Best Competitor Analysis Tools to Elevate Your SEO Strategy in 2024

Competitive analysis is the cornerstone of a successful SEO strategy. By researching the market landscape and strategically pinpointing successful SEO techniques, you can shift from imitating ideas to using these findings in a comprehensive and unique way. This takes you miles ahead of your competitors so you don’t just have to keep up with them.

Specialized competitor analysis tools are the quickest way to discover more about your competitive landscape. With the help of tools like these, you can avoid wasting time, money, and resources on objectives that aren’t working for you. Instead, the data and insights you get will be of high quality and can become a tactical advantage in your SEO project. 

We analyzed the best competitor analysis tools on the market and put together a detailed side-by-side comparison for you to use. While many of the features in these tools overlap, the additional SEO functionalities offered in each vary greatly. This list covers both all-in-one SEO suites like SE Ranking and Semrush, as well as dedicated competitor research tools, such as SpyFu and Similarweb. Read on to get a detailed review of each tool’s key features and benefits.

The Best Competitor Analysis Tools in 2024

1. SE Ranking: A market-leading SEO platform designed for agency and in-house teams with various tools for competitive research, including keyword research, backlink analysis, and site analysis. 
2. Ahrefs: A powerful SEO tool that offers a variety of features for competitive research, such as keyword research, backlink analysis, and competitor traffic analysis. This is a top-tier competitive research tool known for its extensive backlink database.
3. Semrush: A top all-in-one SEO platform that offers various features for competitive research. Semrush is known for its large databases, versatility, and social media and content marketing analysis tools.
4. Ubersuggest: An SEO research tool used for finding new keyword and backlink opportunities, and for analyzing your competitors’ keyword strategies. Ubersuggest is popular for its user-friendly interface and budget-friendly pricing.
5. SpyFu: A competitive research tool that focuses on keyword research and backlink analysis. It also allows you to spy on your competitors’ paid search campaigns and to track their ad history with historical data.
6. Raven Tools: An easy-to-use SEO suite that offers various tools for competitive research. It provides detailed insights into competitors’ backlinks, site performance, and SEO metrics.
7. Moz: A prominent SEO platform that offers plenty of features for competitive research. Moz offers a dedicated browser extension, which allows you to analyze competitors directly in Google.
8. SISTRIX: An SEO tool with a variety of features. It provides comprehensive data on keyword rankings, visibility, and organic search performance.
9. Similarweb: A competitive intelligence tool that provides insights into website traffic, its channel, audience, and competitors. Similarweb enables users to track competitors across various digital channels.

1. SE Ranking

SE Ranking is a robust SEO platform with over 30 tools. It’s designed to help agency and in-house teams improve their website visibility and increase their organic traffic. SE Ranking provides comprehensive research capabilities, advanced data and analytics, as well as monitoring features, all to help its users identify SEO opportunities and track the performance of their websites over time. SE Ranking is well-known for its hefty feature set, ease of use, and cost-effectiveness. 

Its comprehensive suite of SEO tools enables users to automate and enhance complex tasks like tracking website ranking, keyword research, site audit, competitor analysis, backlink monitoring, and automated reporting. In addition to essential SEO features, the platform also offers a set of extra tools, such as its AI-powered content editor, white label reporting feature, and lead generator, all of which can help agencies streamline their workflow and boost productivity. 

Competitor analysis features

SE Ranking features a specialized Competitive Research tool that allows you to get a 360-degree view of your competitor’s performance and study their SEO strategies. It helps you analyze competitors, learn what keywords they rank for in organic and paid search, discover which pages and ads bring in the most traffic, dive deep into historical data, and more.

The tool’s Overview tab provides a comprehensive dashboard that shows your competitor’s current SEO performance. This includes insights into domain trust and page trust metrics, estimated organic traffic, and total number of keywords ranked for by the domain in organic search. It also shows the total number of backlinks and referring domains linking to the analyzed domain.

The dashboard includes interactive graphs that allow you to track traffic dynamics, keyword rankings, and backlinks over the past three years or more. You can analyze traffic distribution by country, identify organic keywords and pages that rank highest in search engines, and see the distribution of keywords by ranking position. You can also view the distribution of keywords by intent to see what types of keywords your competitor’s website is targeting.

In the Organic Traffic Research and Paid Traffic Research tabs, you’ll find comprehensive insights into your competitor’s SEO and PPC strategies. Here, you can monitor traffic dynamics and ranking position changes, analyze pages and subdomains, and more. For example, the tool provides comprehensive and accurate data on competitors’ keywords. You can research and compare them by search volume, traffic, difficulty score, search intent, and SERP features, and find the most relevant keywords to target on your website.

The tool also helps you with identifying and comparing competitors that rank for similar keywords to determine common and missing terms. Once you have identified the competitors that you should be analyzing, you can add them to your primary project and access their data through the My Competitors tab. You can add up to twenty competitors to your project and monitor their keyword rankings next to yours. 

