Top Competitor Analysis Tools
Ready to steal an extra advantage over the competition? Maybe you just need some inspiration, or perhaps you just need to cement your spot at the top. Competitor analysis is an essential part of your strategy and competitor analysis tools can give you the edge.
You’ll find a wide range of competitor analysis SEO tools out there, many of which excel in a particular area. For example, one tool may be especially strong at sniffing our competitor citations. Another may be better suited to identifying your rivals’ best-performing keywords.
Having a couple of these tools in your arsenal can help fill gaps in your strategy. Use them to quickly identify what works well for others without having to invest time and resources of your own.
The data gleaned from these tools can also explain why competitor sites might outperform your own in certain areas. With this knowledge and our library of local SEO resources, you can begin to revise your approach and put together a plan of action to drive improvements.
Pairing your chosen competitor analysis tools with other specialist local SEO tools will give you an even bigger advantage.
iSpionage
iSpionage is an excellent tool for finding out information about your competitors for both PPC and SEO. It is suitable for both in-house marketers and larger agencies. It offers both monitoring and research functionality.
You can use iSpionage to monitor other companies’ multi-country paid search ad campaigns and benchmark competitors’ share of ad impressions. It also shows the results of competitor A/B testing, so you can apply their lessons to your own ad campaigns at no cost to you. Additional features include keyword research and information about competitor advert effectiveness, including ad spend.
Want even more insight? Use iSpionage to explore how your rivals funnel visitors through to conversion.
iSpionage: Cost, Trial, and Features
How much does it cost?
$59-$299 /mo. Custom solutions are also available.
Does it have a free trial?
Yes. You can register for a free account and receive 10 competitor reports per day and three complimentary alerts.
What makes it unique?
Extensive monitoring and research functions mean you can deep dive into the nuts and bolts of any competitor’s SEO or paid search activity. You can also uncover profitable keywords, landing pages, and ad copy.
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Spyfu
Spyfu can be used for both PPC and SEO competitor research. On the SEO side, you can search competitor domains and find out where they are showing up on Google. It will tell you how many clicks they get, what their backlink strategy is, and how their rankings have changed.
Spyfu is also one of the most impressive competitor research tools for PPC. Use it to discover every keyword your competitor is bidding on and how much they pay. Another nice feature is the ability to see what split tests rivals have performed.
In addition, Spyfu will flag up keywords that competitors use that you don’t already bid on, including the keywords that are most profitable for rivals.
Spyfu: Cost, Trial, and Features
How much does it cost?
$33 – £299/mo.
Does it have a free trial?
No, but they do offer a 30-day money-back guarantee.
What makes it unique?
The Backlink Kombat feature is a favorite, allowing you to compare up to three competitors and find keywords you might have missed.
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Rival IQ
Rival IQ is a powerful social media competitive analysis tool. Use it to track your competitors’ performance across social media and beyond. With Rival IQ you can monitor competitor activity, such as when they boost a post or share a new update.
The ability to track mentions of rivals means you can see where their customer service has failed or take inspiration from what is resonating with their audience. Use this knowledge to inform your own social media activities.
Looking for influencers? Use Rival IQ to search keywords and hashtags and identify top-performing content within your niche. For help scheduling posts, study your competitor engagement metrics to uncover optimal post times.
Rival IQ: Cost, Trial, and Features
How much does it cost?
$239 – $519/mo.
Does it have a free trial?
Yes. 14 days.
What makes it unique?
Powerful social media analytics include the ability to monitor for boosted posts and easily identify content popular within your niche. There’s also the option to benchmark performance across your industry.
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Crayon
Crayon is an award-winning competitor analysis tool. You can use it to track any company’s complete digital footprint, both on and off its website. This covers online branding, content, news articles, review profiles, product updates and pricing changes. You can additionally see everything from a company’s social media activity as well as case studies and new partnerships. Awards they’ve won and press releases they’ve issued will also be reported back. This allows you to keep a complete competitor portfolio and track all their intel in one spot.
Crayon: Cost, Trial, and Features
How much does it cost?
Variable. Pricing is tailored to the needs of each user.
Does it have a free trial?
No.
What makes it unique?
Crayon’s degree of competitor intelligence information is exhaustive. It tracks every aspect of competitor activity, from sales and marketing to product development and pricing changes. Crayon also means you won’t miss executive team announcements or audience engagement information.
