A Semrush Competitor Analysis Guide is only useful when it changes a decision.

Finding 20,000 competitor keywords is not a decision.

Exporting every backlink is not a strategy.

Watching a competitor’s estimated traffic rise is not the same as understanding why buyers choose them.

For B2B companies, the real purpose of competitor analysis is to identify where qualified demand exists, which competitors are capturing it, and what your team should do next.

That may mean:

• Creating a comparison page
• Strengthening a service page
• Entering a new paid-search auction
• Building authority around an important topic
• Improving how your company appears in AI-generated answers
• Using buyer signals to target companies showing active demand

This workflow is designed for B2B SaaS companies, technology businesses, agencies, IT service providers and consulting firms.

It combines traditional SEO competitor research with paid-search analysis, backlink intelligence, website traffic benchmarking and AI visibility.

It also addresses an increasingly expensive problem: using Semrush without a clear research plan.

Semrush capabilities are divided across different tools, toolkits and account limits. Depending on your subscription, an action may consume daily report requests, tracked-keyword capacity, AI queries or exports.

The practical lesson is simple:

Decide what you need to learn before running reports.

AEO and GEO summary

A Semrush Competitor Analysis Guide should help a B2B team identify who it competes with across organic search, paid search, backlinks, website traffic and AI-generated answers. The most efficient workflow starts with a clear ICP and business question, then uses Domain Overview, Organic Rankings, Keyword Gap, Backlink Gap, Advertising Research, Traffic & Market, AI Visibility and Position Tracking in a controlled sequence. Growleads recommends filtering opportunities by buyer relevance, commercial intent, evidence strength and pipeline potential before creating content or campaigns. This prevents teams from treating estimated traffic, keyword volume or backlink counts as business outcomes.

Quick comparison: Semrush reports that answer business questions

Business question	Recommended Semrush report	Useful output	Limit-saving practice
Who competes with us in search?	Organic Rankings: Competitors	Common keywords, competition level and estimated traffic	Start with one target database and remove irrelevant publishers
Which topics are competitors winning?	Organic Rankings: Pages and Positions	Ranking pages, keywords, positions and estimated traffic	Filter by intent, position and relevant website sections
Which keywords are we missing?	Keyword Gap	Missing, untapped and weak keywords	Compare only relevant competitor domains
Which websites may link to us?	Backlink Gap	Domains linking to competitors but not your website	Prioritise relevant sources before inspecting individual links
What paid demand are competitors targeting?	Advertising Research	Paid keywords, advertising messages and historical activity	Begin with high-value categories rather than the entire domain
How do competitors acquire website visits?	Traffic & Market	Channels, top pages and market position	Use only when broader traffic intelligence is required
Where do competitors appear in AI answers?	AI Visibility	Mentions, citations, prompt gaps and topic gaps	Create a focused set of commercial prompts first
Are priority rankings changing?	Position Tracking	Visibility, rankings and competitor movement	Track a curated keyword portfolio

Semrush Keyword Gap and Backlink Gap allow users to compare up to five domains. Its AI Visibility Toolkit can help teams analyse brand mentions, competing brands, relevant prompts and citation opportunities.

What is Semrush competitor analysis?

Semrush competitor analysis is a structured comparison of your company with other domains across areas such as:

• Organic keyword rankings
• Top-performing pages
• Search-result visibility
• Referring domains
• Backlinks
• Paid keywords
• Advertising messages
• Estimated website traffic
• Traffic acquisition channels
• AI mentions
• AI citations
• Prompt visibility
• Ranking changes over time

The important word is structured.

Opening a competitor’s report and browsing interesting numbers is competitor research. It is not yet a competitive analysis.

An analysis connects evidence to a commercial question.

For example:

Competitor A ranks for 1,400 more keywords than we do.

That is an observation.

Competitor A owns most category-level searches used by mid-market operations leaders, while our visibility is concentrated around low-intent educational terms.

That is an analysis.

We should create one category page, two use-case pages and one competitor-comparison page before expanding the blog.

That is a decision.

The purpose of using Semrush is not to produce more spreadsheets. It is to make more informed decisions about demand capture, market positioning and pipeline generation.

Why does competitor analysis matter in 2026?

Competition now happens beyond traditional Google results

A B2B buyer may encounter a company through:

• A conventional organic result
• A Google AI Overview
• Google AI Mode
• ChatGPT
• Perplexity
• Gemini
• Claude
• A comparison article
• A review platform
• LinkedIn content
• A paid search result
• A retargeting campaign
• A podcast
• A recommendation from a peer

This changes the scope of competitor analysis.

Traditional keyword rankings remain important, but they no longer describe the entire buyer journey.

A competitor can rank below you for a traditional keyword and still be more visible in AI-generated comparisons.

Another competitor may receive less organic traffic but dominate high-intent paid searches.

A third may have a smaller website but stronger third-party authority, making it more likely to be cited in recommendation-style answers.

The objective is not to collect every available metric. It is to identify the visibility gaps that affect buyer awareness, trust and consideration.

AI visibility depends on strong SEO foundations

Google states that established SEO fundamentals continue to apply to its generative AI search features.

Companies do not need a special AI schema or a separate collection of machine-readable AI files to be eligible. Content still needs to be accessible, crawlable, useful and clearly organised.

