How to Run a Competitor Analysis for Your Business
To run a competitor analysis, identify your main competitors, then research their products, pricing, positioning, marketing and online presence to see where they’re strong and where there are gaps. Organise what you find using a framework like SWOT, then use it to differentiate your business, improve your strategy and win more customers.
A good competitor analysis isn’t about copying your rivals. It’s about understanding your market well enough to find your own edge. Done properly, it sharpens your positioning, reveals opportunities others have missed, and stops you being blindsided by a competitor’s move. Done badly, it’s a folder of notes nobody acts on. This guide walks through how to run one that actually changes what you do.
Key takeaways
- Competitor analysis informs strategy; it’s not about copying rivals.
- Cover direct, indirect and search competitors, not just the obvious ones.
- Analyse marketing and SEO for the clearest, most actionable gaps.
- Organise with SWOT, and be specific, not generic.
- Act on the gaps: differentiate and choose where to compete.
- Keep it ongoing, and keep your customers at the centre.
What is a competitor analysis?
A competitor analysis is the process of researching your competitors to understand their strengths, weaknesses, strategy and positioning, and comparing them with your own business.
The goal is to see where you stand in the market and find ways to differentiate and win, rather than simply to copy what other businesses are doing.
Sometimes called a competitive analysis, it sits at the heart of good strategy. By looking honestly at what rivals do well and badly, who they target, how they market themselves and where they’re vulnerable, you build a realistic picture of your market. That picture is what lets you make confident decisions about positioning, pricing, marketing and where to compete, instead of relying on guesswork.
Why is competitor analysis important?
Competitor analysis helps businesses understand market trends, identify strengths and weaknesses, discover opportunities, and improve strategies to stay ahead of the competition.
Competitor analysis matters because, without it, you’re guessing. It reveals gaps and opportunities competitors have missed, helps you position and differentiate your business, benchmarks your performance against rivals, and warns you of threats before they hit. It turns hunches about your market into informed, confident decisions about strategy and marketing.
Most businesses operate with only a vague sense of their competition. That’s risky: you can’t out-position a rival you don’t understand, and you can’t seize a gap you haven’t spotted. A clear analysis shows you exactly where competitors are strong (so you don’t waste effort there), where they’re weak (so you can exploit it), and what they’re not doing at all (your opportunity). It’s the difference between competing on instinct and competing on insight.
How do you run a competitor analysis?
Run a competitor analysis by identifying competitors, researching their products, pricing, marketing, strengths, and weaknesses, then comparing the findings to uncover opportunities and improve your strategy.
Run a competitor analysis in a clear sequence: identify your competitors, decide what to analyse, gather the data, study their marketing and SEO, organise it all with a framework like SWOT, find the gaps, and turn your findings into action. Then keep it going, because your market doesn’t stand still.
Work through these steps in order:
- Identify your competitors.
- Decide what to analyse.
- Gather the data.
- Analyse their marketing and SEO.
- Organise it with SWOT.
- Find the gaps and opportunities.
- Turn findings into action.
- Make it ongoing.
1. Identify your competitors
Identify your competitors, starting with three types: direct competitors offering the same thing to the same audience, indirect competitors solving the same problem differently, and replacement competitors your customers see as an alternative. Find them by searching Google for your key terms, checking review sites, and asking customers who else they considered.
Don’t rely only on the rivals you already know. The businesses ranking above you in Google for your most important searches, your search competitors, are often not the ones you’d name first, yet they’re the ones winning the customers. Asking your own customers who else they looked at is one of the most revealing, and most overlooked, ways to map your true competition. Keep the list focused: a handful of real competitors beats a sprawling map you’ll never use.
2. Decide what to analyse
Decide what to analyse before you start, so you compare like with like. Typically that means their products and pricing, positioning and unique selling point, target audience, marketing channels and content, SEO and online visibility, social media, and reviews and reputation. Pick the dimensions that matter most for your business and your goals.
Trying to analyse everything about everyone is how competitor analysis stalls. Choose the factors that genuinely affect whether a customer picks you or a rival, then assess each competitor on the same points so the comparison is fair. For most small and local businesses, the highest-value areas are positioning, online visibility, reviews and customer experience, the things that decide who gets found and chosen.
3. Gather the data
Gather your data from where competitors show themselves. Study their website, social media, reviews and email newsletters, and use tools to go deeper: SimilarWeb for traffic estimates, Semrush or Ahrefs for SEO and keywords (both have free tiers), and Google Trends for demand. Your own customers are often the richest source of all.
Much of what you need is hiding in plain sight. Sign up to a competitor’s newsletter, read their reviews on Google and the relevant directories, and spend real time on their website nailing down their core offer and how they talk about it. The free tiers of the major SEO tools are enough to see roughly how much traffic a rival gets and which terms they rank for. The aim is evidence, not impressions.
