15 Unique Ways to Check Competitor Website Traffic

You solely want three instruments to get sixteen extremely actionable knowledge factors in your rivals’ visitors.

Earlier than we dive in, let’s set the proper expectations: no instrument provides you with your competitor’s precise visitors knowledge. Nonetheless, it’s nonetheless nicely sufficient to see what works for them, copy their finest concepts, or set real looking benchmarks.

We’ll cowl:

• Sorts of knowledge you may entry, comparable to visitors quantity, developments, natural and paid key phrases, and viewers insights.
• Sensible use instances, together with benchmarking, monitoring progress, figuring out content material gaps, boosting your SEO and SEM, and negotiating budgets.
• Final however not least, how this knowledge is gathered and its reliability.

With these instruments and insights, you’ll be well-equipped to know and outperform your rivals’ web site visitors.

We’ll begin with natural search visitors — the supply on which you’ll get essentially the most knowledge.

How one can analyze competitor natural search visitors

Organic search traffic refers back to the clicks a website will get from serps, excluding search advertisements.

There’s rather a lot you may inform about your rivals’ natural visitors and rather a lot you may inform from it. Listed here are my favourite twelve use instances with detailed directions.

You possibly can verify that in seconds free of charge, proper now:

The instrument may also present you the place on this planet the visitors is coming from, among the prime pages and key phrases, and visitors worth (i.e., the worth of the natural search visitors, if it have been to be acquired by way of PPC in Google Adverts).

Natural rivals are the websites that compete with you for a similar natural key phrases in serps.

Usually, you’ll have extra natural rivals than your common direct enterprise rivals. For instance, a 3D printer producer could also be competing for a fair proportion of key phrases with a 3D printing journal — fully completely different companies, identical key phrases.

So by rounding up your prime natural rivals, you acquire an even bigger pool of key phrase concepts you may doubtlessly goal. A lot larger than in the event you’d simply bear in mind your direct rivals.

Right here’s the right way to establish all natural rivals.

1. Open Ahrefs’ Site Explorer and enter your area.
2. Go to the Natural rivals report.

From there, you may have a look at the widespread key phrases to see the place they outrank you or click on on Competitor’s key phrases to see key phrases you don’t rank for however they do (a.okay.a. your content material hole).

In case your competitor is doing search engine marketing, usually their weblog will entice most of their natural visitors. However this isn’t at all times the case. They might have discovered different methods of getting clicks from Google, like free instruments or free sources, and you might do the identical.

1. Open Web site Explorer and enter your competitor’s area.
2. Go to the Web site construction report.

For instance, somebody analyzing our website may see that our free writing instruments get extra natural visitors than years of writing on the weblog.

To see your competitor’s prime performing pages:

1. Go to Web site Explorer and enter your competitor’s area.
2. Go to the Prime pages report.

The primary use case right here is focusing on the identical key phrases as their prime pages to channel a few of that visitors your approach.

There’s extra. You should use the report back to see which pages contributed to an uptrend or downtrend in your competitor’s visitors.

Or, deal with top-performing pages and use the Examine pages view to see when these pages began to select up visitors.

Now to see what the rivals did to enhance the pages, click on on the caret subsequent to the web page and click on Examine.

Then select the date on the calendar and look at adjustments made to the textual content in that time.

In case you’re already doing search engine marketing or contemplating it, seeing an inventory of your rivals’ key phrases is sort of like they’ve shared their key phrase analysis with you.

You should use key phrase knowledge to discover:

• Prime-performing key phrases and “steal” a few of their visitors with your personal content material.
• Prime-performing key phrases in particular nations.
• Key phrases with particular phrases to search out content material concepts round sure matters or phrases.
• Low-difficulty key phrases (usually, sooner to rank).

To see your rivals’ key phrases:

1. Go to Web site Explorer and enter your competitor’s area.
2. Go to the Natural key phrases report.
3. Use the filters to search out what you want. As an illustration, use the KD filter to search out low-competition key phrases.

For instance, you may monitor the rating historical past of your competitor’s prime traffic-generating key phrases. In case you see sudden spikes, it possible means they’ve up to date the content material to increase ranking. By utilizing the calendar function talked about above, you may find out how they did it.

The most effective methods to search out natural visitors you’re doubtlessly lacking out on is to do a content gap analysis. In search engine marketing, it means figuring out the key phrases that your rivals rank for however you don’t. A few of these key phrases could make good matters so that you can cowl.

In Ahefs, you are able to do a content material hole evaluation robotically:

1. Go to Ahrefs’ Aggressive Evaluation instrument.
2. Enter your area within the Goal part.
3. Enter your rivals’ domains within the Rivals part.
4. Hit “Examine”.
5. Click on the Content material Hole report.

Toggle Foremost positions to exclude your rivals’ rankings in SERP options like “Prime tales” and “Picture packs.”

Now look by means of the report and establish key phrases which might be related to your website. The amount column will present you which of them key phrases are more likely to ship essentially the most visitors.

Quick-term natural visitors efficiency can inform you of the most recent developments in your rivals’ rankings (say, inside the final 24 hours to a few weeks).

