Optimizing for organic search usually requires monitoring your competitors (sites with high rankings). However, identifying these sites is not always obvious.
The bigger the website and the more competitive the niche, the more complicated the task. Thousands of queries and dozens of competing domains can be required.
Here are three go-to tools for identifying your search engine optimization competitors.
Google search
Google search is the first tool. It’s free, and it reveals all sorts of opportunities beyond organic listings, like featured snippets, “people also ask” sections, image results, video carousels, and more.
Use Chrome’s incognito mode when searching to avoid personalized results from previous activity and geolocation.
If you only have 2 or 3 keywords to target, a Google search will suffice. Extract organic results with our Chrome extension. The toolbar also provides useful data next to each organic list. These include:
- Mosver. View page authority (free).
- Ahrefs SEO Toolbar. Shows how many keywords each URL ranks for and the page’s authority (available for her paid Ahref users).
Use both tools when comparing Google’s top 10 search results for a given query.
Ahrefs’ SEO toolbar shows you how many keywords each URL ranks for and the authority of that page.
SE Ranking
SE Ranking provides useful competitive research and monitoring tools and related features for extracting and exporting (in Excel) organic search results.
But SE Ranking’s most useful competitive tool is the ‘Ranking Dynamics’ chart, which shows how search results change over time. Quickly identify long-term competitors, new competitors, and competitors who have recently moved up in rankings.
The latter’s new competitors can reveal innovative ranking tactics. Black hat tactics help boost a site’s ranking temporarily until Google detects an attempt to manipulate the signal.
Still, you learn legitimate tactics from new competitors. When monitoring, I label these competitors as “new” to closely monitor their performance and receive notice of gains or losses.
SE Ranking’s “Ranking Dynamics” graph shows how search results change over time, quickly identifying long-term and new competitors. Click image to enlarge.
Ahrefs
Google Search and SE Ranking are best for smaller sites and sites with 5 or fewer competing domains. But Ahrefs can identify your competitors by thousands of keywords. Too many to target manually. This is useful for large e-commerce sites with different competitors for each product category.
The tools are easy to use. Enter your domain and[競合するドメイン]Click the link. Ahrefs identifies the keywords that rank for and lists the domains with the most keyword overlap.
Ahrefs’ Competitor Domains report identifies the keywords that rank for and the domains with the most keyword overlap. Click image to enlarge.
You can filter the tool to only include phrases with search volume, keyword difficulty, cost-per-click, or the fewest words. The results can identify “easier” competitors, i.e. competitors who rank for long-tail keywords with low search volume. You can also filter your analysis to specific countries.
Click Common Keywords to generate a report listing those terms. But always make sure your queries are business critical and worth optimizing.
Something you can not do
The three tools above can identify your main SEO competitors. However, it is more or less impossible to overtake a particular site with high rankings. This includes Wikipedia, Amazon, and official “.gov” government sites.
Therefore, there is no point in monitoring those sites. If they rank for your target keyword, change course. Choose another with lower search volume. it is more workable.