Other features

SE Ranking offers a variety of helpful tools for competitive analysis, including:

• Backlink Checker: This tool helps you find and analyze backlinks, referring domains, and anchor texts.
• Backlink Gap Analyzer: This tool enables you to compare your domain’s backlink profiles with up to five of its competitors. This can help you identify relevant sites with high domain authority and high-quality monthly organic traffic to acquire backlinks from. 
• SERP Analyzer: This tool allows you to get a list of top-ranking pages for particular search queries, evaluate essential SEO metrics, and receive recommendations for creating new pages.
• On-Page SEO Checker: This tool lets you check a specific page’s optimization and provides insights into essential on-page elements and page usability.
• Content Marketing Platform: This toolset helps you create content through in-depth AI-backed competitive research. It allows you to analyze content similar to that of your high-ranking competitors, offering insights into keyword usage, titles, descriptions, content optimization score, traffic, visibility, and word count.

Pros

• Powerful competitive research capabilities: SE Ranking enables you to identify competitors, analyze their site performance, analyze organic and paid traffic, and discover their keyword and backlink profiles.
• Accurate and reliable data: SE Ranking continually works on improving their data processing algorithms to ensure the daily delivery of accurate data on keywords, traffic and rankings. 
• AI-powered content marketing tool: SE Ranking provides helpful insights to your competitors’ content strategies that can be used to create high-ranking content.
• Historical data: You can access information about your competitors’ previous efforts through the historical data feature, which spans back to 2020.
• Cost-to-value ratio: SE Ranking provides various pricing plans, allowing businesses of all sizes to elevate their marketing strategies.
• Scalability and additional features: For a streamlined workflow, SE Ranking’s specialized Agency Pack includes white-label, unlimited reporting, multiple client seats, and other features.
• User-friendly design and support: With its user-friendly interface, tutorials and 24/7 support, SE Ranking provides easy onboarding and convenient user experience.

Cons

• Some features are only available through higher-priced plans: Its Historical data and keyword database expansions are only available to Pro and Business plan users.
• Local data may be insufficient for some countries: SE Ranking’s local data is not as comprehensive as the local data of some other SEO tools.

Pricing

SE Ranking offers a flexible pricing policy to fit any budget and need. Competitive Research is an essential tool available to users in all subscription plans. Plans differ based on the number of checks you can perform daily, as well as the availability of additional features. 

There are three pricing plans available: 

SE Ranking offers a free trial, so you can try it before you buy it. You can also get a 20% discount on any plan with an annual subscription.

Verdict

SE Ranking is an excellent tool for getting the inside scoop on your competitors. It offers a comprehensive range of features for analyzing competitors’ organic and paid traffic, keywords, and backlinks, making it a popular choice for both in-house and agency SEO professionals. SE Ranking also comes with convenient pricing options to provide you the best possible value for your money.

2. Ahrefs

Ahrefs is a popular SEO solution trusted by large, prominent businesses. It offers a rank tracker, keyword explorer, site audit, and content research, but most importantly, it provides robust competitive intelligence data that helps businesses better understand their competition and improve their marketing and SEO efforts.

With Ahrefs, you can analyze direct competitors and industry leaders, examine their backlink profiles, uncover their top-performing keywords, and learn the ins and outs of their content strategy.

Competitor analysis features

Ahrefs’ Site Explorer provides comprehensive competitive research data for any domain. The Overview section offers an in-depth analysis of the domain’s SEO performance, including its domain rating score, traffic, estimated traffic cost, number of backlinks and referring domains, and number of organic and paid search keywords. You can use the platform’s user-friendly graphs and tables to track dynamics, analyze page metrics, keyword distribution by position, and traffic distribution by location.

The Organic Search section displays the keywords your competitor is ranking for and the amount of traffic those keywords are driving. With a database of over 20 billion keywords, Ahrefs provides a highly accurate and detailed overview of organic traffic and the metrics associated with it.

Ahrefs offers a market-leading Backlink Checker, which can be invaluable for examining your competitors’ backlink profiles. By exploring backlinks, referring domains, and other related metrics like the domain authority rating and organic search traffic, you can do the following: gain insights into your competitor’s effective link-building techniques, identify high-authority websites relevant to your niche, and replicate those techniques in your own campaigns.

The Paid Search section provides information about your competitors’ ads and the keywords they’re bidding on. This allows you to monitor your competitors’ PPC activities.

