Key takeaways
- Competitor analysis informs strategy. Use it to find your edge, not a template to copy.
- Look at direct, indirect and search competitors, including the ones you would not name first.
- Marketing and SEO usually reveal the clearest, most actionable gaps.
- Organise findings with SWOT, and keep every point specific.
- Act on the gaps by choosing where and how you compete.
- Keep it going, and keep your customers at the centre.
To run a competitor analysis, identify your main competitors and research their products, pricing, positioning, marketing and online presence to see where they are strong and where they leave gaps. Organise what you find with a framework such as SWOT, then use it to sharpen your positioning, adjust your strategy and win more customers.
A good competitor analysis is not about copying rivals. The point is to understand your market well enough to find your own edge. Done well, it sharpens your positioning, shows you opportunities others have missed and means a competitor’s next move is less likely to catch you off guard. Done badly, it becomes a folder of notes nobody reads. This guide covers how to run one that changes what you do.
What is a competitor analysis?
A competitor analysis is research into your competitors’ strengths, weaknesses, strategy and positioning, compared with your own business. It shows where you stand in the market and where you can stand out.
Sometimes called a competitive analysis, it sits at the heart of good strategy. Looking clearly at what rivals do well and badly, who they target, how they market themselves and where they are exposed gives you a working picture of your market. That picture lets you make decisions about positioning, pricing, marketing and where to compete based on evidence instead of guesswork.
Why is competitor analysis important?
Without it, you are guessing. A competitor analysis shows you gaps rivals have missed, helps you position your business, benchmarks your performance and warns you of threats before they arrive.
Most businesses have only a vague sense of their competition, which is risky. You cannot out-position a rival you do not understand, and you cannot take an opening you have not spotted. A clear analysis shows where competitors are strong (so you do not waste effort there), where they are weak (so you can make the most of it) and what they are not doing at all. That last category is often your biggest opportunity.
How do you run a competitor analysis?
Work in a clear sequence: identify your competitors, decide what to compare, gather the data, study their marketing and SEO, organise it with SWOT, find the gaps and turn your findings into action. Then keep it going, because your market will keep moving.
The eight steps are:
- 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
Start with three types. Direct competitors offer the same thing to the same audience. Indirect competitors solve the same problem in a different way. Substitutes are whatever else your customers might choose instead, including doing it themselves. Find them by searching Google for your main terms, checking review sites and asking customers who else they considered.
Do not rely only on the rivals you already know. The businesses ranking above you in Google for your most important searches are often not the ones you would name first, yet they are the ones winning those customers. Asking your own customers who else they looked at is one of the most revealing and most overlooked ways to map your real competition. Keep the list short: five competitors you study properly are worth more than twenty you skim.
2. Decide what to analyse
Decide what you will compare before you start, so you compare like with like. That usually means products and pricing, positioning and what makes them different, target audience, marketing channels and content, SEO and online visibility, social media, and reviews and reputation. Pick the areas that matter most for your business and goals.
Trying to analyse everything about everyone is how these projects stall. Choose the factors that 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 most useful areas are positioning, online visibility, reviews and customer experience, because those decide who gets found and chosen.
3. Gather the data
Collect information from wherever competitors show themselves: their website, social media, reviews and email newsletters. Tools help you go deeper. SimilarWeb gives traffic estimates, Semrush and Ahrefs show SEO and keyword data (both have free tiers) and Google Trends shows demand. Your own customers are often the best source of all.
Much of what you need is in plain sight. Sign up to a competitor’s newsletter, read their reviews on Google and the directories that matter in your sector, and spend proper time on their website working out their core offer and how they describe it. The free tiers of the main SEO tools are enough to see roughly how much traffic a rival gets and which terms they rank for. Look for evidence rather than impressions.
4. Analyse their marketing and SEO
This is where the clearest gaps usually show up. Look at the keywords competitors rank for and the ones they do not, the content and backlinks behind their rankings, and how they use social media and email. Bear in mind that the businesses you compete with in search results may not be the same as your obvious business rivals.
