A successful search engine optimization strategy includes competitive analysis. The tools available today offer incredible value at generally reasonable fees.
They help users accomplish more in less time, and many may find that the tools are so useful that they essentially end up paying for themselves. Here are 10 popular SEO competing analysis tools, their pricing, and how you can use them to bolster the success of your SEO technique.
1 . Semrush
- Pricing: Plans start at $119. 95 per month.
Semrush not only offers good data for search results analysis, but everything functions the way a person expect it to – it’s that easy to use.
There is no need to read a manual to use Semrush’s SERP evaluation tool.
Every link, button, and heading has the tooltip that will explains what it will be so that everything makes sense.
Semrush Tooltip Explains SERP Evaluation Tool Data

Semrush Tooltip Describes Jargon

Semrush’s Authority Score is assigned to every URL listed in the particular SERP Analysis.
Like any third-party metric, the Authority Score is just a score based on factors like backlinks, traffic, and referring domains.
The metric makes it easy in order to make a quick judgment about a webpage without having to spend hours researching all of the aspects for each webpage.
The research is already done; that’s what Semrush’s Authority Score is about.
That’s just one part of the particular Semrush SERP analysis, but it’s the part that is directly tied to competitor research.
Semrush is usually useful with regard to researching competitor backlinks. The ease of use makes the particular workflow of researching links a pleasure.
There’s no need in order to read the manual. Everything is self-explanatory.
Starting an analysis consists of entering a domain name or an entire WEB ADDRESS.
The resulting page shows various metrics that help you see the competition at a glance, literally.
There’s a graph that displays the growth of referring domains and also backlinks simply by year, which provides a quick idea of how aggressively they’re building hyperlinks, organized by time.

Beneath that graph, there’s another visual representation of the back links organized by the categories of referring domain names.
The categories are the general niche areas that the inbound links belong to.

When you click through a category, the particular tool presents a filter where you can add a word, a phrase, or the TLD, which means Top Level Domain (. net or. org), to discover all the relevant links.
There is also a drop-down menu regarding selecting “zones by TLD, ” yet I found that typing in the TLD works better.
Or you can get granular and click on the View Full Report switch to see all of the particular categories in granular detail.
It’s easy to recommend Semrush because it truly is designed for researching competitors and intended for link building.
The particular tools to get competitive research are simple to make use of and give a visual snapshot associated with their activities and offer an useful user interface pertaining to drilling down by category.
2. Ahrefs SERP Checker (Free And Paid)
- Pricing: Free checker tool, then starts in $99 per month.
Ahrefs has a free SERP checker that will shows the same SERP data as the paid version, only for just the first few positions.
The paid version has more data. But if you’re on a budget, the free version is an useful start.
Below is a screenshot from the SERP overview that lists featured snippets, people also ask, and the sitelinks enhancements.
This extra information gives a good overview of exactly what the SERPs look like, plus page and domain rating metrics.

Here is a screenshot showing more data from the SERP analysis tool.
All of the column headings show a tooltip that explains what each column means.

Ahrefs is a solid choice meant for search engine results rival analysis.
3. Serpstat
- Prices: Free edition, then starts at $69 each month.
Serpstat is an affordably priced SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION platform that will offers SERP analysis equipment. It’s possible to sign up for free to test it out.
Serpstat is definitely focused on analyzing the particular search results and is helpful for Backlinks Analysis and Competitor Evaluation.
4. SpyFu
- Pricing: Free analysis device, then begins at $39 per month (or $16 monthly upon an annual plan).
SpyFu is the very reasonably priced service that is dedicated specifically to aggressive research and offers many useful features.
The benefit of the tool is that it generates all the data necessary for competitive research.
SpyFu basically takes the “research” part out of competitive study tasks and provides the information.
The SERP Analysis tool, which can be used for totally free, offers unique information, such as indicators that will signal a website rises or even drops within the search outcomes.

Another interesting feature is that it offers a Ranking Difficulty score, data on whether. gov or. edu sites are usually ranking, as well as the number of homepages that are ranking in the particular top 100 positions.

SpyFu Backlinks Report
Another distinctive feature can be how SpyFu identifies what it determines are the strongest webpages to get a link from.
Just enter a keyword phrase into the particular search box, and SpyFu searches the backlinks associated with the top 5, 000 ranked sites, including for similar keyword phrases, and identifies all of the backlinking domains that the rated sites have in common.
Even better, SpyFu allows customers to filter those web pages by backlink types.
The backlink types one can filtration system for are. gov/. edu/, sites with affiliate links, blogs, news sites, forums, and directories.
Filtering designed for forums reveals all the strongest forum backlinks, filtering just for. edu domains shows the particular best. edu sites to get a link through, and so on.
An additional cool feature is called Backlink Kombat.