Other features

Ahrefs offers several helpful tools for competitive analysis:

• Competitive Analysis: This tool enables you to compare domains side-by-side by analyzing their search performance, backlink profiles, keywords, and other essential metrics.
• Backlink Profile Tracking: This feature helps you monitor the backlink profiles of multiple sites and receive automated monthly reports on their performance.
• Link Intersect: This tool compares your backlink profile to that of your competitors’ and highlights the sites linking to your competitors but not to you.
• Broken Link Checker: This tool checks any website for broken inbound and outbound links. Fixing them can greatly improve your website’s SEO and user experience. Ahrefs also tracks the backlink profiles of multiple sites and sends automated monthly reports on their performance. 
• SERP Checker: This tool allows you to find and analyze the top 10 rankings for any keyword. 

Pros

• Extensive backlink database: Ahrefs has one of the largest and most comprehensive backlink databases in the industry. It also includes historical indexing, which allows you to see how the backlink profile has changed over time.
• Robust keyword research and analysis capabilities: Ahrefs offers a variety of keyword analysis tools, including keyword difficulty, keyword intent, and keyword trends. 
• Accurate and vast data: Ahrefs provides accurate and vast data for its various features. 
• Excellent help resources and tutorials: Ahrefs offers a wide range of help resources and tutorials, including guides, videos, and a community forum.

Cons

• Scanning speed can be deficient: Ahrefs’ crawling speed can be slow, especially for large websites. 
• User experience: Ahrefs has an intricate interface design and its tools distribution can be confusing to navigate through, which means that it may take some time to learn how to use.
• High prices and no free trial: Ahrefs is one of the more expensive SEO tools on the market. 

Pricing

Ahrefs offers several pricing plans, varying by the number of available tools and data limits.

Each pricing plan comes with one user seat and allows for up to 500 monthly credits. You must pay extra if you need more user seats or data. Also, Ahrefs does not offer a free trial. 

Verdict

Ahrefs is a powerful tool for competitive research. It provides comprehensive data on competitor traffic, organic keywords and content, keyword competition, ranking changes, backlinks and referring domains, PPC keywords, and best-performing pages and ads. Ahrefs’ keyword and backlink data is vast and accurate, but the tool can be challenging to navigate for new users. Additionally, Ahrefs is one of the most expensive SEO tools on the market, making it more suitable for large businesses and marketing agencies.

3. Semrush

Semrush is arguably the most famous all-in-one SEO tool on the market. With over 50 digital marketing solutions, Semrush is well-known for its keyword research capabilities and SEO competitor analysis reports, and it allows users to do it all on one dashboard.

Semrush uses a massive dataset of over 21 billion keywords and 43 trillion backlinks. This provides users with accurate and up-to-**** information. Its data can be used to inform a wide range of SEO decisions, such as keyword targeting, content optimization, and link building. 

Competitor analysis features

Semrush offers powerful competitor analysis tools that can help you analyze the competitive landscape as a whole or dissect each individual competitor. By combining the data from these tools, you can get a bird’s-eye view of your market and make informed decisions for your SEO strategy.

The Competitor Research tool provides insights into the performance of your competitors’ websites. You can explore and analyze their domain authority score, organic and paid search traffic, number of keywords and backlinks, and social media presence. The dashboard features user-friendly graphs that provide data on traffic dynamics, keyword distribution by ranking positions, distribution by country, and SERP features. You can also access a list of top organic keywords, their search volume, traffic share, and search intent. The Competitive Positioning Map allows you to see how you stack up against your competitors in terms of organic and paid search traffic.

On the same dashboard, you can analyze your competitors’ PPC strategies by checking their top paid keywords, paid positions distribution, and sample ad texts. At the bottom of the page, you will find information about competitors’ backlink profiles, including a list of backlinks, referring domains, most popular anchors, and their dofollow/nofollow distribution. 

The tool also features a helpful comparison feature, which enables you to compare up to five target domains. The report includes information on your competitors’ organic search traffic, paid search traffic, and the number of backlinks. Alternatively, you can compare the organic and paid performance of any domain in different countries. This gives you a better understanding of traffic distribution. 

Other features

Semrush provides additional tools to help you better understand your competitors and their SEO strategies:

• Keyword Gap: This feature allows you to compare your keyword list to your competitors’ and identify fillable gaps. 
• Keyword Magic: This tool helps you find new keywords and get insights into their search volume, competition, and trends. 
• Site Audit: This tool assesses the technical health of your competitors’ websites. It highlights any technical SEO issues to give you an idea of what to avoid on your site.
• On-Page SEO Checker: This tool enables you to analyze the performance and optimization level of a particular page on a competitor’s site. This gives you insights into essential on-page elements and keyword usage ideas. It also warns you about potential issues that could arise. 
• Backlink Analytics: This tool provides a comprehensive overview of any website’s backlink profile, including data on its backlink count, referring domains, anchor text, and domain authority. 
• Backlink Gap: This feature compares the backlink profiles of up to five competing websites and identifies websites linking to your competitors but not to you. 
• PPC Keyword Research: This tool provides data on the keywords that your competitors are bidding on, the ad copy they are using, and the landing pages they are sending traffic to.
• Market Explorer: This tool provides data on market trends, industry leaders, and target audiences. You can use it to find your direct competitors, as well as indirect competitors and industry leaders. 