For most businesses this is the most actionable part. A keyword gap analysis shows searches a rival ranks for that you do not. A content gap shows topics they cover that you have not. A backlink check shows who links to them. Together these point to concrete next steps: pages to write, terms to target and relationships to build. This kind of research is a core part of our SEO work.
5. Organise it 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, while “dominates local search for the main service term” tells you something you can act on.
SWOT has lasted since the 1960s because it puts internal realities and external conditions side by side. The danger is vagueness: bullets that could apply to any business teach you nothing. Make every point concrete and backed by what you found, and run a SWOT on yourself alongside your competitors. You will see where their strengths line up against your weaknesses, and where their gaps line up with your strengths.
6. Find the gaps and opportunities
A competitor’s weakness is often your opening: slow service, a poor mobile site, a neglected town or a customer group nobody targets. Look for unmet needs, search terms nobody owns and positions no one has claimed. These are the places a smaller business can win against bigger rivals.
Patterns appear once your research is organised. Perhaps every competitor ignores one town, none of them answers a common customer question well, or they all compete on price and nobody owns quality. Each of these is a foothold. The most valuable ones are often the markets larger competitors think are too small to bother with, which is exactly the ground a focused business can take.
7. Turn your findings into action
Analysis without action is wasted. Use what you have learned to choose where you can win and how you will stand out. Rather than competing nationally, for example, a business might aim to be the obvious choice in one city or one niche first. Feed the insights into your strategy, marketing and SEO, and keep your customers in view throughout.
Picture a small agency up against bigger national rivals. Instead of fighting them everywhere, it uses its analysis to become the go-to choice for one city or one industry, and only expands once it owns that ground. Give each insight a specific next step, an owner and a deadline, or it will gather dust. And while you watch rivals, keep listening to customers. They remain your best source of insight.
8. Make competitor analysis ongoing
Markets, rivals and search results all change, so revisit your analysis regularly and whenever something shifts: a new entrant, a competitor’s price change or a sudden drop in your rankings.
A SWOT done once is out of date within months. You do not need to repeat the whole exercise constantly, but keep a light watch on your main rivals and let specific changes prompt a deeper look. Treating competitor analysis as a habit keeps your positioning current.
Common mistakes
The usual mistakes are analysing too many competitors, looking only at direct rivals, settling for vague insights, copying instead of standing out, treating it as a one-off and never acting on the findings. The biggest is watching rivals so closely that you lose sight of your own customers.
- Analysing too many competitors instead of a focused few.
- Looking only at direct rivals and missing indirect and search competitors.
- Vague insights that could apply to anyone.
- Copying competitors instead of setting yourself apart.
- Treating it as a one-off instead of a habit.
- Gathering insight but never acting on it.
- Watching rivals so closely you neglect your customers.
How Eigme can help
Turn this into results.
We can help you put this into practice with a clear plan, hands-on delivery and reporting in plain English.
Book a free strategy call →Frequently asked questions
What is a competitor analysis?
It is a review of your competitors’ products, pricing, marketing, strengths and weaknesses, compared with your own business. The aim is to find opportunities and decide where and how you can compete more effectively.
Who are my competitors?
Any business that offers similar products or services to the same customers is a competitor. That includes direct competitors, indirect competitors that solve the same problem differently, and substitutes your customers might choose instead. Check who ranks above you in Google for your main searches, too.
What should a competitor analysis include?
Who your competitors are, their target audience, products or services, pricing, marketing and SEO, strengths and weaknesses, customer reviews and the gaps or opportunities you find. Keep each point specific so it leads to an action.
What tools can I use for competitor analysis?
Google search itself, Semrush, Ahrefs, SimilarWeb, SpyFu, Moz, BuzzSumo, SE Ranking and Google Trends are all useful for looking at competitors’ SEO, traffic, content and marketing. Several of them have free tiers that are enough for a small business.
How often should you do a competitor analysis?
Every three to six months is a sensible rhythm, plus whenever something significant changes, such as a new competitor arriving, a rival changing prices or launching a product, or a sudden shift in your rankings.