This means B2B companies should not create an isolated “GEO content factory.”

A stronger approach improves the same underlying signals that help buyers and search systems understand the company:

• Clear category positioning
• Defined products and services
• Specific use cases
• Original experience
• Consistent entity descriptions
• Evidence-backed claims
• Helpful internal links
• Credible comparisons
• Strong third-party references
• Accessible technical foundations

Competitor analysis shows which of these signals other companies have developed more effectively.

Semrush usage must be managed deliberately

People often use the word “credits” to describe all Semrush consumption.

In practice, the platform may apply different limits to:

• Daily report requests
• Report results
• Exports
• Tracked keywords
• Projects
• Websites
• Historical data
• AI-analysis queries
• Prompt research
• Prompt tracking
• User access

The AI Visibility Toolkit, for example, currently separates daily AI-analysis queries, Prompt Research queries, tracked prompts and exports. These product limits may change, so the account interface and current Semrush documentation should remain the final reference.

The safest operating principle is:

Do not run a report until you know which decision it will support.

How does Semrush competitor analysis work?

An effective workflow has four layers.

1. Buyer definition

Who are you trying to reach and influence?

2. Competitor selection

Which companies compete for that buyer, need, category, query or use case?

3. Evidence collection

What does Semrush show across organic search, paid search, backlinks, traffic and AI visibility?

4. Commercial prioritisation

Which gaps are relevant, attainable and connected to qualified pipeline?

Skipping the first layer is one of the main reasons competitor audits become bloated.

A B2B SaaS company selling compliance software to banks should not blindly copy a general cybersecurity publisher because both domains rank for “data compliance.”

Their audiences, buying cycles, authority models and commercial goals may be completely different.

Start with buyers.

Then choose competitors.

Then choose reports.

Step 1: Define the decision before opening Semrush

Write down the question the audit must answer.

Useful questions include:

• Which organic topics can support pipeline during the next two quarters?
• Why are competitors outranking our main service pages?
• Which competitors own searches used during vendor evaluation?
• Should we enter a new industry or geographic market?
• Which competitor claims are becoming category conventions?
• Where are competitors appearing in AI answers while we are absent?
• Which backlink sources influence both search authority and buyer trust?
• Are competitors relying on organic, paid or branded demand?
• Which pages should be updated, consolidated or created?
• Which search themes can support outbound or paid campaigns?

Avoid vague objectives such as:

• Understand the competition
• Find more keywords
• Improve SEO
• See what competitors are doing

These objectives are too broad to control the research.

Create a simple audit brief

Before running a report, record the following:

Field	Example
ICP	VP Operations at 200–2,000-employee manufacturers
Core problem	Limited visibility across factory production
Primary market	United States
Commercial category	Manufacturing execution system
Buying-stage focus	Vendor evaluation
Main decision	Which solution and comparison pages should be built?
Review period	Previous 12 months
Competitors	Three direct vendors and one aspirational brand

This short brief can prevent hours of unfocused research.

It also aligns the analysis with the principles of Demand Intelligence: deciding which buyer, message, channel and timing deserve investment before launching activity.

Step 2: Choose the right types of competitors

Most B2B companies have more than one competitive set.

Direct business competitors

These companies sell a similar solution to a similar ICP.

They are useful for studying:

• Positioning
• Product categories
• Service categories
• Commercial pages
• Proof
• Comparison content
• Paid acquisition
• AI recommendation visibility

Organic search competitors

These domains rank for the queries you want, even when they do not sell the same product.

They may include:

• Publishers
• Review websites
• Associations
• Large software platforms
• Consultants
• Marketplaces
• Educational websites
• Community forums

Study them to understand search intent and content expectations.

Do not automatically treat their entire keyword portfolio as commercially relevant.

A publisher may receive substantial traffic from broad educational searches while generating no comparable pipeline from your target accounts.

Paid-search competitors

These companies bid on the same high-intent searches.

They may reveal:

• Which categories justify advertising spend
• How competitors describe value
• Which pain points appear repeatedly
• Which proof points are emphasised
• Whether buyers are sent to a product, service, demo or comparison page
• Which terms show sustained commercial activity

AI-visibility competitors

These are brands that appear in the answers buyers receive from AI platforms.

They may not match your traditional search competitors.

An AI response to “B2B demand generation partners for SaaS” could include:

• Agencies
• Software platforms
• Review websites
• Analyst publications
• Specialist consultancies
• B2B media companies

Each entity contributes to the answer in a different way.

Aspirational competitors

These are more established companies whose authority system you want to understand.

Use them carefully.

Their domain history, brand demand, link profile and resources may be far beyond your current position.

The correct question is not:

How do we copy everything they do?

It is:

Which parts of their system can be adapted to our stage, buyers and resources?

Step 3: Establish a baseline with Domain Overview

Domain Overview gives you a directional snapshot of a domain.

Start with:

• Your own website
• Three direct competitors
• One organic or aspirational competitor

Use the same market database, device and date settings for every domain.