Pros

• Variety of competitor research tools: Semrush offers a wide range of tools, including a domain overview tool, a competitive positioning map, and a market explorer. All of these combined give you a 360-degree view of your competitors.
• Accurate and fresh data: Semrush’s keyword research tools provide accurate data on organic keywords, including search volume, competition, and trends. 
• Large keyword database: Semrush has a large keyword database, with over 20 billion indexed keywords. 
• Great backlink tracking capabilities: Semrush’s backlink tracking tools provide comprehensive data on your website’s backlink profile. 
• Social media and content monitoring: Semrush also gives you the opportunity to keep track of your competitors’ social media and content. 

Cons

• High price: Semrush is a relatively expensive tool, especially when compared to other SEO tools on the market.
• Poor multi-user support: Semrush’s multi-user support is lacking. This can be a problem for businesses with multiple team members who need to use the tool.
• Low account limits: Semrush’s account limits are pretty low, especially for the higher-priced plans. This can be a problem for businesses that need to track lots of keywords or domains.

Pricing

There are three plans available: Pro, Guru, and Business. Each plan offers different features to match your business needs.

Semrush offers a 30-day free trial period for new users. You can save up to 17% with an annual subscription.

Verdict

Semrush is a robust and powerful SEO tool that offers a wide range of features for competitive research. It is best suited for large businesses and marketing agencies that need to track swathes of competitors and require frequent data updates. Semrush’s competitive analysis tools can help you identify your main competitors, analyze their organic and paid traffic metrics, single out best-performing keywords and backlinks, and get insights into your competitors’ social media, content, and advertisement strategies. You can also use this information to get valuable insights into your competitors’ overall marketing strategy, identify keyword gaps, and find new ways to improve your own content and marketing efforts. 

On the other hand, consider that Semrush is a professional tool for large businesses and is more expensive than other SEO tools on the market. If you are a small business or agency, you may want to try out other SEO tools that are more affordable and easier to use. 

4. Ubersuggest

Ubersuggest is a simple and affordable SEO platform and marketing research tool. You can use it for site audits, keyword research, backlink analysis, and competitive analytics. With Ubersuggest, you can find high-ranking keywords, spy on your competitors, explore popular pages, and find content ideas. 

Competitor analysis features

Unlike many other platforms, Ubersuggest does not have a specialized tool for competitor analysis. Instead, it has several separate modules that you can use to gather competitor information, such as Traffic Estimation, Keyword Research, and Backlinks. To conduct a comprehensive competitor analysis through Ubersuggest, you will need to browse through each of the modules on this platform and gather all relevant information from them. This includes the number of keywords, keyword gaps, estimated traffic, and the number of backlinks.

The Traffic Estimation module provides a report of a competitor’s traffic, top pages, domain authority, keywords, backlinks, and social media presence. It also displays best-performing keywords and their essential metrics: search volume, position, and estimated visits. 

In The Keyword Research module, you can input your competitor’s domain and discover their well-ranking keywords and pages. It allows you to analyze search volume, estimated CPC, and difficulty scores for both SEO and PPC, helping you to identify new keywords that aren’t being properly targeted on your site. You can apply filters to narrow down your search and export results to a separate file that can be used in your SEO and PPC campaigns.

In the Backlinks module, you can conduct a thorough competitor backlink analysis to find the number of backlinks and referring domains. You can also review anchor text, authority scores, and other metrics. For example, it lets you analyze the dynamics of new and lost referring domains. 

Other features

Ubersuggest offers several tools that can be useful for performing a deeper competitive analysis:

• Backlink Opportunities: This tool offers a comparative analysis, which compares your backlink profiles with those of your competitors’ and highlights high-quality domains to target.
• Site Audit: This tool enables you to assess the tech health of your competitor’s website and identify any technical SEO issues. 

Pros

• Great backlink analysis capabilities: Ubersuggest lets you analyze a competitor’s backlink profile or conduct a comparative analysis of two domains. This helps you find new ideas for improving your backlink profile.
• Good for keyword research: Ubersuggest offers a variety of keyword research tools, including a keyword ideas generator, a keyword overview tool, and a keyword trend tracker.
• Free to use with limited features: Ubersuggest offers a free plan that allows you to access its basic features. This is a good option for small businesses and individuals who are just starting out with SEO.
• Chrome extension available: This enables easy access to Ubersuggest’s features from anywhere on the web.
• Easy to use: Ubersuggest has a very user-friendly interface, making it easy to learn and use.