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Google Similar Pages
This Chrome extension lets you see other pages similar to the one you’re currently browsing. Google Similar Pages is useful for discovering other sites within your niche that may not already be on your radar. You can build a list of businesses that you may not have been aware of by visiting a known competitor’s site and then exploring the similar pages suggested. You can plug those new business names into your preferred competitor analysis tools and build a more complete picture of the search landscape.
Google Simple Pages is an extension for Chrome, so you’ll need to download it to your device before using it.
Google Similar Pages: Cost, Trial, and Features
How much does it cost?
Free.
Does it have a free trial?
NA
What makes it unique?
You can quickly discover other businesses in your niche that you may not otherwise have been aware of. Even better, you don’t need to perform time-consuming Google searches manually.
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https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/google-similar-pages
Similarweb
To get an idea of how your competitors are doing in terms of traffic, Similarweb is the perfect free tool. Just type in any domain, and you’ll receive average traffic, referrals, and social media performance. The report also covers referring sites, keywords used to access the site, and more. You can use it to explore how any given brand is performing online and monitor for changes in digital strategies. Need more help? Similarweb will identify which channels are most effective for customer acquisition within your industry.
Similarweb’s benchmarking features also make it easy to understand how your site measures up against competitors. Easily compare data such as monthly visitor numbers and time spent on site to get a feel for where you stand.
Similarweb: Cost, Trial, and Features
How much does it cost?
Free with a premium version available.
Does it have a free trial?
Yes. Seven days.
What makes it unique?
Similarweb’s competitive benchmarking provides industry-level context making it easier to see where you stand and where improvements can be made.
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Adbeat
Adbeat will reveal your competitor’s advertising and marketing strategy. It will also identify their best converting ad copy, landing pages, and sales funnels. You can then take those successful ideas and create your own, more profitable ad campaigns. Adbeat also goes behind the adverts, to discover how ads were purchased and which platforms or publishers displayed the ads.
If you’re an agency, use Adbeat to uncover what your client’s competition is doing. Or, use it to see what copy, landing pages and publishers are most profitable. It can also be used as a lead gen tool because you can see which companies are already spending money on digital marketing.
Adbeat: Cost, Trial, and Features
How much does it cost?
$249 – $349/mo.
Does it have a free trial?
No.
What makes it unique?
If you’re looking to advertise with new platforms and want to know which converts best without spending your own money, Adbeat can help. It makes light work of discovering new sources of high-quality traffic by telling you where competitors advertise.
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MOZ
Moz is one of the best-known competitor analysis tools. As a complete toolset of both free and paid-for tools, you can use it to benchmark your rankings against competitors. Use it to audit competitor websites or explore competitor link profiles to find new opportunities for your site.
MozPro can help you improve your on-page content with custom suggestions based on what high-ranking pages are doing that you aren’t. The keyword research tool will tell you which search terms are generating traffic for your rivals. You can then plug keyword gaps by incorporating those exact phrases in your campaigns.
Moz: Cost, Trial, and Features
How much does it cost?
$99 – $599/mo.
Does it have a free trial?
Yes. 30 days.
What makes it unique?
Enter your domain name, and MOZ will tell you who your true SEO competitors are. It does this by identifying domains competing for the same search results as your own site.
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Buzzsumo
If your competitors have a strong content game, BuzzSumo is the tool you need to level up your strategy. Use its Content Analyzer to discover the most popular content on any given topic and then use that insight to refine your own approach. You can also enter a competitor’s web address to discover the most popular content on that domain. From there, you can see how much engagement each piece of content has generated and how it’s performing on social media.
A dedicated Facebook tool allows you to compare your page with competitors. Use this to understand what works, and discover influencers to refine your social activity further.
BuzzSumo: Cost, Trial, and Features
How much does it cost?
$99 – $299/mo.
Does it have a free trial?
Yes. 30 days.
What makes it unique?
You can easily see the best performing and most engaging content from across the web by adding that term to the Content Analyzer. Or use the Trending Content tool to see what’s hot right now to inform your content strategy.
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Pathmatics
If you’re a brand, you can use Pathmatics to aid in your advertising decision-making. Use it to learn what messages competitors are using and how they are targeting audiences. It will also help you to understand how they are choosing publishers, what they’re spending, and how many impressions they’re receiving.
By getting a clear picture of competitor ad strategies, you can revisit your own ad creatives, targeting options, and channel selection. This will ensure you aren’t operating at a disadvantage. You can also use it to quickly see what promotional offers rivals are running and what creative they are using across social media, ad networks, and the wider Internet landscape.
