How to Do a Competitor Analysis (Free Template and Step-by-Step)

Most competitor analyses fail for the same reason. They list companies and describe them. That is a report, not an analysis. A real analysis compares everyone against the same yardstick, finds where you are behind and where nobody has planted a flag yet, and ends with a short list of moves ranked by what they are worth. This page shows you how to do that, with a template you can fill in as you go.

What is a competitor analysis?

A competitor analysis is a structured comparison of how you and your rivals compete for the same customers, scored on the factors that actually move a buying decision. It answers three questions: who are you really up against, where do they beat you, and where is the opening nobody has taken.

It is not a company profile and it is not a feature list. The point is the comparison. When every competitor is measured on the same criteria, the gaps become obvious, and the gaps are where the strategy lives.

A good analysis covers three layers:

• The market layer. Who competes for your customers, and who is winning attention right now.
• The visibility layer. Where your buyers look (search, maps, AI answers, social) and who shows up there.
• The decision layer. What makes a buyer choose one option over another (messaging, offer, pricing, proof, reviews).

Do all three and you stop guessing about why you are losing deals you should be winning.

Why does a competitor analysis matter?

A competitor analysis matters because your buyers are already comparing you to other options, whether or not you have looked at those options yourself. Every customer runs an informal version of this before they buy. Doing the formal version means you control the comparison instead of losing it silently.

It pays off in four concrete ways:

• It finds demand you are not capturing. The keywords, questions, and formats your competitors rank for and you do not.
• It sharpens your positioning. When you can see how everyone else describes themselves, the empty space where you can stand out becomes clear.
• It de-risks decisions. Pricing, new services, a rebuild, a content push. Each is safer when you know what the market already looks like.
• It sets a baseline. You cannot measure progress against competitors you never measured in the first place.

Who are your real competitors?

Your real competitors are the businesses your buyers actually consider, plus whoever is winning the search results and AI answers for the terms your buyers use. Those are often not the same companies you think of as rivals.

There are three kinds, and you want a few of each:

How to find them fast:

• Search your top three or four buying-intent terms in Google and note who ranks on page one, including the businesses in the map pack and the sites cited in the AI overview.
• Ask the same questions in ChatGPT and Perplexity ("best [your service] in [your area]", "who should I hire for X") and note who gets named.
• Ask two or three recent customers who else they looked at before choosing you. This is the most honest list you will get.

Pick four to six competitors total. More than that and the analysis gets thin. Fewer and you miss the pattern.

What should a competitor analysis include?

A complete competitor analysis includes eight dimensions: search visibility, messaging and positioning, offers and services, pricing, content, reviews and reputation, backlinks and authority, and presence in AI answers. Skip any of them and you get a partial picture that hides the real opening.

Here is what to look at inside each one, and where to look.

Presence in AI answers is the newest of these and the most overlooked. Buyers increasingly ask an AI engine before they ever open a search results page. If your competitors get named in those answers and you do not, you are losing the deal before the comparison starts. Most competitor analyses still ignore this. That makes it one of the clearest openings available right now.

How do I do a competitor analysis? (Step by step)

Do a competitor analysis in six steps: choose your competitors, collect the data on each dimension, score everyone in one comparison table, find the gaps, prioritize the openings by impact and effort, and write a short action plan. Each step below tells you exactly what to do and what "done" looks like.

Step 1: Choose four to six competitors

Build your list from the three types above: direct, search, and aspirational. Confirm each one competes for your buyer by checking that it either ranks for a term you want or gets named when a buyer asks. Stop when four to six named competitors sit on your list, each with a one-line reason it belongs there.

Step 2: Collect the data, one dimension at a time

Go dimension by dimension across all competitors rather than company by company. Doing it this way keeps the comparison consistent and stops you from writing a profile instead of an analysis. Record raw facts, not opinions: the real headline, the real price, the real review count. Done when: every cell in your template holds a fact or an honest "not stated."

Step 3: Score everyone against you in one table

For each dimension, rate every competitor and yourself on a simple 1 to 5 scale, where 5 is "clearly winning this." Put yourself in the same table. The score is a judgment call, but forcing a number makes the pattern jump out. You are there once the grid is full, a column for you and a column for each competitor.