Cons

• No separate module for competitive research: Ubersuggest does not have a specialized module for competitive research. You will need to switch between various tools to analyze your competitor’s keyword strategies, backlinks, and other SEO metrics.
• Less accurate data: Some users have reported that Ubersuggest’s keyword data is not as accurate as the data provided by other keyword research tools. 
• Takes a lot of time to run a website analysis: Running a website analysis through Ubersuggest can take a long time, especially if the website is large or has a lot of traffic.
• Too many ads on the platform: Ubersuggest displays numerous ads on its platform. This can be distracting, especially during extended usage of the tool.

Pricing

Ubersuggest provides both a free and paid version. All features are available in the free version, but there are noticeably more limits on the number of searches, keywords, and competitors you can access. To access more data, you must upgrade to a paid plan. The platform features three subscription plans:

Ubersuggest also offers a lifetime subscription, which is equivalent to ten monthly subscription payments.

Verdict

Ubersuggest is a powerful tool that can help you improve your SEO and competitive research efforts. It offers a variety of features for identifying your competitors, finding new keywords to target, analyzing your competitors’ SEO strategies, and improving your website’s performance. While Ubersuggest does not have any unique features, it is cheap and easy to use, and it provides suggestions on technical SEO and content. This makes it a great option for someone who is new to SEO. It can also be a valuable addition to other SEO platforms. 

5. SpyFu

SpyFu is a popular SEO and PPC solution. It’s a versatile tool that can help with a number of SEO tasks, including competitor analysis, keyword research, SEO analysis, PPC research, backlinks analysis, tracking and reporting.

Competitor analysis features

SpyFu’s SEO Overview section delivers a comprehensive analysis of any domain. The main dashboard displays a wealth of information on the domain’s performance, including its organic keyword count, estimated monthly organic traffic, organic traffic cost, keyword gainers and losers, inbound links by type, and more.

Below the dashboard are several helpful graphs, all of which together can give you a holistic view of your competitor’s performance. For example, you can access keyword analysis data, which includes a list of the most valuable keywords and their search volume, newly ranked keywords, and keywords that gain or lose clicks. Also, the tool will show you a list of the domain’s top organic competitors and the number of keywords they rank for, as well as a graph that displays the keyword overlap between competitors. 

At the bottom of the page, you will find a list of backlinks and related metrics, as well as a list of top-performing pages. From this page, you can visit other pages that provide more detailed insights.

Other features

We recommend paying attention to the following tools:

• Backlinks: This tool helps you identify and analyze high-quality backlinks built upon by your competitors. You can analyze them based on monthly organic clicks and domain strength to find the most valuable backlinks to pursue.
• Keyword Kombat: This tool lets you compare your organic traffic and keywords to those of your competitors’ using metrics like search volume, keyword difficulty, and CPC. This information can help you identify new keyword opportunities and improve your keyword targeting efforts.
• PPC Kombat: This tool lets you compare your PPC campaign performance with that of your competitors for specific keywords, helping you identify areas for improvement in your PPC campaigns.

Pros

• A powerful keyword analysis tool: SpyFu offers one of the best keyword research tools on the market. It allows you to find new keywords, analyze the competition for those keywords, and track keyword rankings over time.
• A comprehensive PPC intelligence: SpyFu provides a comprehensive overview of your competitors’ paid advertisements and offers insights for crafting effective Google Ads campaigns. 
• Low cost compared to other tools: SpyFu is an affordable tool compared to other SEO platforms and competitive intelligence tools.

Cons

• Only refreshes data on a monthly basis: SpyFu gets its data by web scraping and refreshes its data on a monthly basis. This means that some data may not be up-to-****.
• Limited functionality for in-depth analysis: SpyFu lacks advanced features and functionality for in-depth SEO analysis.
• Limited user seats: SpyFu offers five additional logins, but only for the top subscription plan users.

Pricing

SpyFu offers two pricing plans:

All plans come with a 30-day money-back guarantee. Additionally, you can save 20% by paying for a year upfront.

Verdict

SpyFu is a powerful tool for keyword research and PPC monitoring, making it a great choice for businesses of all sizes, especially those that are new to SEO. It offers a variety of features that can be used to research niches, find high-volume keywords, track competitors’ backlinks, and plan digital campaigns. 

6. Raven Tools

Raven Tools is a cloud-based SEO platform that offers a wide range of features to help businesses improve their online visibility and performance. It offers powerful keyword research, competitor analysis, site auditing, backlink analysis, and rank-tracking features. This is a popular choice for SEO professionals of all levels, catering to both beginners and experts. 

Competitive analysis features

Raven Tools offers various tools for analyzing your competitors’ SEO strategies and tracking their progress over time. You can gain valuable insights into your competitive landscape and identify improvement opportunities towards your own SEO strategy.

Raven Tools features a standalone Competitive Research tool that offers a comprehensive analysis of competitors. The report is split into three categories: SEO metrics, site metrics, and social metrics. This data helps you understand a domain’s optimization level for the following: site optimization and technical health, its backlink profile, and its performance in social media. The tool also provides actionable tips on how to improve each of these metrics right away. 