For agencies, you can use those same tools to unpick the strategies your clients’ competitors are successfully deploying. Then, use that information to perfect your own approach.
Pathmatics: Cost, Trial, and Features
How much does it cost?
Pricing on request.
Does it have a free trial?
No.
What makes it unique?
You can quickly get a snapshot of the most compelling ad creatives across various channels. Place that in context with data gathered around ad spending, buying strategy, and media placement.
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Social Blade
If you’re keen to know how your rivals are performing on social media, Social Blade will tell you exactly how popular your competitors are. It covers a wide range of channels, including TikTok, Facebook, Twitch, Twitter, and Instagram. By choosing a network and adding the social media handle, you’ll be able to access a snapshot of that profile’s social media activity. Stats include follower gains and losses, the average number of comments, engagement rank, average likes, and new posts.
Social Blade: Cost, Trial, and Features
How much does it cost?
Free – $99.99/mo.
Does it have a free trial?
No.
What makes it unique?
You can compare a number of competitors directly against each other for any supported social network. Social Blade also keeps a day-by-day record of follower gains and losses.
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Phlanx
Phlanx is an Instagram engagement calculator. Input any Instagram handle to learn how many interactions, likes, and comments that account earns from each post. You can use this information to keep tabs on your competitors and monitor their social strategy’s success. To go deeper, benchmark your own performance against your closest rivals.
Other useful tools include the option to track brand mentions. This means you can easily see what’s being said about your competitors online and capitalize on any negative sentiment. For YouTube, Instagram and TikTok, you can create social media audits for competitor profiles to analyze performance and learn from their mistakes.
Phlanx: Cost, Trial, and Features
How much does it cost?
$25 – $50/mo.
Does it have a free trial?
Yes. 30 days.
What makes it unique?
The engagement calculator function and ability to compare results across multiple competitors make it easy to see which brands have the most successful social media strategies. You can then use the audit function or additional competitor analysis tools to go deeper and pinpoint gaps in your approach.
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Sprout Social
If you’re looking to improve your social media performance, you can use Sprout Social to see what competitors are doing across their social channels. Use it to track competitor posts and engagement levels to get ideas for your content and benchmark their activity against your own.
The included social media listening tool means you can also explore what’s being said online about your competitors and compare it with your share of voice. This activity can shed light on what competitors are doing right and wrong, allowing you to adjust your strategy accordingly.
Sprout Social: Cost, Trial, and Features
How much does it cost?
$89 – $279/mo.
Does it have a free trial?
Yes. 30 days.
What makes it unique?
Ease of social listening means you can automate the process of keeping tabs on what’s being said about competitors online. Use that intel to tailor your content accordingly.
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SEMrush
With dedicated tools for SEO, content marketing, PPC, and social media, SEMrush really digs deep into competitor strategies across the board. Use the Domain Overview feature to explore your rivals’ SEO strategies by checking keywords they’re ranking for. Or, explore where their traffic is coming from and understand how well they perform on different devices.
Helpful Keyword Gap and Backlink Gap features make it quick and easy to see where your site is missing out and how to close that gap. This means you can shut down any advantage your competitors currently enjoy over your domain.
On the PPC side, use SEMrush to identify your closest competitors, uncover which keywords they’re bidding on and review their ad content.
SEMrush: Cost, Trial, and Features
How much does it cost?
$119.95 – $449.95/mo.
Does it have a free trial?
Yes. Seven days.
What makes it unique?
SEMrush offers more than 55 different tools for competitor research, SEO, PPC, and social media marketing. It’s a versatile suite of solutions for marketers and agencies.
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Citation Tracker
Citation tracker makes light work of building and studying any competitor’s citation profile. You can enter their business information for a complete list of all their citations. This makes it easy to uncover new citation opportunities to help in your local SEO strategy. It also removes any local SEO or referral traffic advantage they may enjoy by being visible on a site where you don’t currently have a presence.
Citation Tracker will also show you the top business mentions five of your most important competitors have built that you don’t have. This opens the door to you creating a more hyper-focused presence.
Citation Tracker: Cost, Trial, and Features
How much does it cost?
From $39/mo.
Does it have a free trial?
Yes. 14 days.
What makes it unique?
Citation Tracker removes the time-consuming manual legwork of finding new citation opportunities and managing existing citation profiles. You also get access to the brilliant collection of local ranking tools like Local Rank Tracker and Local Search Grid too, all in one platform.
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https://www.brightlocal.com/local-seo-tools/auditing/citation-tracker/
