Diagnosis
SEO competitor analysis: how to find who takes your traffic, and why
Ilyes Massoudi6 min readThe short answer
Your SEO competitor is whoever appears above you when your customer searches, not whoever resembles you in the market, and it may be a marketplace, a blog or a shop you never counted. Competitor analysis starts by picking three of them from the actual search results for your most important queries in your country, then comparing on what can be measured: the queries they appear for and you do not, the number and type of pages, external links and their sources, presence on the map and in AI answers. The output is not 'they are stronger' but a list of specific gaps, each with a known way to close it.
The competitor you do not know
Ask any business owner about their competitors and they name the companies they meet in tenders or in the market. Then search their most important queries on Google, and page one shows other names: an intermediary platform, a blog writing about the sector, a store on another platform, and a site in Egypt writing for the Saudi market remotely.
Those are your SEO competitors, because they take the visits you want, whether you consider them competitors or not. Their analysis starts there: from the actual search results, not from your mental list.
Step one: pick the three
Take your ten most important queries, in Arabic and English, and search them in a private window with your country set. Record who appears in the top five positions for each query. The names that recur are your competitors.
Pick three of them deliberately:
- The similar one ahead of you: like you in size and type, appearing above you. The most useful, because what they do is possible for you.
- The large dominant one: a platform or big company taking the generic queries. You will not compete with them on those, but they teach you which queries to leave.
- The small surprise: a site smaller than you appearing for a specific query you do not. It exposes a specific gap you can close with one page.
Step two: compare on what can be measured
A general comparison of the “their site is stronger” kind produces no decision. The decision comes from a table with five rows:
| Dimension | What you measure | Where from |
|---|---|---|
| Queries | Queries they appear for in your country and you do not, with volumes | A paid tool, or manual searching of your queries |
| Pages | How many pages they have per service, and of what type: service, city, question, comparison | Browsing their site and its sitemap |
| Links | Who links to them: press, directories, partners, or suspicious networks | A paid tool, or your own Links report for comparison |
| Local presence | Reviews, their count, recency and the category | Google Maps |
| AI answers | Who is mentioned when asked about your category in Arabic and English | Ask yourself and record |
The first row hands you a ready list of queries to write for. The second explains why they appear: usually because they own a page for the city or the question that you answer in one paragraph inside a generic page.
Step three: read their pages as a customer
Open the page they rank with on your phone and ask: does it answer on the first screen? Does it state a price? Does it name the city? Is its Arabic written or translated? Is the WhatsApp button visible?
The reason they rank is often embarrassingly simple: a page that names Riyadh in its title while you write “in the Kingdom”. Or an FAQ page in the customer’s phrasing while you write a brochure.
Step four: turn the gaps into a list
The correct output of competitor analysis is not a report about them but a list about you:
- Queries they appear for and you do not, ordered by volume in your country and closeness to purchase.
- Page types they have and you lack: cities, questions, comparisons, prices.
- Real link sources that linked to them and could link to you: sector directories, local press, professional bodies.
- The local visibility gap: review count and recency compared with yours.
- The AI gap: the questions where they are mentioned and you are not.
Every item closes with a specific piece of work: a page, a review request, or a message to a sector directory.
What not to do with the result
- Do not copy their pages. Google knows the original, and the reader knows you were not first.
- Do not buy the links they buy. Learn only from their queries and pages.
- Do not target the dominant player’s queries. Leave “real estate company in Dubai” to them and take “apartments for rent in Jumeirah on an annual contract”.
- Do not repeat the analysis monthly. Once a quarter is enough; competitors do not change weekly.
How this runs in the audit
In the Digital Presence Audit you choose three competitors, or I help identify them from the actual search results, and I compare you channel by channel on a measurable basis: queries, pages, links, local presence and AI answers, in Arabic and English. The output is the gap list ordered by opportunity against effort, not a description of their strength.