Useful baseline fields include:

• Organic keywords
• Estimated organic traffic
• Paid keywords
• Estimated paid traffic
• Referring domains
• Authority Score
• Organic visibility trends
• Paid visibility trends

What Domain Overview can tell you

It can help identify:

• Large visibility differences
• Sudden growth or decline
• Competitors with meaningful paid activity
• Domains with stronger referring-domain portfolios
• Companies worth investigating more deeply

What Domain Overview cannot tell you

It cannot prove:

• Revenue
• Conversion rates
• Lead quality
• Customer acquisition cost
• Sales efficiency
• Content quality
• Why a ranking changed
• Whether estimated traffic is commercially valuable

Treat Domain Overview as a map, not a verdict.

Do not conclude that one competitor has a better business simply because Semrush estimates more traffic.

A B2B company receiving 5,000 visits from high-intent decision-makers may create more pipeline than a publisher receiving 100,000 broad informational visits.

Step 4: Identify winning topics and pages

After building the baseline, inspect competitors’ organic positions and pages.

Review ranking positions

Apply filters before exporting:

• Target country
• Relevant subfolder
• Positions 1–20
• Commercial or transactional intent
• Relevant search volume
• Relevant keyword themes
• Excluded brand searches
• Excluded consumer queries
• Excluded job-seeker searches

For a cloud consulting company, a raw export might include:

• What is cloud computing?
• Cloud computing jobs
• Free cloud storage
• AWS migration partner
• Cloud migration consulting
• Azure cost optimisation services

Only the final three may be connected to qualified pipeline.

Volume alone does not make a keyword valuable.

Review ranking pages

Look for patterns across:

• Product pages
• Service pages
• Industry pages
• Use-case pages
• Comparison pages
• Alternative pages
• Templates
• Calculators
• Glossaries
• Research reports
• Case studies
• Integration pages

Ask what role each page plays in the buyer journey.

A competitor may not be winning because it publishes more blog posts.

It may be winning because it has a complete set of category, use-case, industry and comparison pages that match commercial intent more directly.

Review position changes

Use ranking changes to identify areas that deserve investigation.

A rise or decline may be related to:

• Page updates
• New internal links
• New backlinks
• Search-intent changes
• Competitor losses
• Search algorithm changes
• SERP feature changes
• Consolidation of overlapping pages
• Increased brand authority

The report shows where movement happened.

Manual review helps explain why it may have happened.

Step 5: Run a buyer-led Keyword Gap analysis

Keyword Gap compares your keyword portfolio with competing domains.

It can reveal:

• Missing keywords
• Untapped keywords
• Weak keywords
• Shared keywords
• Strong keywords

Semrush currently supports comparisons involving up to five domains.

This is often the most productive report in a Semrush competitor analysis, but only after the competitor set has been cleaned.

Pass 1: Commercial opportunities

Filter for terms with clear buying intent.

Common modifiers include:

• Software
• Platform
• Service
• Agency
• Consultant
• Provider
• Company
• Solution
• Tool
• Pricing
• Cost
• Demo
• Comparison
• Alternative
• Versus
• Implementation
• Outsourcing

For an IT services firm, examples may include:

• Managed security services provider
• SOC outsourcing company
• Microsoft Azure migration consultant
• Penetration testing services
• IT helpdesk outsourcing

Pass 2: Problem-aware opportunities

Find searches that describe a problem before the buyer has named the solution.

Examples include:

• Reduce software onboarding time
• Improve sales forecast accuracy
• Prevent production downtime
• Build enterprise pipeline
• Track multi-location inventory
• Improve customer retention reporting

These topics can support:

• Educational guides
• Diagnostic tools
• Checklists
• Problem-focused landing pages
• Paid campaign assets
• Sales enablement

Pass 3: Authority-building opportunities

Find topics that influence trust but may not generate immediate enquiries.

Examples include:

• Original research
• Frameworks
• Industry benchmarks
• Detailed definitions
• Implementation guides
• Compliance explanations
• Executive checklists
• Expert commentary

These topics can support backlinks, founder authority, sales conversations and AI citations.

Do not create one page for every exported keyword

Cluster related searches by:

• Search intent
• Buyer problem
• Expected answer
• SERP overlap
• Buying stage

A page about “B2B competitor analysis,” “competitor research for SaaS” and “how to analyse B2B competitors” may satisfy the same underlying intent.

Creating three near-identical pages can dilute quality and create internal competition.

The goal is not to publish the most URLs.

The goal is to build the clearest and most useful information architecture.

Step 6: Inspect the live search results

Semrush helps narrow the field.

The live search results provide context.

For each priority keyword, review:

• Search-result formats
• Ranking page types
• Titles and descriptions
• AI Overview presence
• Forums or community results
• Videos
• Images
• Review platforms
• Comparison pages
• Featured entities
• Content freshness
• Informational versus commercial intent

Ask six questions:

1. What is Google interpreting as the dominant intent?
2. Which page format appears most often?
3. Which sources are being cited?
4. What information do leading pages contain?
5. What useful information is missing?
6. Can your company add credible first-hand expertise?

A Keyword Gap report can show an opportunity.

It cannot guarantee that your preferred page format matches the result page.

Step 7: Use Backlink Gap to find authority patterns

Backlink Gap compares the referring domains linking to competing websites.

It can identify sources that link to competitors but not to your company. Semrush supports comparisons among up to five competing websites in this report.

The common mistake is exporting every available domain and calling it an outreach list.