Step 4: Find the gaps

Read the table three ways. Where do you score lowest against the field (your weaknesses to fix). Where does the whole field score low (the openings nobody has taken). Where do you already win (the strengths to press harder). The openings nobody has taken are the most valuable finding, because you can own that ground cheaply. Finish the step with your top three weaknesses named, three or more open lanes, and the two or three places you already win.

Step 5: Prioritize by impact and effort

Put every gap and opening on two axes: how much it would move the business, and how hard it is to do. Start with high-impact, low-effort moves. A missing pricing page or an unanswered high-intent question is often both. Done when: your findings are sorted into "do now," "do next," and "later."

Step 6: Write a one-page action plan

Turn the top five moves into specific actions with an owner and a rough timeframe. "Improve SEO" is not an action. "Publish a comparison page targeting [term] that three competitors rank for and we do not, by end of month" is. The plan is ready when it lists five concrete moves, each one someone on your team could pick up today.

That is the whole method. The hard part is not knowing the steps. It is having the tools and the hours to do them well across six competitors and eight dimensions, which is exactly where most owners run out of road.

The competitor analysis template (copy this)

This is a usable competitor-analysis template. Copy the table, put your business in the "You" column, and fill a column for each competitor. Score each dimension 1 to 5, then read the gaps.

How to read it once it is full:

• Your lowest rows are the fixes that keep you from being chosen. Handle the high-impact ones first.
• Rows where everyone scores low are open lanes. These are the cheapest wins because there is no incumbent to beat.
• Your highest rows are your leverage. Press them harder in your messaging and your content.
• The right-hand column is your action list in disguise. Every note there is a move waiting to be made.

Fill it in honestly and you can see what to do next without guessing.

A worked competitor analysis example

A short worked example shows the template in action. Say you run a regional accounting firm and you score three competitors on two dimensions.

The read is immediate. You have a weakness to fix (Firm A is taking your buying-intent traffic) and an open lane to claim (no one has structured their content to get cited by AI). Two dimensions already point at two clear moves. Run all eight across all your competitors and you get a ranked plan, not a hunch.

What tools do I need for a competitor analysis?

You can start a competitor analysis with free tools like Google search, Google Maps, ChatGPT, Perplexity, and a spreadsheet. A thorough one needs paid keyword and backlink tools and several hours of focused work per competitor. The method is free. Doing it well is not.

• Free and enough to start: Google search and the AI overview, Google Maps, the competitor's own site, Google reviews, and an AI engine or two to check who gets named.
• Needed for depth: a keyword tool for real ranking and volume data, a backlink tool for authority, and a way to track changes over time.
• The real cost is time. Doing all eight dimensions across six competitors, honestly, is most of a workday for someone who knows what they are looking at. The scoring and the "so what" take judgment, and no tool does that part for you.

This is the honest catch. The framework on this page is complete and it works. What it asks for is hours you probably do not have and a couple of subscriptions you may not want to buy, done again every quarter because the market moves.

Get your competitor analysis done for you, free

You now have the entire method: the eight dimensions, the six steps, the template, and a worked example. Nothing here is held back. Giving away the method is the point.

Here is the turn. Doing this well, across every competitor, every dimension, updated as the market shifts, takes real time and real tools. That is a job, and it is the job our strategic intelligence engine does every day.

We will run it for you, free. Request a Strategic Intelligence Report and we point this exact process at your business:

• Your real competitors, your search and AI visibility, and the messaging, offers, and pricing across your market.
• The openings nobody has taken.
• A full SWOT, a Found, Understood, Chosen scorecard for your site, and a plan of the highest-impact moves.

Delivered by email, usually within a day or two, reviewed by hand by our founder. No sales call required, and the report is yours to keep either way.

Free through July for our founding cohort, the first ten businesses to claim it. After July it is $1,500.

Get your intelligence report

You can do this yourself with everything above. Or you can let us do the hours and the tooling, and spend your time acting on the answer instead of digging for it.