advantage
Your competitors may be using millions of keywords in their content. You don't have to focus on all of them because that would be inefficient and costly. What you should monitor are the keywords that seem to be driving the most traffic to their website and that you've also been targeting in your own content.
Use the Semrush Position Tracking tool to keep an eye on the traffic change for these keywords. It will show you how these keywords are ranking in SERPs and their estimated traffic and visibility.
The tool also displays the difference in keyword popularity. You can see if traffic has increased or decreased over time. For each page, Semrush shows you the estimated traffic and the corresponding difference.
Semrush position tracking
This data gives you an insight into how your competitors' pages are performing at different times of the year. Maybe there's a seasonal trend that you can capitalize on. Similarly, this gives you a glimpse into audience behavior. For example, you may notice that short-tail keywords are losing traffic. This could indicate a shift in audience search behavior towards more specific, long-tail keywords. Armed with this knowledge, you can adjust your keyword usage.
Identifying and Adapting to Market Changes
Competitor analysis can also enhance your market intelligence strategy. If you keep a close eye on your competitors, you can identify market trends before they start affecting you. The short-to-long-tail keyword transition example above is one such instance.
Semrush Trends is a helpful tool that provides you with real-time market and competitive insights. You can create a project for your competitor's website and then get up-to-date intel on their traffic, keywords, and so on.
Semrush trends
For example, the traffic page in the tool shows you their most-visited pages and top products. This information tells you which product categories your audience is showing more interest in at the moment. If you sell the same product, you can then amp up its advertising and marketing efforts. Or if you don't offer that item, you can expand your product line to include it.
The Semrush EyeOn tool can also complement these efforts. It lets you track your competitors' every move, whether it's a shift in their promotional efforts or new content creation.
Semrush EyeOn
You can also see activity trends on their website and then base your campaign on noticeable shifts. Since all these insights land right into your inbox, you can stay on top of things without having to constantly monitor your competitors' activities.
Refining Your Strategy Based on Long-Term Insights
All the tools we've mentioned so far can help you refine your marketing strategies for the long run. You simply have to monitor each move your competitors make and tweak your campaign accordingly.
You can further find more strategic points for improvement by identifying the extent to which your competitor's audience is similar to yours. This helps you decide which of your competitors you should be monitoring more closely. The Audience Overlap tab inOne2Target assists in this step.
It shows you how much of your audience is similar to all the competitors you have analyzed. You can see the total audience, potential audience, and overlap. Use this information to see which competitors are the most relevant to your business and then take inspiration from their strategies.
Semrush audience overlap
You can also improve your local SEO efforts with competitor analysis. The Keyword Overview tool lets you select a location for keyword research. For example, Pastreez, a family run bakery used the tool to search for the keyword "Macaroons Near Me" and find who currently ranks in the top spot for this term in the US, particularly California.
The tool showed them the top keywords and related questions. At the bottom, it displayed the top 100 ranking pages. All the top-ranking domains were their competitors in the local SERPs.
Competitors in Semrush
They could then analyze these particular competitors' web content and keyword positions to learn more from their strategies. Plus, they ran their domain through Organic Research to find the other keywords they rank for so that they could take a thematic, cluster-based approach rather than focusing on solo queries.
The result? They ranked on #1 for the keyword.
Organic Research
Turning Insights Into Action: Crafting a Data-Driven SEO and Content Strategy
The data you've collected from competitor and trend analysis tools can be used as the basis for your content and SEO strategies. Here's how.
Developing a Targeted Content Plan
Create a repository of the keywords you've identified in competitor keyword analysis. This is now the precursor to your content plan. Input this keyword list in the Semrush Keyword Strategy Builder to create a content strategy based on intent-based clusters.
The tool categorizes all keywords into topic clusters with a pillar page for each one, along with supporting sub-pages. You can then create content for each of these clusters to target specific user intent and build website authority.
Keyword strategy builder
If you need help optimizing the content you write, use the Semrush SEO Writing Assistant. It points out SEO, image, linking, and readability issues in your content so that you can fix them as you're writing. The tool also provides keyword suggestions to further optimize your article.
SEO writing assistant
Building Domain Authority Through Backlinking
You already know how important backlinks are for SEO. The more you have, the higher domain authority you can build. However, you need to first identify the right websites to target for backlinks.
We've previously explained how the Semrush Backlink Gap tool shows you the backlinks you're missing out on that your competitors have already secured. These are high-authority websites that are linking to your competitors but not to you.
Once you have a list of potential backlink opportunities, you can reach out to them and pitch your content for a link. Then, use the Semrush Backlink Analytics tool to see how your backlink profile has improved over time.
Semrush backlink analytics
You can also see the anchor types that bring you the most backlinks and then create more of them in your future articles. Semrush shows you the top 100 anchors that you can then base your next anchors on.
Semrush backlink anchors
For more help, use the Semrush Link Building Tool. It helps you explore backlink sources and add them to your backlink opportunities for future progress. You can also see detailed information about each website, such as their contact information and social web info.
Semrush link building
Then, use the outreach module within the tool to send personalized messages to these website owners. All backlinks that you acquire can be then tracked in real-time. If they disappear or go inactive, you can contact the site owners immediately to resolve the issue.
Adopting Competitors' Top Conversion Tactics
The tools we've highlighted so far can help you identify the conversion tactics your competitors are using to get the amount of traffic that they have. Use this information to refine your own strategies by incorporating certain keywords in your content, using paid channels, focusing on social media, tapping into certain regions, improving local SEO, leveraging backlink opportunities, and more.
