SEO Competitor Analysis: A Step-by-Step Process with a Template (2026)

Quick answer

An SEO competitor analysis compares your site with the pages that actually rank for the searches you want, then turns the differences into a list of things to fix, write or build.

The output is not a report. It is a page-level plan: which of your pages to rewrite, which pages you are missing, and which searches are not worth chasing this year.

Most analyses fail for one reason: they compare the wrong companies. Your business competitors and your search competitors are often different, and the search results decide which list matters.

Step 1: Find your real search competitors

Your sales team’s competitor list is a starting point, not the answer. For any commercial search in Singapore, the top ten usually contains a mix of:

• Direct competitors selling the same thing
• Listicles and directories that rank above everyone
• Marketplaces and platforms
• Publications and review sites
• Occasionally, Google’s own properties

How to build the list properly:

1. Take your 10 most valuable searches.
2. Search each in an incognito window, set to Singapore.
3. Record which domains appear in the top ten for each.
4. Count the domains that appear more than three times. Those are your search competitors.
5. Note which results are listicles rather than businesses, because you compete with them differently.

If a directory or comparison article owns half the top ten, ranking your service page there is hard. Getting listed on those pages, or publishing a better comparison yourself, is often the faster route.

Search Console gives you the same insight for free: look at the queries where you already appear on page two, then check who sits above you.

Step 2: Compare the fundamentals

Build one row per competitor. This is the summary you will refer back to all year.

On Domain Rating and Domain Authority: both are third-party estimates invented by tool vendors, not metrics Google uses. They are useful for a quick sense of scale, and useless as a target. A competitor with lower DR and better pages will still beat you.

Step 3: Find the keyword gaps

This is where most of the value sits.

1. Run a keyword gap report in your tool of choice, comparing your domain against three to five competitors.
2. Filter to searches with commercial intent first: service, pricing, comparison and location terms.
3. Remove branded searches for their brand. You are not going to rank for those, and you should not want to.
4. Sort by whether you have a page that could reasonably rank, rather than by volume.
5. Split the result into three buckets:

• • Pages you have, ranking 8 to 25. Cheapest wins. Rewrite before building anything new.
  • Pages you do not have. New content, commercial pages first.
  • Searches where every ranking page has hundreds of referring domains. Park these until your authority catches up.

Without paid tools, the manual version works: take your Search Console queries where you appear on page two, search each one, and note what the top three pages contain that yours does not. Our guide to finding SEO keywords for free covers the no-budget method, and keyword mapping covers how to assign what you find.

Step 4: Analyse the pages that beat you, one at a time

Aggregate reports tell you where you lose. Reading the actual pages tells you why.

For each of your priority searches, open the top three results and record:

That last row is your opening. If all three top results explain what something is but none says what it costs in Singapore, the cost section is your reason to outrank them.

A word on old tactics: keyword density and TF-IDF comparisons were popular a few years ago. Google’s own guidance says “excessively repeating the same words over and over (even in variations) is tiring for users, and keyword stuffing is against Google’s spam policies.” Match intent and cover the subject properly instead of matching word frequency.

Step 5: Compare technical health

You only need to know whether a technical gap explains the ranking gap.

• Mobile speed: run your page and theirs through PageSpeed Insights. A large gap matters, a small one rarely does.
• Indexation: is their whole category indexed while half of yours is not?
• Site structure: how many clicks from the homepage to the page that ranks?
• Internal links: do they link to that page from their navigation or hub pages?
• Structured data: what markup do their ranking pages carry?
• Rendering: view source on their page and yours. If your content only appears after JavaScript runs, AI search engines may not read it at all.

Our technical SEO explainer covers what to do with what you find.

Step 6: Compare authority, not just link counts

Pull referring domains for the specific ranking page, not just the domain.

• How many different sites link to that page?
• What kind of sites are they: industry bodies, publications, partners, directories?
• Which of those would plausibly link to you too?
• Are there links you could realistically earn this quarter?

The practical output is a target list of 10 to 20 sites, not a number. Our guide to what makes a good backlink covers how to judge each one before you pursue it.

Step 7: Check who wins the AI answers

New since 2025, and most competitor analyses still skip it.

1. Ask ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity the same commercial questions your customers ask.
2. Record which sites get cited.
3. Note whether the cited pages are the same ones ranking in Google, because often they are not.
4. Check Google’s AI Overviews for your priority searches and see whose content is summarised.

If a competitor is cited in AI answers but ranks below you in Google, look at how their page is structured: specific facts, clear headings, direct answers near the top. Our AI search readiness audit covers the full checklist.

The one-page competitor profile

Keep one of these per competitor. Update it quarterly. It should fit on a single screen.

The second-last row is the point of the exercise. “They have more links” is not a weakness you can act on this month. “Their pricing page has no prices” is.

Turning the analysis into a plan

Sort everything you found into four actions, in this order:

1. Rewrite the pages you already have that sit in positions 8 to 25. Fastest return.
2. Consolidate pages of yours competing for the same search. This alone recovers rankings on older sites.
3. Build the commercial pages you are missing, before the informational ones.
4. Earn the specific links you identified in step 6.

Assign each item an owner and a month. An analysis that ends in a spreadsheet nobody actions is a cost, not an investment.

How often to run it

Common mistakes

• Comparing against the companies your CEO names rather than the pages that rank
• Treating DR or DA as a goal
• Copying a competitor’s content structure without checking whether their page actually performs
• Ignoring listicles and directories that occupy the top ten
• Producing a 40-slide report with no page-level actions
• Running the analysis once and never revisiting it
• Chasing high-volume searches where every ranking page has hundreds of referring domains

Frequently asked questions

What is SEO competitor analysis?

A structured comparison between your site and the pages ranking for your target searches, covering keywords, content, technical health, authority and AI visibility, used to produce a prioritised action plan.

What should an SEO competitor profile include?

The competitor’s type, the searches where they outrank you, their strongest page formats, referring domains to those pages, publishing cadence, their clearest weakness, and what you intend to do about it.

How do I find my SEO competitors?

Search your top ten commercial keywords in an incognito window set to Singapore and record which domains appear repeatedly. Those are your search competitors, even if they are not your business competitors.

Which tools do I need?

Search Console and a manual SERP review are enough to start. Ahrefs or Semrush save time on keyword gap and backlink comparisons. The tool matters less than acting on what you find.

Is Domain Authority a good benchmark?

No. It is a third-party estimate that Google does not use. Compare referring domains to the specific ranking page and judge their quality instead.

How long does a proper analysis take?

Half a day for a focused analysis on ten searches and three competitors. Two to three days for a full category review with a content plan.

How is this different from a keyword research exercise?

Keyword research tells you what people search. Competitor analysis tells you what it will take to rank for it, and whether that is realistic this year.

Should I copy what the top-ranking page does?

Match the intent and format, then beat it on specifics. Copying structure without adding anything gives Google no reason to prefer your page.

Turning competitor gaps into rankings

MediaPlus Digital runs competitor analysis as the first step of every SEO engagement, because it decides where the budget goes. Thirteen years in the Singapore market, a team of 60 and more than 1,800 projects delivered.

See our SEO services in Singapore, or start with the complete SEO audit checklist to see where your own site stands first.