A useful backlink opportunity should pass several checks:

• Is the source relevant to the subject?
• Is the source relevant to the buyer?
• Does it appear to have editorial standards?
• Does it link to genuinely useful resources?
• Does the linked competitor page resemble something you could credibly create?
• Would the mention improve buyer trust?
• Is the source influential within the target industry or geography?
• Is the link still live?
• Is the link contextually placed?

Classify the source before contacting it

Useful source categories include:

• Industry publications
• Associations
• Technology partners
• Integration partners
• Customer websites
• Review platforms
• Research citations
• Podcasts
• Event websites
• Resource pages
• Universities
• News publications
• Specialist blogs

Then inspect what earned the competitor link.

Was it:

• Original data?
• A useful template?
• A free tool?
• A strong definition?
• A case study?
• An expert quote?
• A partnership?
• A newsworthy announcement?
• A product integration?
• An industry benchmark?

This tells you what asset, expertise or relationship may be required.

A referring domain is not automatically an outreach target.

It is evidence about how authority is being built.

Step 8: Review paid-search competitors

Advertising Research can reveal:

• Competitor paid keywords
• Advertising messages
• Landing pages
• Historical patterns
• Geographic activity
• Category themes

For B2B companies, look for consistency rather than isolated appearances.

A competitor bidding on a term during one period may have been testing it.

A competitor appearing repeatedly around the same category may indicate that the search is strategically important.

It still does not prove profitability.

Review:

• Recurring paid keywords
• Commercial themes
• Advertising headlines
• Value propositions
• Calls to action
• Landing-page formats
• Geographic differences
• Category versus competitor terms
• Evidence used in ads
• Offer formats

Common offer formats include:

• Demo
• Trial
• Assessment
• Audit
• Consultation
• Report
• Calculator
• Implementation plan

Use paid data beyond paid advertising

Paid-search research can inform:

• Service-page messaging
• Comparison pages
• Sales enablement
• Cold email campaigns
• LinkedIn advertising
• Objection handling
• Offer development
• Landing-page strategy
• Outbound messaging

Suppose several competitors repeatedly advertise around “SOC 2 compliance automation.”

That does not mean you should copy their wording.

It suggests a commercially relevant category worth investigating across:

• Paid search
• Organic content
• AI visibility
• Account targeting
• Sales conversations
• LinkedIn content

Step 9: Use traffic intelligence selectively

Broader traffic intelligence can help you understand:

• Relative market traffic
• Acquisition channels
• Geographic distribution
• Audience journeys
• Fast-growing competitors
• Top website sections
• Dependence on direct, referral, search, social or paid traffic

Do not open another report simply because it is available.

For a narrow SEO content decision, Organic Rankings and Keyword Gap may provide enough evidence.

Traffic intelligence becomes more useful when the business question concerns:

• Overall market presence
• Channel diversification
• Market entry
• Geographic growth
• Audience overlap
• Competitor momentum

Interpret channel data carefully

High direct traffic may be connected to:

• Brand recognition
• Existing customers
• Bookmarks
• Customer logins
• Unclassified visits

High paid traffic may reflect:

• Aggressive acquisition
• A temporary campaign
• A funded market-entry initiative
• A business model that supports significant media investment

High organic traffic may come from:

• Commercial pages
• Broad educational content
• Glossary pages
• Free tools
• Consumer searches
• Job-related searches

Use third-party data to form hypotheses.

Validate those hypotheses through first-party analytics, CRM information, sales feedback and direct page review.

Step 10: Add AI-visibility competitor analysis

Semrush’s AI Visibility Toolkit helps teams research:

• Brand mentions
• Competitor mentions
• Brand perception
• Citation sources
• Relevant topics
• Buyer prompts
• Visibility gaps
• Prompt performance

The toolkit includes Competitor Research, Prompt Research and Prompt Tracking capabilities.

Start with commercial prompts

Do not begin by tracking hundreds of minor prompt variations.

Create an initial set around real buyer decisions.

Prompt examples for B2B SaaS

• Best workflow automation software for mid-market companies
• Compare enterprise contract-management platforms
• Which revenue intelligence software supports Salesforce?
• Alternatives to an established category leader
• How should a company choose a sales forecasting platform?

Prompt examples for agencies and consultancies

• B2B lead generation partners for SaaS
• Demand generation agency for enterprise technology
• Outbound agencies for UK software companies
• GEO and AEO services for B2B companies
• GTM consulting firms for early-stage SaaS

Prompt examples for IT service providers

• Managed cloud service providers for healthcare
• AWS migration consultants for mid-sized companies
• Cybersecurity providers for financial services
• IT outsourcing partners for European manufacturers

Then investigate:

• Which competitors are mentioned?
• Which competitors are cited?
• Which third-party pages influence the answers?
• What attributes are associated with each company?
• Which category questions omit your company?
• Are your existing pages suitable supporting sources?
• Are competitors supported by reviews, research or owned content?

Teams that need help building source-worthy content and improving brand visibility across AI search can explore Growleads’ GEO and AEO services.

Validate AI visibility using multiple sources

AI responses can vary by:

• Platform
• Model
• Prompt wording
• Location
• Account context
• Personalisation
• Date
• Available web sources

Treat an AI visibility platform as a monitoring and research layer, not an absolute record of what every buyer sees.

