Competitive Research

Competitive research in SEO means, in a nutshell, stealing your competitors’ rankings and traffic.

Well, not exactly stealing.

But it does involve reverse-engineering what's working for your competitors, and using that information to your advantage!

Competitive research typically follows a few common lines of inquiry: identifying competitors, keyword research, content gap analysis, and backlink exploration . If you're not sure where to start when it comes to establishing your competitors, check out the True Competitor feature in Moz Pro, and start building your competitive strategy.

In addition, we've listed some companion resources on competitive research and analysis for SEO.

How to Do a Competitor Analysis for SEO : A terrific introduction to SEO competitive analysis with a free template to copy for your own campaigns.

The SEO Keyword Research Master Guide : An effective competitive research process starts with keywords, and this guide outlines a step-by-step process you can implement today to identify keyword opportunities.

Link Gap Analysis for SEO : Identify opportunities to increase your authority based on your competitors’ backlink strategy.

SEO Competitive Analysis Certification : Learn how to confidently build an SEO competitive analysis plan and get certified with this 6-part series. This certification combines on-demand video lessons with tasks and quizzes to affirm your understanding.

Most Recent Articles on Competitive Research

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Guide to SEO Competitor Analysis

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Aspirational Analysis: Competitive Research for New (or Small) Sites
Dr. Peter J. Meyers

Aspirational Analysis: Competitive Research for New (or Small) Sites

Competitive SERP analysis is based on understanding the broader ecosystems of your ranking keywords. This is great if you’re an established business, but what if you’ve got a brand new site or are still developing your SEO strategy and aren’t ranking for many keywords? Dr. Pete walks you through a solution: aspirational analysis.