The Domain Research Central section offers extensive data on any domain. You can see a domain’s authority, evaluate the overall design and speed of a website, see the keywords targeted by the domain, along with their search volume, competition level, and CPC. Also, you can get a detailed overview of a domain’s backlink profile, including the number of backlinks, referring domains, anchor text distribution, and domain authority of the backlinks. 

Other features

Raven Tools offers various additional tools for competitor analysis:

• Backlink Explorer: This tool shows you the backlinks built by your competitors, as well as the quality of those backlinks. Just enter the competitor’s URL to get a list of 50,000 backlinks, source URLs, anchor texts, etc. You can apply filters and group data to analyze high-quality links or export them all together in a separate file. 
• Link Spy: This tool finds top-quality links based on the websites that are already ranking for your focus keywords. 
• Keyword Research: This section finds loads of data for the keyword, including local and global trends, search volume across different channels, as well as the number of page elements containing this keyword. 

Pros

• Comprehensive set of features: Raven Tools offers tools for SEO research, competitive analysis, site auditing, backlink analysis, and rank tracking. This makes it a one-stop shop for all of your SEO needs.
• Simple and intuitive design: Raven Tools has a simple and intuitive design, making it easy to use for beginners and experienced users alike. While the design may be outdated, it is still functional and easy to navigate.
• Affordable pricing: Raven Tools is an affordable SEO platform, making it a good option for businesses of all sizes.

Cons

• Lacks advanced features: Raven Tools doesn’t offer some advanced features that may be necessary for optimal competitive research.
• Takes time to load data: The platform can be slow to load data.

Pricing

Raven Tools offers five pricing plans, each of which differs by the number of projects, user seats and keyword position checks:

Raven Tools offers a 7-day free trial and a 30% discount on all annual subscriptions. 

Verdict

Raven Tools is a versatile SEO platform with robust competitor research capabilities. Businesses and agencies that are looking for a comprehensive SEO platform with a simple and intuitive design will thrive under this platform. On the other hand, if you need more advanced features, you may want to consider another SEO platform.

7. Moz

Moz is another popular professional SEO suite. Similar to its counterparts, Moz offers a wide range of tools for keyword research, competitor analysis, site auditing, backlink analysis, and rank tracking. It is a robust tool for competitive research, offering a comprehensive set of features and data to identify competitors, analyze their SEO strategies, and track their progress over time.

Competitive analysis features

Moz offers powerful competitive research capabilities. The platform lets you easily identify your top organic competitors, analyze their backlink profiles, and scrutinize the SEO and PPC performance of their websites. 

Moz’s free Domain Authority Checker is a powerful tool that allows you to analyze any domain. It gives you detailed information on a domain, including its page authority scores, backlinks and referring domains, keywords, and overall competitor landscape. The dashboard includes a list of the domain’s top pages by links and top linking domains. You can track newly acquired linking domains over the past 60 days. The dashboard also provides a list of the domain’s keywords by estimated clicks, the domain’s top ranking keywords sorted by ranking position, and a graph illustrating its keyword ranking distribution. Finally, the dashboard provides a list of the domain’s competitors vying for the same keywords. 

Moz also offers a powerful SEO Competitive Analysis tool. This tool allows you to identify your top SERP competitors, uncover keyword gaps, and identify the key content pieces that your competitors are using to rank for important keywords.

Other features

In addition to the above mentioned tools, Moz features several additional tools for deeper competitive analysis, namely:

• True Competitor: This tool allows you to identify your organic and niche competitors and analyze their domain authority and keyword overlap percentage. Moz also displays a helpful proprietary Rivalry metric. It combines your DA, your competitor’s DA, keyword overlap, keyword volume, and your rankings to assist in pinpointing competitors who are most likely to target the same traffic as you.
• Keyword Explorer: This tool helps you find and analyze keywords by comparing your domain to that of a competitor’s. The dashboard includes a diagram that pinpoints common and missing keywords, as well as a detailed list of keywords, along with their positions, search volume, and competition score. 
• Keyword Gap: This tool offers a list of your competitors’ most visible pages along with their top-ranking keywords. 
• Link Explorer: This tool offers a list of top-performing pages on a competitor’s domain, sorted by Page Authority. You can also sort the results by the number of referring domains to see which pages are linked to the most, or in other words, the most effective. 
• Link Research: This tool can be used to analyze your competitors’ backlink profiles. By comparing domain authority and spam scores, you can find high-quality referring domains worth targeting in your outreach campaign.
• Mozbar: This is a unique browser extension that allows users to either analyze their SERP competitors directly on the browser page or export the results to a CSV file. The spreadsheet includes a list of SERP competitors, along with information about their titles and descriptions, page authority, backlinks, and other metrics.