Use multiple forms of evidence:

• Semrush AI Visibility
• Manual prompt testing
• Google Search Console
• AI referral traffic
• CRM source data
• Sales-call feedback
• Branded-search trends
• Third-party citation growth

Google introduced dedicated Search Console views for impressions in generative AI features in June 2026. Availability and reporting detail may depend on the Search Console property.

Step 11: Create a focused tracking campaign

Position Tracking should monitor a deliberately selected keyword portfolio.

Do not add every exported keyword.

Create groups such as:

• Category terms
• Product or service terms
• Use-case terms
• Industry terms
• Problem-aware terms
• Comparison terms
• Competitor-alternative terms
• High-value informational terms
• Brand terms

Tag each group so that performance can be reviewed by commercial purpose.

Track business context with rankings

For every priority keyword, record:

• Target page
• ICP relevance
• Buying stage
• Primary conversion
• Current position
• Leading competitors
• Content owner
• Last meaningful update
• Qualified enquiries influenced
• Next review date

The goal is not to celebrate movement from position 42 to position 28.

The goal is to understand whether visibility is improving for searches that matter to qualified pipeline.

A practical 75-minute Semrush competitor analysis workflow

Stage	Time	Main output
Define ICP, market and decision	5 minutes	One-page audit brief
Select competitor groups	5 minutes	Direct, search, paid and AI competitors
Run Domain Overview	5 minutes	Directional baseline
Review organic rankings	15 minutes	Winning pages, themes and keyword groups
Run Keyword Gap	15 minutes	Prioritised content opportunities
Review Backlink Gap	10 minutes	Authority patterns and source categories
Review paid search	5 minutes	Commercial themes and messages
Review AI visibility	10 minutes	Missing prompts, topics and sources
Define tracking and actions	5 minutes	Owners, KPIs and review dates

Broader traffic intelligence can be added when the business question requires market or channel analysis.

How to save Semrush credits, requests and exports

1. Use one approved competitor set

Do not use a different group in every report unless the question requires it.

Maintain a master table showing:

• Domain
• Competitor type
• Primary market
• ICP overlap
• Product or service overlap
• Reason for inclusion

This prevents researchers from repeatedly rediscovering the same competitors.

2. Set the market database first

A UK competitor analysis performed in a US database can produce misleading priorities.

Record:

• Country
• Device
• Language
• Date range
• Domain, subdomain or subfolder scope

Keep these settings consistent.

3. Filter before exporting

Do not export 50,000 rows when 300 filtered rows answer the question.

Apply filters for:

• Intent
• Position
• Search volume
• Keyword inclusion
• Keyword exclusion
• URL folder
• Domain relevance
• Link type
• Geography
• Date

Then export the evidence you plan to use.

4. Export once and continue offline

Create a structured spreadsheet or database with tabs for:

• Baselines
• Competitors
• Keyword gaps
• Ranking pages
• Backlinks
• Paid themes
• AI prompts
• Decisions
• Actions

Clean, tag and score the data outside Semrush instead of reopening the same report repeatedly.

5. Save dated snapshots

Use clear filenames such as:

keyword-gap-us-2026-07-30.csv

A dated evidence library prevents repeated runs and creates a historical record.

6. Separate exploration from monitoring

Use research reports to discover opportunities.

Use Position Tracking and Prompt Tracking to monitor selected priorities.

Do not rerun a full audit every week to check whether something changed.

7. Use first-party data for your own performance

Use Semrush to estimate competitor activity.

Use Google Search Console, analytics and CRM data to evaluate your own:

• Impressions
• Clicks
• Engagement
• Leads
• Qualified meetings
• Opportunities
• Pipeline
• Revenue influence

8. Give every report an owner

Before running a report, specify:

• Who requested it?
• Which decision will it support?
• Who will review the output?
• What action may follow?
• When will the decision be made?

Data without ownership becomes a recurring cost.

The 12 competitor metrics B2B teams should use

1. Relevant keyword coverage

How many queries connected to your ICP, problems, category and use cases does each domain rank for?

This is more useful than total keyword count.

2. Top-three and top-ten coverage

Which competitors hold the positions most likely to influence discovery?

Segment this by keyword group instead of relying on one sitewide number.

3. Commercial-intent visibility

Which domains rank for searches containing:

• Software
• Service
• Agency
• Provider
• Pricing
• Comparison
• Alternatives
• Consultant
• Implementation

4. Page-type coverage

Does the competitor have pages for every major:

• Service
• Product
• Industry
• Integration
• Use case
• Comparison
• Buyer problem

This frequently reveals structural gaps that blog-only strategies miss.

5. Organic visibility trend

Is the competitor’s visibility rising, falling or stable?

Use trends to select areas for investigation, not to declare business success or failure.

6. Paid-keyword continuity

Which high-intent terms appear repeatedly in the competitor’s paid strategy?

Persistent activity can indicate strategic importance, but it does not prove positive returns.

7. Relevant referring domains

How many credible and industry-relevant domains link to the competitor?

Quality, relevance and context matter more than raw backlink volume.

8. Link intersect

Which sources mention several competitors but not your company?

These sources may already understand the category and its buyers.

9. Content concentration

Which topics, page formats or website sections account for a meaningful share of visibility?

This helps distinguish a repeatable system from one unusually successful page.

10. AI mention coverage

How often is the company included in relevant AI answers?

Evaluate mentions by topic and use case rather than relying on one blended score.

11. AI citation coverage

Which owned and third-party pages are cited in AI-generated answers?

