Free SEO Competitor Analysis Template

Section 1Pick 3 to 5 competitors

There are two kinds. SERP competitors are whoever ranks for your keywords, including publishers and directories you will never sell against. Business competitors are who you lose deals to. Start with the names on both lists. Search your five most important keywords in an incognito window and note who shows up; then add the two businesses you hear about most from customers.

Section 2Keyword overlap

List the 10 to 20 keywords that matter most. For each one, record the competitor's position and yours. Your own positions come free from Google Search Console; competitor positions come from an incognito search or the Google Rank Checker. The gap column is the whole point: a competitor at 3 and you at 11 is a page-two-to-page-one opportunity, and those close fastest.

Not ranking at all? Write "none" in your position column. Those rows feed Section 3.

Section 3Content gap analysis SEO

A content gap analysis in SEO is the list of topics, formats, and freshness signals a competitor has that you do not. Take every keyword from Section 2 where you wrote "none", plus every page in the competitor's navigation or blog that you have no equivalent for, and group them into topics. Then note the format: if they have a calculator, a template, or a comparison table and you have a paragraph, that is a format gap even if you cover the topic. Finally, check dates. A guide updated this year beats one from 2022 on the same topic.

Section 4On-page comparison

Pick the single most important keyword and compare the page that ranks for it against your page. View source, or run both URLs through the free On-Page SEO Analysis tool, which pulls all of these fields in one pass.

Section 5Authority and backlinks

Referring domains matter more than raw link counts. Record the total, then the five best linking pages per competitor, and mark which ones you could realistically earn too (directories, associations, local press, podcasts, supplier pages). Free sources: a search for the competitor's brand name in quotes minus their own domain, plus any backlink tool's free tier.

Section 6Local and Google Business Profile

Skip this section if neither you nor your competitors serve a geographic area. Otherwise, it is often the biggest gap of all, and every field is visible in Google Maps without a tool.

Section 7AI search visibility

This is the section most templates skip and the one that changes fastest. Write down five questions a customer would ask an assistant ("best [service] in [city]", "is [competitor] any good", "who should I hire for X"). Ask each one in ChatGPT, Google AI Mode or AI Overviews, and Perplexity. Record whether the answer names the competitor, names you, and which websites it cited. The free AI Citation Checker runs the Google AI and ChatGPT checks for a brand name in one click. Our own research found ChatGPT never mentions 43% of businesses that rank in Google's top three, so do not assume Google rankings carry over.

Section 8Action plan

Every gap above becomes one row here, written as an instruction, not an observation. "Publish a pricing page with a cost calculator" beats "pricing content is missing". Give each one an owner and a date, then sort by impact divided by effort. Ten rows is plenty for a quarter.

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Two-minute versionSEO competitor analysis checklist

Twenty checks. Tick them as you go; the boxes remember nothing once you leave the page, so print or copy when done.

• Setup

• Named 3 to 5 competitors and marked each as SERP, business, or both
• Listed the 10 to 20 keywords that actually drive revenue
• Pulled your own positions from Google Search Console

• Keywords and content

• Recorded competitor positions for every keyword
• Flagged every keyword where a competitor is on page one and you are not
• Listed topics they cover that you do not
• Listed format gaps (tools, templates, calculators, comparison tables)
• Checked publish and update dates on their top pages

• On-page and technical

• Compared title, meta, H1, and H2s for your most important keyword
• Compared schema types on the ranking page
• Compared word count and internal links to the page
• Ran both sites through the AI Readiness Score

• Authority and local

• Recorded referring domain counts
• Found five linking pages per competitor you could realistically earn
• Compared review count, rating, and primary category on Google Business Profile
• Checked who appears in the local pack for your main keyword

• AI search

• Asked ChatGPT, Google AI, and Perplexity five customer questions
• Recorded which engines name competitors and which name you
• Listed the sources each engine cited

• Output

• Wrote every gap as an action with an owner and a date

Need an SEO competitive analysis tool instead of a template?

These free tools run the checks in this worksheet live, no signup, no cost. Put your domain in, then a competitor's, and compare.

Want it done for you, with the numbers sourced and the plan written? The SEO audit service covers every section of this template for $199 and includes a competitive position score.

Plain-text version

Paste into Notion, Google Docs, or a spreadsheet.

SEO COMPETITOR ANALYSIS TEMPLATE (sempite.com/tools/seo-competitor-analysis-template/)

1. COMPETITORS (3 to 5)
#  | Competitor | Domain | SERP or business? | Why they matter
1  |            |        |                   |
2  |            |        |                   |
3  |            |        |                   |

2. KEYWORD OVERLAP
Keyword | Volume | Competitor | Their position | Your position | Gap | Their ranking page
        |        |            |                |               |     |

3. CONTENT GAP ANALYSIS
Topic or question | Who covers it | Their format | Your coverage | Gap type (topic/format/freshness) | Priority
                  |               |              |               |                                    |

4. ON-PAGE COMPARISON (most important keyword)
Element              | Competitor page | Your page | Notes
URL                  |                 |           |
Title tag            |                 |           |
Meta description     |                 |           |
H1                   |                 |           |
H2 topics            |                 |           |
Schema types         |                 |           |
Word count           |                 |           |
Images with alt text |                 |           |
Internal links       |                 |           |
Last updated         |                 |           |

5. AUTHORITY AND BACKLINKS
Competitor | Referring domains | Top linking page | Link type | Could we get it?
           |                   |                  |           |

6. LOCAL AND GOOGLE BUSINESS PROFILE
Signal                 | C1 | C2 | C3 | You
Review count           |    |    |    |
Average rating         |    |    |    |
Primary category       |    |    |    |
Secondary categories   |    |    |    |
Photo count            |    |    |    |
Last GBP post          |    |    |    |
Responds to reviews?   |    |    |    |
In local pack?         |    |    |    |

7. AI SEARCH VISIBILITY
Query | Engine (ChatGPT / Google AI / Perplexity) | Names competitor? | Names you? | Sources cited | What to fix
      |                                           |                   |            |               |

8. ACTION PLAN
# | Action | Closes which gap | Impact | Effort | Owner | Due
1 |        |                  |        |        |       |

CHECKLIST
[ ] Named 3 to 5 competitors (SERP / business / both)
[ ] Listed 10 to 20 revenue keywords
[ ] Pulled own positions from Search Console
[ ] Recorded competitor positions
[ ] Flagged page-one-vs-not keywords
[ ] Listed topic gaps
[ ] Listed format gaps
[ ] Checked content dates
[ ] Compared title / meta / H1 / H2s
[ ] Compared schema types
[ ] Compared word count and internal links
[ ] Ran AI Readiness Score on both
[ ] Recorded referring domains
[ ] Found 5 earnable linking pages per competitor
[ ] Compared GBP reviews, rating, category
[ ] Checked local pack
[ ] Asked ChatGPT / Google AI / Perplexity 5 questions
[ ] Recorded who each engine names
[ ] Listed sources cited
[ ] Wrote every gap as an action with owner and date