Pros

• Robust analytics and backlink data: Moz provides a wealth of keyword and backlink data to identify new opportunities to improve your SEO.
• Fast and accurate site analysis: Moz can quickly and accurately identify technical SEO issues on any website, providing you with valuable insights.
• Browser extension: Moz offers a helpful browser extension that provides metrics for a website’s domain authority and analyzes competitor’s on-page elements.

Cons

• Keyword data may be inaccurate: Moz’s keyword data is not as accurate as that of some other SEO tools.
• Lots of features are missing: Moz is missing some key features, such as a content optimization tool.
• Expensive considering the toolset: Moz is one of the most expensive SEO tools on the market.

Pricing

Some of Moz’s basic features are free to use. To get more data, you must purchase one of the following four pricing plans. 

Moz offers a 30-day free trial, so you can try out the platform before committing to a paid subscription. 

Verdict

Moz is a great tool for competitive research because of its comprehensive set of features and data. It can help you identify your competitors, analyze their keyword and backlink strategies, and track their progress over time. Moz offers similar capabilities to other top SEO solutions, but it has some flaws, including inaccurate keyword data and high pricing. Nevertheless, Moz is a solid standalone tool for competitive research and can be a great pick for your toolset.

8. SISTRIX

SISTRIX is a cloud-based SEO tool offering a comprehensive set of features for keyword research, competitor analysis, and website auditing. Businesses of all sizes use it to improve their SEO performance and get ahead of their competitors.

Competitive analysis features

SISTRIX is a powerful SEO tool that offers a wide range of competitive research features. It can help you identify who your organic competitors are, analyze their keyword strategies, assess their website performance, and analyze their backlink profiles.

Its Domain Overview tool allows you to thoroughly analyze any competitor’s SEO performance. You can use the tool to analyze the visibility of a domain, the number of organic and paid search keywords, number of backlinks and referring domains, and activities in social networks. You can analyze each keyword’s search intent to better understand which keywords the business uses at different stages of the buyer’s journey. 

The Domain Overview tool also provides a detailed overview of the domain, including its age, primary locations, and number of top 10 rankings. You can compare this data with your own domain’s data to identify areas for improvement. Additionally, the Domain Overview tool is useful for tracking changes in a domain’s search visibility over time, analyzing its top pages and paths, and identifying its key competitors.

SISTRIX also lets you compare your keyword lists to those of your competitors. It displays a diagram highlighting the number of common keywords and those that your competitor ranks for while you don’t. You can also access a detailed list of all keywords on both websites, which provides insights into which keywords are most frequently used on the competitor’s site. 

Other features

SISTRIX also features:

• SERP Competitor: This tool gives you the opportunity to identify websites ranking for the same keywords. It provides a chart that lists the top 100 domains, along with a visibility rating, competition score, and rankings comparison. 
• Links: This tool reveals the websites linking to your competitors, as well as the quality of those backlinks. 
• Content Discovery: This tool shows you which pages on your competitor’s websites are ranking well. It also reveals the content formats your competitors are using. 

Pros

• Comprehensive set of features: SISTRIX offers a wide range of tools for SEO research, competitor analysis, and website auditing.
• Easy-to-use interface: SISTRIX has a customizable, user-friendly interface that makes the tools you need easy to find and use. 
• Helpful support resources: SISTRIX offers a variety of support resources to help you learn more about SEO and how to use the SISTRIX tool more effectively.

Cons

• Can be slow at times: SISTRIX may experience occasional slowdowns, especially when processing large amounts of data.
• Data accuracy: The data in SISTRIX sometimes differs from data shown in other SEO tools, indicating that it’s not up-to-****.
• High pricing: SISTRIX is a relatively expensive SEO tool, especially considering the amount of features you get.
• Lack of integration with other SEO tools: SISTRIX does not integrate well with other SEO tools. 

Pricing

SISTRIX offers four different subscription plans:

You can also try its 7-day free trial before subscribing. 

Verdict

Overall, SISTRIX is a powerful SEO tool that can prove highly beneficial for businesses of all sizes. It offers a comprehensive set of features for keyword research, competitor analysis, website auditing, and backlink analysis. SISTRIX offers comprehensive data, and its user-friendly interface simplifies the process of finding and using the necessary tools. However, if you are on a tight budget or you are new to SEO, you may want to consider a more cost-effective and user-friendly alternative.

9. Similarweb

Similarweb is a digital intelligence platform that provides insights into websites, apps, and industries. It offers a wide range of competitive research features for identifying your organic competitors, analyzing their keyword strategies, assessing their website’s tech health, and analyzing their backlink profiles. 

Competitive analysis features

Similarweb is one of the most powerful competitive intelligence tools on the market. It provides accurate and fresh data on traffic across all marketing channels: direct, organic and paid search, referrals, email, social, and display. This gives you a comprehensive view of your site’s performance and how to use it to your advantage.