Citation analysis helps reveal the evidence ecosystem behind a company.

12. Pipeline relevance

Which opportunities can influence qualified meetings, opportunities or revenue?

This metric prevents competitor analysis from becoming an SEO-only exercise.

A practical B2B opportunity-scoring framework

Score each opportunity from zero to five across five dimensions.

Dimension	Question
Buyer relevance	Does this matter to the ICP?
Commercial intent	Is the buyer researching a problem, solution or vendor?
Evidence strength	Do several credible sources support the opportunity?
Attainability	Can the company produce a credible resource?
Cross-channel value	Can it support SEO, AI visibility, paid media, sales or outbound?

A high-scoring opportunity may be:

Create a detailed manufacturing execution system implementation guide supported by delivery experience, a timeline framework, an expert checklist and relevant service pages.

A low-scoring opportunity may be:

Publish a generic definition of artificial intelligence because a large competitor receives traffic from it.

The framework is directional.

Do not pretend the difference between a score of 21 and 22 is mathematically precise.

Use scoring to improve discussion and prioritisation.

Turn competitor data into a B2B content plan

Every selected opportunity should map to a clear page role.

Category pages

These define what the company sells.

Examples include:

• Revenue intelligence platform
• Managed cybersecurity services
• B2B Demand Intelligence
• Cloud migration consulting

Use-case pages

These connect the solution to a specific outcome.

Examples include:

• Automate sales forecasting
• Reduce manufacturing downtime
• Build pipeline in a new market
• Improve SOC 2 readiness

Industry pages

These demonstrate relevance to a buyer environment.

Examples include:

• Cybersecurity for financial services
• ERP consulting for manufacturers
• Demand generation for B2B SaaS
• Cloud services for healthcare

Comparison and alternative pages

These help buyers evaluate options.

Useful formats include:

• Product A versus Product B
• Alternatives to Product A
• How to choose a provider
• In-house versus outsourced
• Platform versus managed service
• Vendor evaluation checklist

These pages should remain factual, fair and useful.

Do not invent competitor weaknesses or present subjective opinions as verified facts.

Authority resources

These create information worth referencing.

Examples include:

• Original research
• Benchmarks
• Calculators
• Templates
• Frameworks
• Technical studies
• Expert interviews
• Implementation checklists

Authority resources can support:

• Backlinks
• AI citations
• Organic visibility
• Sales enablement
• Founder authority
• Outbound campaigns

For B2B companies whose category depends heavily on executive credibility, LinkedIn Authority can connect founder expertise with broader demand and pipeline activity.

Turn competitor analysis into Demand Intelligence

Competitor research becomes more commercially useful when it is combined with buyer signals.

Suppose Semrush shows that several competitors rank and advertise around “sales territory planning software.”

That tells you the category has visible search demand.

Demand Intelligence adds another set of questions:

• Which companies are expanding their sales teams?
• Which have appointed a new CRO?
• Which have entered new markets?
• Which are changing CRM or planning systems?
• Which buyers are engaging with relevant content?
• Which accounts are revisiting pricing or comparison pages?
• Which job descriptions reveal an operational problem?
• Which businesses have received funding?
• Which companies are expanding into new regions?

Search data identifies where market demand exists.

Buyer signals help identify where that demand may be active.

This is the difference between building a keyword list and building a qualified pipeline system.

Companies that want to activate buyer signals through targeted prospecting can explore Outbound Intelligence.

Example: B2B SaaS competitor analysis

Imagine a SaaS company selling contract-management software.

A useful competitor analysis may reveal:

• Direct competitors dominate category searches.
• Review platforms control many “best” and comparison terms.
• Competitor integration pages attract high-intent traffic.
• Several competitors advertise around “contract approval workflow.”
• AI answers cite software roundups and procurement publications.
• The company has strong educational content but weak commercial pages.

The resulting plan could include:

1. Rebuild the primary category page around the ICP.
2. Create pages for legal, procurement and sales operations.
3. Build integration pages for frequently requested systems.
4. Publish a neutral contract-management evaluation framework.
5. Improve presence on credible third-party comparison websites.
6. Track a focused set of commercial AI prompts.
7. Use organisational and intent signals to identify accounts for outbound.
8. Build founder content around procurement and contracting decisions.
9. Test paid-search demand around high-intent workflow problems.

The output is not “publish more content.”

It is a coordinated demand-capture and pipeline-generation plan.

Example: IT services competitor analysis

Consider an IT consultancy offering cloud migration.

The research may show:

• Large cloud platforms dominate informational searches.
• Specialist consultancies rank for industry-specific migration terms.
• Competitors use assessment offers in paid search.
• Strong backlinks come from partnerships and technical case studies.
• AI answers favour providers with clear certifications, industries and implementation evidence.

The plan may prioritise:

• AWS and Azure migration service pages
• Financial-services and manufacturing use cases
• A migration-readiness assessment
• Technical case studies
• Partner-directory visibility
• A detailed migration checklist
• Paid search for high-intent assessment terms
• Outreach to companies showing cloud hiring or infrastructure-change signals
• Founder content explaining common migration risks

Again, the competitor analysis informs a complete GTM decision rather than an isolated SEO calendar.

What should B2B companies look for in a competitor-analysis partner?

Look for a partner that connects research with execution.