4. Analyse their marketing and SEO
Analyse their marketing and SEO closely, since that’s where you’ll find the clearest gaps. Look at the keywords they rank for and the ones they don’t (your opportunity), the content and backlinks behind their rankings, and how they use social and email. Remember that your competitors in search results may differ from your business rivals.
This is the most actionable part for most businesses. A keyword gap analysis shows the searches a rival ranks for that you don’t, a content gap shows the topics they cover that you haven’t, and a backlink check shows who’s linking to them. Together these point to concrete opportunities: pages to write, terms to target, relationships to build. If you’d like this done thoroughly, it’s a core part of our SEO work.
5. Organise it with a SWOT analysis
Organise everything with a SWOT analysis: list each competitor’s Strengths and Weaknesses (internal) and the Opportunities and Threats they face (external), then do the same for your own business. Be specific, “strong brand” tells you nothing; “dominates local search for the main service term” does. SWOT turns scattered notes into clear insight.
SWOT has earned its place since the 1960s because it forces you to weigh internal realities against external conditions in one view. The danger is vagueness: generic bullets that could apply to any business teach you nothing. Make every point concrete and evidence-based, and run a SWOT on yourself alongside your competitors, so you can see exactly where their strengths meet your weaknesses, and where their gaps meet your strengths.
6. Find the gaps and opportunities
Find the gaps and opportunities your analysis reveals. A competitor’s weakness, slow service, a poor mobile site, a neglected location or audience, is often your opening. Look for underserved needs, search terms nobody owns, and positions no one has claimed. These gaps are where a smaller business can realistically win against bigger rivals.
This is the payoff. Patterns emerge once your research is organised: maybe every competitor ignores a particular town, or none of them answers a common customer question well, or they all compete on price while no one owns quality. Each gap is a foothold. The most valuable opportunities are usually the ones your larger competitors consider too small to bother with, exactly the ground a focused business can take.
7. Turn your findings into action
Turn your findings into action, because analysis without action is wasted. Don’t copy competitors; use what you’ve learned to differentiate and position yourself where you can win. For example, rather than competing nationally, a business might dominate one city or niche first. Feed the insights into your strategy, marketing and SEO, and keep your customers at the centre.
Imagine an agency up against bigger national rivals. Instead of fighting them everywhere, it uses its analysis to become the obvious choice for one city, or one industry, owning that ground before expanding. That’s competitor analysis working: not imitation, but a deliberate choice of where and how to compete. Translate each insight into a specific next step, an owner and a deadline, or, like any analysis, it’ll gather dust. And never lose sight of your customers while watching your rivals; they remain your best source of insight.
8. Make competitor analysis ongoing
Make competitor analysis ongoing, not a one-off. Markets, rivals and search results all change, so revisit your analysis regularly, and whenever something shifts: a new entrant, a competitor’s price change, a sudden drop in your rankings. A living view of your competition keeps your strategy sharp and stops you being caught out.
A SWOT done once is a snapshot that’s out of date within months. You don’t need to redo the whole exercise constantly, but keep a light watch on your key rivals and let specific triggers prompt a deeper look. Treating competitor analysis as a habit rather than a project is what keeps your positioning current and your opportunities fresh.
Common mistakes
Common mistakes are analysing too many competitors, only looking at direct rivals, gathering vague “strong brand” style insights, copying competitors instead of differentiating, treating it as a one-off, and never acting on what you find. The biggest of all is getting so focused on rivals that you lose sight of your own customers.
- Analysing too many competitors instead of a focused few.
- Only looking at direct rivals, missing indirect and search competitors.
- Vague, generic insights that could apply to anyone.
- Copying competitors rather than differentiating from them.
- Treating it as a one-off instead of an ongoing habit.
- Gathering insight but never turning it into action.
- Watching rivals so closely you neglect your customers.
Frequently asked questions
What is a competitor analysis?
A competitor analysis is the process of evaluating your competitors’ products, pricing, marketing, strengths, and weaknesses to identify opportunities and improve your business strategy.
Who are my competitors?
Your competitors are businesses that offer similar products or services to the same target audience. They can be direct, indirect, or substitute competitors.
What should a competitor analysis include?
A competitor analysis should include competitors, target audience, products or services, pricing, marketing strategies, strengths, weaknesses, customer reviews, and market opportunities.
What tools can I use for competitor analysis?
Popular competitor analysis tools include Google Search, Semrush, Ahrefs, Similarweb, SpyFu, Moz, BuzzSumo, SE Ranking, and Google Trends for analyzing competitors’ SEO, traffic, content, and marketing strategies.
How often should you do a competitor analysis?
You should perform a competitor analysis at least every 3–6 months, or whenever there are significant market changes, new competitors, or product launches.