You can analyze your competitor’s performance on the Website Performance page. The tool will run a quick audit, presenting crucial data on metrics like traffic and its sources (organic, paid search, referrals, display, and social traffic), visit duration, bounce rate, audience geography and interests, top keywords, backlinks and referring domains, and social media traffic analysis.

To analyze competitor keywords, Similarweb’s Keyword Phrases report comes in handy. This report displays the search terms—both single keywords and groups of multiple keywords—that are driving search traffic to competitors’ websites. Data on this page allows you to identify keywords that your competitors are ranking for, but you are not. It also allows you to analyze the traffic trends for different keyword combinations, and compare your keyword performance to that of your competitors. 

Other features

Here are some other tools to help you in your research:

• Organic Competitors and Paid Competitors: These features help you identify websites competing with your site for organic and paid traffic. Both tools offer a visual snapshot of the top ten competitor sites, based on selected metrics such as total traffic, organic/paid traffic, shared Keywords, and search overlap score. 
• Keyword Gap: This tool compares the keywords driving traffic to your site with those of your competitors, revealing keywords you might be missing out on.
• Search Ads page: Here, you can discover and analyze the ads that are driving traffic to your competitors site. You can see the traffic performance of each search ad, understand their positioning on the SERP, and reveal the used keywords. 

Pros

• Comprehensive capabilities: Since Similarweb is a dedicated competitive research tool, it provides a comprehensive set of tools for competitive analysis, including traffic sources, audience demographics, and keyword strategies.
• Daily data updates: Similarweb’s data is updated daily to ensure accuracy and relevancy.
• Covers all marketing channels: Similarweb covers all marketing channels, including organic search, paid search, social media, etc.
• Easy-to-use design: Similarweb has a beautiful and user-friendly interface that makes it easy to find and interpret data.
• Free access to basic features: Similarweb offers a free plan with access to basic features.

Cons

• Some features are available in the paid plan only: You must buy a subscription plan to access some of Similarweb’s most powerful features.
• Some data is inaccurate: Similarweb’s data is generally accurate, but it is important to note that it is based on estimations. 

Pricing

Similarweb offers a free plan with access to basic features, such as website traffic overview, top keywords, and audience demographics. But for more advanced features, such as keyword research, competitor analysis, and custom reports, you will need to upgrade to a paid plan. This will open access to more detailed data: traffic and engagement, keywords, rankings, referring domains, channels, as well as the ability to create detailed reports. Similarweb offers four plans:

Also, you can get a discount for an annual subscription or enjoy a 7-day free trial with no credit card required.

Verdict

Similarweb is a powerful tool for competitive intelligence and market research. It offers a comprehensive set of features and a user-friendly interface. We recommend Similarweb for businesses of all sizes, especially if you’re looking for a tool to help you better understand your competitive landscape and make good marketing decisions. 

Also, its free account is limited to surface-level data,  but it can still be a great starting point for your research. And with premium features, Similarweb can become a formidable tool for competitive analysis.

How we ranked each competitor analysis tool

Most of the popular competitive research tools on this list (and the market in general) provide similar functionality, so we took a deep dive into each one’s key advantages and differences. When comparing them, we considered each tool’s basic essential features as well as extra functionalities. Here’s what we paid attention to:

• Capabilities: We considered a range of competitor analysis features offered by each tool, including traffic analysis, backlink analysis, domain score analysis, and keyword data. We also looked closely at the quality and accuracy of the data, as well as each tool’s ease of use.
• Additional features: We analyzed other useful capabilities for competitor analysis, such as content analysis and website health score. These features provide additional insights into competitor strategies and help in identifying new areas for performance improvement.
• Database size: We considered the size of the database used by each tool. This metric can affect the accuracy and comprehensiveness of the results. A large keyword or backlink database is generally better because it increases the likelihood of getting higher quality results from your research.
• Pricing: We considered the flexibility of each tool’s pricing policy. This includes monthly and annual subscriptions, limits, and availability of free trials. The value for money ratio offered by each tool is an important factor when selecting a suitable tool for SEO projects. 
• User reviews: We also read dozens of user reviews written about each tool to get a better overall sense of customer satisfaction. We pinpointed any problems, bugs or poor customer support issues with the potential to hinder user experience.

Conclusion

Competition is an essential part of any business, so it is important to have the right tools to help you stay ahead of the curve. Competitive research tools can help you to identify your competitors, understand their strategies, and track their performance. This information can be used to improve your own website and marketing efforts.

Selecting the right SEO tool for your project can be challenging, as some tools are better suited for certain tasks than others. To choose the one that is right for your needs, consider your budget, skill level, and specific needs that you need to cover. Once you have considered these factors, you can start narrowing down your choices. Here are a few of our top recommended competitive research tools:

Please note that there is no single best competitive research tool. The best way to find the right tool for you is to try them out and see which one you like best. That being said, the tools listed above are a good place to start your search.