Important criteria include:

• Clear ICP definition
• Buyer-signal research
• SEO and AI-search expertise
• Commercial keyword prioritisation
• Content and landing-page strategy
• Paid-search understanding
• Authority and backlink strategy
• Founder or executive authority
• Outbound activation
• Measurement through qualified meetings and pipeline
• Transparent assumptions
• Documented processes
• Honest discussion of what the data cannot prove

Avoid choosing a partner based only on:

• The number of exported keywords
• The length of the audit
• The volume of proposed blog posts
• A large dashboard
• Unsupported traffic forecasts

A useful analysis should clarify:

• Where demand exists
• Which buyers matter
• Which competitors influence them
• Which channels should be activated
• What should be created
• What should be measured
• Who owns the next action

How Growleads approaches competitor intelligence

Growleads is a B2B Demand Intelligence partner rather than a traditional lead-volume provider.

The work starts with the buyer:

• ICP
• Buying behaviour
• Buyer signals
• Market opportunities
• Decision criteria
• Commercial intent
• Pipeline potential

Competitor and search intelligence can then inform a broader system combining:

• Outbound Intelligence
• Inbound Intelligence
• LinkedIn Authority
• GEO and AEO
• Google Ads
• LinkedIn Ads
• Cold email
• LinkedIn outreach
• GTM consulting
• AI automations
• GTM agents

This matters because competitor data rarely belongs to one channel.

A commercially valuable keyword gap can become:

• An SEO page
• An AI-answer resource
• A Google Ads campaign
• A LinkedIn thought-leadership topic
• A cold-email angle
• A sales discovery question
• An account-scoring signal

Growleads focuses on qualified meetings, pipeline and revenue influence rather than treating rankings, traffic or lead volume as the final outcome.

Its model connects outbound, inbound, authority and GTM systems through one shared buyer-intelligence layer. Teams can review the complete model on the Growleads services page.

This approach may suit B2B teams that already have useful data but need help turning it into coordinated action.

Which competitor-analysis option is best for different use cases?

Option	Best suited for	Main strength	Important distinction
Semrush	Teams that want SEO, paid-search, backlink and AI visibility research	Broad competitive research ecosystem	Features and limits are divided across tools and toolkits
Ahrefs	SEO teams focused on organic competitors, content gaps and backlinks	Search and link research	Often selected for SEO-focused workflows
Similarweb	Strategy teams studying traffic, channels and audience behaviour	Digital market intelligence	Useful for broader market and channel benchmarking
SpyFu	Teams concentrating on competitor SEO and Google Ads activity	PPC and SEO keyword research	Often considered for paid-search investigation
Search Console and analytics	Companies validating their own performance	First-party website data	Do not provide equivalent competitor analytics
Growleads	B2B teams that need research translated into GTM execution	Buyer-led Demand Intelligence and pipeline activation	A strategic service partner rather than a software platform

The right option depends on the decision.

A company does not need every tool.

It needs enough reliable evidence to make a better GTM choice.

Common Semrush competitor-analysis mistakes

Mistake 1: Choosing competitors by familiarity

The companies named by the sales team may not be the domains competing in organic search, paid search or AI answers.

Use separate competitor groups.

Mistake 2: Treating estimated traffic as actual traffic

Third-party traffic values are estimates.

Use them for directional comparison.

Do not present them as verified sessions, leads, customers or revenue.

Mistake 3: Copying every competitor keyword

Competitors may rank for:

• Irrelevant searches
• Outdated content
• Consumer queries
• Recruitment queries
• Accidental topics
• Low-value informational terms

Filter every keyword through the ICP and buyer journey.

Mistake 4: Prioritising only search volume

Low-volume B2B queries can carry substantial commercial value.

A search used by ten enterprise buyers may matter more than one used by thousands of students or consumers.

Mistake 5: Exporting before filtering

Large exports consume limits, create cleaning work and make prioritisation harder.

Filter first.

Mistake 6: Treating Backlink Gap as an outreach list

Investigate relevance, editorial quality and the reason the competitor earned the mention.

Mistake 7: Copying competitor content

A competitor’s page shows what already exists.

Your content still needs:

• Original expertise
• Better evidence
• Clearer organisation
• A more useful framework
• Stronger examples
• First-hand experience

Mistake 8: Ignoring AI visibility

Buyers increasingly use generative systems for research and comparison.

Your audit should consider the prompts, entities, sources and brand attributes shaping those answers.

Mistake 9: Treating AI visibility as an isolated channel

AI visibility depends on:

• Useful content
• Clear company entities
• Technical access
• Third-party authority
• Consistent positioning
• Strong internal linking
• Clear evidence

It should work alongside SEO, authority and demand-generation activity.

Mistake 10: Stopping at the report

Every finding needs:

• A decision
• An owner
• A deadline
• A business KPI
• A review date

Without these, competitor analysis becomes a presentation rather than a growth system.

Final competitor-analysis template

For every proposed action, complete the following fields:

Field	Required answer
Opportunity	What gap did we identify?
Buyer	Which ICP or buying role does it affect?
Evidence	Which reports, pages or prompts support it?
Interpretation	Why does the evidence matter?
Proposed action	What should be built, changed or tested?
Channel	SEO, GEO/AEO, paid, outbound, LinkedIn or multiple
Owner	Who is accountable?
KPI	What will indicate progress?
Pipeline connection	How could it influence qualified demand?
Review date	When will the decision be reassessed?

