3.2 – Analyzing Your Competitors Lesson

Lesson Overview

Analyzing your competitors gives you a real-world advantage in SEO. In this lesson, you’ll learn step-by-step methods to identify who your main online rivals are and evaluate what they’re doing to succeed. This process involves more than just looking them up—you’ll use ChatGPT to quickly pull together key data points like top-performing websites, their keyword targets, and their content strategies. Additionally, you’ll discover how to adjust your approach depending on whether you're competing locally, regionally, or within a specific industry subset.

This lesson is a central piece of the course, building on foundational skills and prepping you for targeted content improvements. Understanding competitors’ strengths and weaknesses removes guesswork from your own SEO strategy. For example, if you notice a competitor dominates with content aimed at “commercial roofing repair in the Midwest,” you can create resources to fill gaps or better match user intent.

The methodology here is practical for anyone aiming to improve website visibility and organic search performance. These skills help you prioritize updates, spot opportunities your rivals miss, and make decisions based on evidence rather than assumption.

Who This Is For

If you want to strengthen your website’s position in search results by learning from others, this lesson is designed for you. It’s especially useful for:

• Website owners seeking to outperform competitors in search
• Marketers looking to plan more effective SEO campaigns
• Content strategists wanting to spot content gaps and new keyword opportunities
• Small business operators targeting local or niche audiences
• Anyone curious about how leading websites succeed in their industry

Where This Fits in a Workflow

Competitor analysis isn’t a one-time activity—it’s a recurring, strategic part of ongoing SEO work. You’ll use this lesson when entering a new market, planning a content refresh, or noticing a competitor gaining ground in rankings. For example, before launching a campaign about “roofing repair for commercial buildings,” you might use ChatGPT prompts to identify the top sites already ranking, see what topics they cover, and what formats (like blogs or videos) they use.

Regularly reviewing what works for competitors supports informed publishing and lets you make focused improvements. It’s also valuable after algorithm updates or when you see traffic shifts—helping ensure your strategy stays current and effective.

Technical & Workflow Benefits

Traditionally, competitor analysis involved time-consuming manual research—scanning Google, copying data into spreadsheets, or piecing together insights from various SEO tools. Using ChatGPT and structured prompts condenses this effort. For example, you can generate a list of top industry rivals or analyze a competitor’s entire content strategy with a prompt, saving hours.

A key benefit of this approach is speed: quickly gather data on things like domain authority, primary keywords, and local SEO tactics. This lets you act promptly on new trends or market shifts. In practical terms, you’ll spend less time assembling research and more time implementing real improvements in your content and SEO plans.

You’ll also achieve more consistent analysis. By running the same prompt set across multiple competitors, you remove guesswork and get clear, apples-to-apples insights—leading to decision-making based on facts, not hunches.

Practice Exercise

To put these methods to use, pick an industry you’re interested in—such as “roofing repair”—and pick a region (e.g. “Midwest United States”).

1. Use ChatGPT with the prompt: “Identify the top five competitors in the roofing repair industry in the Midwest United States, and analyze their domain authority, search visibility, and SEO performance.”
2. Choose one competitor from the results and use the next prompt: “Analyze the content strategy of [competitor’s site], including content frequency, formats, and engagement metrics.”
3. Compare their approach to your own website or a website you’re familiar with.

Reflection: What is one thing this competitor does well that your site could start doing—or do better?

Course Context Recap

This lesson is a key step in the AI for SEO Content Creation course, building on your knowledge of keyword and topic selection. Previously, you learned how to find and define relevant searches; now, you’re looking outward to understand your niche’s competitive landscape. Up next, you’ll see how to repurpose and remix content to extend your reach even further. Continue exploring the course to deepen your SEO and content strategy skills, and get the most from AI-powered analysis.