This particular tool allows you to enter two competitor domain names and after that exclude your own domain name. It will then display you all of the links the competitors possess in typical that your site does not.
I like using tools within creative ways to get even a lot more or better data.
What I would suggest doing with the SpyFu Backlink Kombat device is comparing sites that will aren’t your direct rivals. This may help you discover opportunities you might not otherwise.
So if your topic is plumbers in City X, compare roofers in City X.
Competitor back-link research along with SpyFu is certainly incredibly easy. I would like the flexibility to filter by keywords (like Favorite Sites) or by TLD (to find. org or even. us domains).
A limited amount of this data is free, plus the complete data set is available to compensated subscribers.
SpyFu is an interesting tool because it requires the extra step of presenting the particular data while minimizing analysis.
It’s easy to use, specific in order to competitor research, and affordable.
5. Sandboxweb. io SERP Analysis Tool
- Pricing: Totally free version, then pricing starts at $19 per 30 days.
Sandboxweb. io offers a SERP analysis device that provides data on top-ranked competitors.
This tool shows the schema types, Core Web Vitals data, and word counts.
You can click on every competitor within the SERP to study further.
The particular free version of this tool offers a lot of information. But it’s limited to 10 key phrases a month.
The data will be somewhat restricted, but this does offer a quick analysis.
6. Screaming Frog
- Pricing: Free edition and the paid version at $209 per year.
Shouting Frog has a SERP analysis function. It’s not simple to use, but it’s not excessively difficult.
I’d like to see Screaming Frog make it easier to run this kind of evaluation without getting technical.
If you take the time to figure it away, Screaming Frog can scrape the Search results and provide analysis.
It’s also helpful for analyzing competitors one at a time to get a sense of exactly what sites they link in order to, how much content they have, interlinking patterns, headings used across the web site, and many other competitor data points.
7. Inlinks
- Pricing: Free of charge version, after that pricing begins at $39 per month.
Inlinks is usually a content optimization-focused device that may extract related data factors from search results plus competitors.
Inlinks features a SERP analysis function that will offers multiple data points about the sites in the search results, such as semantically related topics and user intent data.
The particular user intention data plus topic suggestion features are quite unique.
There is also a Topic Analysis feature that delivers competitors’ associated topics and other data which is useful for creating content material.
Other SERP Analysis tools look at the top 100 through the top five, 000 for their analyses.
But in my opinion, what really matters most are the top 10 search engine results because not every site in the top one hundred or even the top 10 is a competitor.
So, I really appreciate that Inlinks’ SERP analysis tool focuses upon the very best ten.
The Inlinks SERP analysis device offers information the following:
- Topic density.
- Internal and external link counts.
- Readability scores.
- List of H2 headings.
I asked one associated with the founders, Dixon Jones, to explain what Inlinks does regarding competitor evaluation.
Dixon answered:
“Inlinks analyzes ten competing pages for any Keyword. It aggregates the combined number of times entities are usually used within the SERP and uses this particular to build a Knowledge Graph of entities related to the given research.
This is definitely then compared to the particular entities within the articles on YOUR competing web page, highlighting material gaps in your content.
At a site level, Inlinks can build a knowledge graph of any site, but does not currently have many equipment to evaluate whole sites.
We look at the verbs utilized to describe entities (in competing webpages for the SERP) plus cluster them into verb based purpose.
This helps content material publishers answer a genuine consumer query, rather than use words in the wrong context. ”
Inlinks provides more tools; it’s more than just competitor analysis.
There can be a free, pro, and enterprise degree.
8. MarketMuse
- Pricing: Free version plus paid plans starting from $600 per month.
MarketMuse is definitely an AI-based articles analysis tool that functions within the particular entire content creation workflow, from analysis to content material brief and more.
What We appreciate about MarketMuse is certainly that it looks at the top-ranked web pages while offering a keyword overview of the particular topics.
A key competitor evaluation function within MarketMuse is called Compete.
The particular Compete device analyzes the competition and suggests what to write about and ways to do better than the competitors, like covering overlooked related topics.
Compete’s special selling proposition, in my opinion, is that it is focused on helping users create articles that is better than the competition.
My understanding associated with MarketMuse will be that it isn’t really just focused on helping customers beat their competition.
The tool streamlines the entire content creation work flow, with rival research being one component of the particular process.
There is the learning curve to MarketMuse.
9. SimilarWeb
- Pricing: Totally free version plus paid programs starting with $167 for each month for the starter package.
SimilarWeb is an unique competitor analysis tool.
It is focused much less on SEO and more on providing a clear image of the differences between the 2 websites.
There are multiple data points associated with traffic, keywords, traffic share by country, and actually a comparison associated with audience demographics.
SimilarWeb offers a totally free and paid version.
The particular free edition offers a generous amount of information that helps users compare competitors.
10. LinkResearchTools
- Prices: Starts on $599 per month. One-week trial with regard to $17.
LinkResearchTools is a good enterprise-class hyperlink research tool.
It’s the most sophisticated and comprehensive link-building device I’ve ever used.
One of the qualities I like most is that it feels such as it has the comprehensive inventory of crawled links.
The tool makes it simple to discover links with normal searching, like adding a TLD, but you can also find hyperlinks multiple websites have in common.
Most of the functionality is usually geared toward businesses that will want in order to disavow back links, which is definitely useless regarding link builders.
I’d like to see a tool that does away with all the link-disavowing-related features and simply focuses on studying competitor inbound links.
One can subscribe to most of the other lower-priced tools and use their own combined competitor backlink research features and still pay less than LinkResearchTools.
For most people, that’s more than enough.
But the particular data within LinkResearchTools can be, in my experience, possibly the most comprehensive one way link data obtainable.
Backlink Evaluation
Backlink analysis is a lot more than just poaching keywords through competitors.
It’s a way to understand what the barrier to entry might be, which indicates how simple or difficult it might be in order to compete.
Competitor links may be a starting point for building better links as well.
Sometimes a group of links might stand out, giving you an idea of the direction to take.
Doing solid backlink requires a flexible backlink analysis tool.
Competitor Research
There are many useful SEO tools accessible today. These people don’t do the SEO for you, but these people allow it to be simpler to accomplish better results faster.
The particular tools also provide time-saving access to a huge amount associated with data that will would ordinarily take days to compile.
Saving period, being more productive, plus having the particular data in order to make informed decisions is the hallmark of all of these Tools.
Featured Image: Paulo Bobita/Search Engine Journal