Final takeaway

Semrush can show where competitors rank, advertise, earn backlinks, attract estimated traffic and appear in AI-generated answers.

It cannot decide which opportunities fit your market.

That requires an understanding of:

• Your ICP
• Buyer signals
• Positioning
• Sales cycle
• Commercial intent
• Authority
• Resources
• Economics

The strongest Semrush competitor analysis therefore does three things:

1. Collects only the evidence needed for a defined decision.
2. Filters every opportunity through buyer and pipeline relevance.
3. Converts findings into owned actions across content, authority, paid media, outbound and GTM.

If your team wants more than a larger keyword export, Growleads can help turn competitor intelligence into a buyer-signal-led pipeline system across outbound, inbound, authority and AI search visibility.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best way to start a Semrush competitor analysis?

Start by defining your ICP, target market and the decision the analysis must support. Then select three direct competitors, one organic-search competitor and, where relevant, an AI-visibility competitor. Run a directional Domain Overview before opening detailed reports. This sequence prevents irrelevant domains and keywords from consuming time, requests and exports.

Which Semrush tools are best for competitor analysis?

The most useful tools include Domain Overview, Organic Rankings, Keyword Gap, Backlink Gap, Advertising Research, Traffic & Market, AI Visibility and Position Tracking. The correct combination depends on the question. An SEO content audit may not require broad traffic intelligence, while a market-entry project may require traffic channels, geographic data, paid-search activity and AI visibility.

How many competitors can I compare in Semrush?

Semrush Keyword Gap and Backlink Gap support comparisons involving up to five domains. Other Semrush tools have their own limits and plan requirements. Check the limits displayed in your account before running a large audit, especially when working with several markets, locations or AI prompt sets.

How can I save Semrush credits during competitor research?

Define the business question first, use one approved competitor set, select the correct market database and filter results before exporting. Save dated exports and complete tagging or scoring offline. Use research reports for initial discovery and tracking tools for ongoing monitoring. This reduces repeated searches and prevents teams from consuming limits on data that will not influence a decision.

How often should a B2B company run competitor analysis?

Run a complete strategic analysis when the company changes market, positioning, product, ICP or GTM priorities. For a stable programme, a quarterly or twice-yearly review may be sufficient. Priority rankings, advertising activity and AI prompts can be monitored more frequently. The right schedule depends on how quickly the market changes and whether the findings can produce action.

Is Semrush competitor traffic accurate?

Semrush traffic numbers are estimates rather than access to a competitor’s private analytics. They are useful for directional comparisons, trend analysis and identifying domains or channels worth investigating. Use Search Console, analytics and CRM data as the primary evidence for your own performance. Do not present competitor traffic estimates as verified leads, customers, pipeline or revenue.

Can Semrush analyse competitors in ChatGPT and other AI platforms?

Semrush’s AI Visibility Toolkit can help monitor brand mentions, competitor visibility, citations, prompts and topics across supported AI search experiences. AI outputs vary by platform, prompt, location and time, so combine Semrush data with manual testing, AI referral analytics, third-party citation analysis and sales feedback.

Is Semrush or Ahrefs better for competitor analysis?

Semrush may be better suited to teams that want organic search, paid-search, traffic and AI visibility capabilities in one broader ecosystem. Ahrefs is often considered by teams focused heavily on organic search, content gaps and backlink research. The better choice depends on your workflow, reporting needs, markets and current technology stack.

How does Growleads use competitor intelligence?

Growleads connects competitor evidence with ICP research, buyer signals and GTM decisions. A search or AI-visibility gap may inform content, paid campaigns, LinkedIn authority, cold email, outbound targeting or sales enablement. The objective is not to reproduce a competitor’s campaign. It is to build a differentiated demand system that supports qualified meetings and pipeline.

Can competitor analysis improve B2B outbound campaigns?

Yes. Competitor analysis can reveal the categories buyers understand, the claims they encounter, the alternatives they consider and the resources they use during evaluation. Growleads combines this information with buyer signals such as funding, hiring, leadership changes, expansion and technology changes. This creates more relevant targeting and messaging than relying on broad firmographic lists alone.

Does FAQ schema guarantee visibility in AI Overviews?

No. Structured data can help search systems understand page content, but it does not guarantee a rich result, ranking or AI citation. Google states that no special AI schema is required for its generative search features. Add structured data only when it accurately represents content visible on the page.

What is the difference between competitor analysis and Demand Intelligence?

Competitor analysis examines how other companies gain visibility, communicate value and influence buyers. Demand Intelligence connects that evidence with ICP data, buyer behaviour, buying signals and market opportunities. The result is more actionable because it links competitor activity to accounts, messages, channels, qualified meetings, pipeline and revenue influence.

Consultative CTA

Competitor analysis should make the next GTM decision clearer.

It should show which buyers matter, where demand exists, which competitors influence those buyers and what your team should do next.

For companies that need help connecting these insights across search, AI visibility, authority and pipeline generation, Growleads’ GTM consulting can help define the strategy and operating system.

Where repetitive research, enrichment and account-scoring work is slowing execution, Growleads also provides AI automations and GTM agents designed for B2B revenue workflows.