Competitor website analysis: what to check and how to use it

Competitor website analysis answers a specific business question: how to improve a service page, sharpen your offer or plan a catalogue. You compare offers, structure, the customer journey, content and search visibility, then turn the findings into a task list.

How do you choose competitors to analyse?

Start with the research question. Then choose companies with comparable products, regions and customers. A quick way is to search Google for the 5–10 main queries for your service and note the websites that keep appearing. Add the names your customers mention in meetings and emails.

Three to five companies are enough. A longer list blurs the conclusions and stretches the work.

What should the comparison include?

• Offer: what the service includes, terms, limitations and proof of experience.
• Structure: categories, search, filters, languages and links between pages.
• Customer journey: a clear next step, form fields, messengers, confirmation of the enquiry.
• Content: complete answers, current examples, FAQ, easy-to-find contacts.
• Technical: Core Web Vitals, mobile version, schema.org markup.

Record the URL, the date and a screenshot of anything debatable. Keep direct observations separate from guesses about why a company made a particular choice.

How do you assess competitors’ SEO and advertising?

Search visibility is assessed from Google results and tools such as Semrush or Ahrefs. Their traffic figures are estimates, so label them that way in the report. Competitors’ Google and Meta ads can be viewed in the Google Ads Transparency Center and the Meta Ad Library, including copy, formats and run dates.

Also check how AI assistants and Google AI Overviews describe your competitors. It shows which facts about each company have already made it into answers.

How should you treat the numbers?

A public page does not reveal sales, conversion rates or overall visitor behaviour. Label third-party figures as estimates. Check your own data in your own tools: Search Console shows queries, impressions and clicks for your property, and GA4 shows what visitors do on the site.

What mistakes are common in competitor analysis?

• judging design by taste with no link to the customer’s task;
• analysing national leaders when the real rivals are your neighbours in the results;
• copying another site’s structure wholesale, weak spots included;
• presenting tool estimates as exact data;
• ending the report with findings but no tasks or owners.

Good analysis is short. Two or three pages of findings and a task table are worth more than forty screenshots.

How do you apply the findings to your website?

Typical tasks after the analysis: put timing and terms on the first screen, add an FAQ that answers real customer questions, create separate pages for services and industries, cut the enquiry form down to a name and one contact, add Telegram and WhatsApp buttons. If the site is outdated as a whole, the findings become the brief for a redesign.

After the changes, compare results over 4–8 weeks: enquiries in GA4, impressions and clicks in Search Console, and the questions sales managers receive.

What belongs in the report?

For each finding, list the evidence, the proposed action and how success will be checked. For example: add delivery terms to the product card, then track enquiries on that topic. Prioritise changes connected to your customers and your team’s capacity.

End the report with a task list and owners. Use other companies’ design, copy and results for analysis, and build your own offer on what your business can really deliver. A handy framework for the conclusions is a SWOT analysis of a website based on competitors.

We carried out market and competitor analysis before prototyping, for example, for the beauty-industry mentor platform Global Creative Masters and the corporate website of the law firm StroyTenderConsult.

FAQ

How many competitors should you analyse?

Usually three to five companies with a similar product, region and customers. More only makes sense for a large catalogue or several markets.

Which tools do you need for competitor analysis?

Google search results, Search Console for your own site, Semrush or Ahrefs for visibility estimates, the Google Ads Transparency Center and Meta Ad Library for ads, and PageSpeed Insights for speed.

Can you find out a competitor’s sales from their website?

Only approximately. Public data and tools give traffic and visibility estimates, and they should be labelled as estimates.

How often should the analysis be repeated?

Before a redesign, a new service launch or an ad campaign. In an active market, a short quarterly update works well.

How is competitor analysis different from a marketing audit?

Competitor analysis compares other websites. A marketing audit reviews your channels, analytics, funnel and sales team alongside the market.

Related: Market and consumer analysis, Website redesign

Sources

• Search Console Help: Performance report