Basically, what you're doing is learning from your competitors' successes and adapting their tactics to fit your own strategy. The Domain Analytics tool will keep you on top of most of these metrics.
For example, it shows you the SERP features your competitors rank for, including Google's AI Overviews. If you notice here that a competitor is appearing high in featured snippets, it's likely they're using this as a tactic to boost conversions. You can then follow suit.
Semrush SERP features
Similarly, in the Keyword by Intent section, you may see that they're ranking high for commercial keywords. This means they're targeting users who are interested in buying a product or service. You can then do the same rather than spending too much time and effort on navigational or informational keywords.
Keywords by intent
Here, you can also see their top paid keywords. If they seem to be getting a lot of traffic from paid channels, give this approach a try. Get inspiration from their keywords and ad copies to create your own paid strategies.
Semrush top paid keywords
The bottom line is that you can pretty much learn all of your competitors' conversion tactics through Semrush's suite. Such detailed data makes it easy to then translate the information into actionable steps.
Competitor Analysis to Steal the Show (and the Traffic)
Competitor traffic analysis isn't just a "nice-to-have"—it's one of the smartest moves you can make to get an edge. When you dig into your competitors' successful strategies, you're basically unlocking a roadmap to win over their audience. Whether it's nailing down high-traffic keywords, spotting content gaps, getting content inspiration, finding backlink opportunities, or figuring out where to focus your marketing efforts, you're gathering insights that turn into real growth.
With competitor analysis tools, you can keep tabs on their traffic, learn from their wins (and losses), and adjust your game plan. On top of that, use behavioral analytics software tools to learn more about your audience so that you can tailor all your marketing strategies to them.
The best part of competitor analysis is that you can get regular updates as your competitors change their marketing tactics. So you can proactively react to any changes and adopt them quickly. Tools like Semrush also let you set email alerts when your competitor's traffic or market share changes. So, you're always a step ahead.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is competitor traffic analysis, and why is it valuable?
Competitor traffic analysis is basically checking out how much website traffic your competitors get, where it's coming from, and which keywords or content are driving it. It gives you a peek into what's working for them so you can adapt those strategies to boost your own traffic. You can even spot gaps they're missing and capitalize on those opportunities. In short, it's how you stay competitive without reinventing the wheel.
What tools can I use for competitor traffic analysis?
Semrush is one of the go-to tools for competitor traffic analysis. You can use its Traffic Analytics to see your competitor's traffic volume, sources, and top-performing pages. Meanwhile, the Keyword Gap tool lets you compare your keywords with those of your competitors and find new keyword opportunities. Some other helpful tools are One2Target, EyeOn, Organic Research, and Domain Analytics.
How can I find out what keywords my competitors rank for?
You'll see a competitor keyword analysis tool to find out which keywords your competitors rank for. Semrush's Domain Analytics tool shows you a competitor's top organic and paid keywords, along with their position distribution and keyword trends over time. You can also use the Keyword Gap tool to find keywords your rivals rank for, but you don't.
Can I see where my competitor's traffic is coming from?
The Semrush Traffic Analytics tool helps you see where your competitors get their traffic from, whether it's direct or from social, organic, referral, and paid social channels. You can also see how much traffic they get from each source. The tool further shows you the top pages that get the most traffic and the source distribution for each of them.
How do I perform a backlink analysis on my competitors?
You can use the Semrush Backlink Analytics tool to find your competitors' backlinks. Simply enter your competitor's domain, and it'll show you all their backlinks, where they're coming from, the quality, and how strong they are. You can also see the types of sites linking to them (e.g., blogs, news outlets) and analyze their anchor text. If you want to compare their backlinks to your own, use the Backlink Gap tool. It will show you the domains that refer to your competitors but not you, along with the ones you share with them.
What are some free tools for competitor traffic analysis?
Most competitor analysis tools are paid, but you can get some insights from free options. For example, Ubersuggest offers a free version that lets you check out competitors' top keywords and traffic estimates. You can also conduct basic keyword analysis for free using Semrush's Keyword Magic Tool. SimilarWeb also has a free trial to monitor your competitors' SEO, PPC, and advertising strategies. However, these free tools often have limited features and data compared to paid options.
Is it ethical to analyze competitor traffic data?
It's generally considered ethical to analyze competitor traffic data as long as you're using publicly available tools and information. Tools like Semrush and SimilarWeb are designed for competitive analysis, and gathering insights this way is part of normal market research. However, you should avoid scraping data from competitor websites or engaging in tactics like hacking or misusing confidential info. As long as you're respecting privacy and legal boundaries, competitor analysis is just a smart business strategy.
How can I steal traffic from my competitors?
Stealing traffic from your competitors isn't about being sneaky but about outsmarting them with better strategies. For example, use competitor keyword analysis to find gaps where they're not ranking well or missing key terms. Then, create high-quality content that targets those keywords. Aim to offer more value, like in-depth guides or better visuals. You can also focus on building better backlinks by reaching out to sites linking to your competitors.
Can competitor analysis help with social media traffic?
A competitor analysis tool like Semrush can also provide social media insights, such as the platforms your competitors are using and the number of shares and engagement on their posts. You can also see which of their posts are performing the best and replicate those formats on your social media platforms.
How often should I conduct competitor traffic analysis?
You don't need to do competitor traffic analysis every day, but it's a good idea to check in at least once a month. If you're launching a new campaign or product, a quick competitor check before that can help you adjust your approach. Similarly, if things are really competitive in your niche, you may check competitor data and strategies more often, but for most businesses, monthly is a sweet spot to stay informed without overdoing it.
