Spying on your competitors is manageable nowadays. If you don’t know where to begin, I suggest using Semrush to do all the work for you. All you need to do is create an account and let the tools they provide give you extensive data to observe and process. 

Semrush has been a great help to me especially in terms of gathering valuable insights about SEO strategies and performance. For only $139.95 monthly, I was able to conduct competitor analysis, keyword research, website audit, backlink analysis, advertising tools, and more. 

Let me share with you 7 Semrush strategies to spy on competitors and stay ahead in your industry. By understanding what your competitors are doing, you can adjust your approach to be more competitive! 

Semrush Strategies to Spy on Competitors 

1. Analyze Your Competitors’ Organic Keywords 

Semrush is a powerful tool for competitive analysis. If you want, you can analyze your competitor’s organic keywords to see what’s driving traffic to their site and which keywords are working for them that you’re not. 

This approach helps you personalize your approach, differentiate yourself, and find new opportunities to outrank your opponents. 

Let’s say Adidas is your competitor. Here’s how:

Step 1: Log into Semrush and go to Organic Research under the Domain Analytics section.

Step 2: Enter your competitor’s website domain to view all organic keywords. 

In this section, you can uncover Adidas’ top keywords, most visited pages, primary subdomains, traffic volume, traffic expenses, additional insights, and more. Works like magic, right? 

Utilize this tool to identify areas where your page may be falling short. You can export the data to a PDF for thorough analysis. By knowing which keywords drive traffic to your competitor’s sites, you can target similar keywords to open a potential opportunity that’ll outperform them on certain terms.

Step 3: Filter results for keywords ranking in positions 11–20 and focus on optimizing related articles. 

Why filter for positions 11-20? It’s the range where you’re able to get a big boost in traffic if you can push them to the first page of Google.

The outcomes you achieve will offer long-lasting advantages and promote sustainable development, as you’ll discover popular subjects and emerging trends previously unknown to you. At My Codeless Website, we are grateful for this tool, as it allows us to leverage every word. 

2.  In-depth Overview of Your Competitor’s Traffic

Aside from analyzing organic keywords, you can use Semrush’s Traffic Analytics tool to see how much traffic your competitors are getting. 

You can identify prospects, spot flaws in their strategies, and refine your approach based on what’s working and not for them. 

Just log into your account, enter your competitor’s domain name (URL), and click “Analyze”. For example: 

According to the results, Adidas has 23.6M monthly visits which can indicate content relevance, and is doing well in search engine optimization. This number is an estimate of how many people visit the website through unpaid (organic) search results each month.  Overall, the high number of visits indicates strong consumer interest and demand for their products. Impressive data, if you ask me. 

3. Monitor Your Competitors’ Backlink Profile  

Backlinks are necessary for SEO rankings. With Semrush’s Backlink Analytics tool, you can see which websites are linking to your competitors. 

By knowing where your competitors are getting backlinks, you can identify websites in your industry or niche that could also be potential link-building sources for your own benefit. 

Here’s how: 

Step 1: Go to the Backlink Audit tool and start an audit for your competitor’s domain.

Let’s have Adidas again as an example.

Step 2: Identify articles with weak or broken backlinks.

The results have analyzed 1 million backlinks for Adidas. 

If you look closely, it is revealed that they have over 1.4K toxic backlinks that need fixing. Those types of links can harm your website’s SEO and overall online reputation. Even if Google doesn’t issue a penalty, its algorithms can still detect and reduce the overall quality score of your site. 

I suggest looking at where these toxic backlinks are coming from and focusing on building high-quality backlinks.  If possible, reach the webmasters of the sites with toxic backlinks and ask them if they could remove the links pointing to your site. Check your backlink profile’s health now and then with the help of Semrush.

4. Track Your Competitors’ Rankings with Position Tracking 

Use Semrush’s Position Tracking tool to have an up-to-date view of how your competitor’s SEO efforts are impacting its rankings.  You can then adjust your content to see what can be improved and which ones need attention.

Here’s how: 

Step 1: Log into your Semrush account. 

Step 2: Find the “Position Tracking” section. 

Step 3: Click on the “Create Project” button. 

Step 4: Enter your competitor’s domain and hit “Set up tracking”. 

Step 5: You’ll be asked to enter the keywords you want to track.  

You can enter multiple keywords or upload a list.

Step 6: Choose a location where you want to track your keywords.

After this step, Semrush will then begin tracking your keyword rankings over time.  You’ll be able to view how the rankings change over time with visual graphs.

5. Discover Your Competitor’s Content Gaps

Semrush’s Content Gap tool enables you to find missing keyword opportunities in your niche. You can input your website and your competitor for a much more thorough analysis. 

This approach enables you to improve and adjust your previous and current work for a better outcome. If you’re interested, here’s how: 

Step 1: Use the Content Gap tool to compare your content with competitors.

Step 2: Identify gaps where your articles are missing relevant keywords.

Click “Missing” to identify which keywords your competitors are ranking that you haven’t previously thought of. 

Step 3: Add these keywords to your articles naturally to fill the gap. 

Take the time to analyze thousands of potential keyword opportunities. Carefully pick the keywords that best align with your brand and make a plan with the collected data. 

Conclusion 

Spying on your competitor might seem like a bad thing to do, but it’s undeniably beneficial to possess better SEO outcomes. Semrush has various tools to help you stay ahead in today’s competitive digital landscape. Set yourself on the path to sustained growth and success as soon as you create an account. 

Click here for a free trial! I wish you the best in adjusting your approach based on these insights.