For instance, you may observe the influence of the most recent Google Replace on their website, see how a lot visitors they gained or misplaced final month, or verify if any of their newly launched pages are already selecting up visitors.

To see short-term natural visitors efficiency:

1. Go to Web site Explorer and enter your competitor’s area.
2. Within the Overview report, select a timeframe within the Adjustments mode.

This can alter the top-level metrics and visitors by location panel and present you the adjustments over the required interval.

You possibly can go as deep as day-to-day visitors adjustments — a really useful factor if you wish to see Google’s replace influence in your rivals’ visitors.

Date comparability is obtainable in a number of instruments and reviews throughout Ahrefs.

As for long-term visitors efficiency, this permits to set a visitors objective to match or overtake your competitor’s visitors, and plan your price range based mostly on competitor’s efficiency. You can even use it to forecast your competitors’ traffic.

To see long-term visitors efficiency:

1. Go to Web site Explorer and enter your competitor’s area.
2. Activate the Years mode within the visitors graph.
3. Alter the time-frame and export the info if wanted.

Seeing a number of websites on one graph is helpful if you wish to establish the chief in your area of interest, evaluate your website to a couple rivals concurrently, and decide if you’re catching as much as the chief or if somebody is catching as much as you.

Right here’s how:

1. Go to Web site Explorer and enter your area.
2. Add rivals utilizing the Rivals tab.

Organic share of voice (SOV) is an search engine marketing metric that exhibits how a lot visitors goes to your pages in comparison with rivals’.

In different phrases, if you wish to see your general natural search visitors share available in the market, and finally enhance it, that is the metric you’d wish to use.

SOV is predicated on tracked key phrases, so that you first want so as to add them to the instrument. These might be key phrases you goal in your weblog, your product pages, and even your entire vital key phrases collectively.

• Go to Ahrefs’ Rank Tracker.
• Begin a New challenge.
• Choose key phrases to trace. You should use the filters to refine the listing steered by the instrument and add some key phrases afterward. Ensure to decide on solely vital places to your website.

• Add rivals. You possibly can add particular websites or select from those steered by the instrument. Discover the key phrase intersect — the upper the quantity, the “nearer” the competitor.

When you end the set-up, it is possible for you to to see and commonly monitor SOV within the Rivals Overview part in Rank Tracker.

One of many methods your rivals might be getting visitors is from hyperlinks from different websites (a.okay.a. referral visitors).

Understanding who hyperlinks to your rivals permits you to pursue the identical or related hyperlinks which may help you not solely get extra referral visitors but additionally increase your search engine marketing and enhance your model consciousness.

To search out pages with a excessive likelihood of sending visitors to your rivals, search for backlinks from pages with vital natural visitors. Right here’s how:

1. Go to Web site Explorer and enter your competitor’s area.
2. Open Backlinks report. Pages with essentially the most visitors can be displayed on prime by default.

From there you need to use the Referring web page title filter to see solely opinions or rankings the place you might be listed, too. Merely add in phrases like “vs, evaluate, instrument, instruments, prime” as a approach to establish these pages.

Right here’s an instance of such a web page:

One other approach to analyze your rivals’ visitors is to deal with them as one entity. This permits you to:

• Benchmark your website visitors development to your rivals as a market section.
• Determine broader trade developments and seasonal patterns in visitors.
• Assess the collective influence of main occasions, comparable to adjustments in search engine algorithms or financial shifts.
• Monitor the general well being and development charge of your trade.

For this, use the Portfolios function in Ahrefs. The picture beneath exhibits aggregated knowledge for 4 websites, together with natural visitors and paid visitors (from Google Search Adverts).

Right here’s the right way to set it up:

• Dashboard and click on Create > Portfolio.

• Fill within the URLs you wish to monitor. Notice the URL mode selector. Use “Area” to trace your entire area with subdomains, “Path” for folders, and “Actual URL” for single pages.

How one can analyze competitor paid search visitors

Paid search visitors refers back to the clicks a website will get from search advertisements on search engine consequence pages. Right here’s the right way to verify your rivals’s paid search visitors and the right way to use that information to your benefit.

In case you’re working search advertisements, testing your rivals’ paid key phrases may give you ready-made key phrase analysis. This allows you to see which key phrases are working for them and helps you fine-tune your personal advert technique to focus on these high-performing key phrases.

What’s extra, you may reveal paid search data Google Keyword Planner hides by default: search quantity for a explicit key phrase as an alternative of a search quantity vary for a group of key phrases.

And even in the event you’re not investing in advertisements, this data can nonetheless be tremendous helpful. It often means these key phrases are vital to your rivals as a result of they know these key phrases usher in clients. Likelihood is, these key phrases might be vital for your corporation, too.

To search out your rivals’ paid key phrases:

1. Go to Web site Explorer and enter your competitor’s area.
2. Open Paid key phrases report.

From right here, you need to use filters to search out key phrases that meet your CPC, visitors, or relevance standards, and type the info to see the key phrases which convey essentially the most visitors.

Discover the Paid/natural visitors share bar. In case you see each blue and yellow coloration, which means your competitor has invested within the key phrase twice (by means of content material and advertisements) and is making an attempt to get as a lot SERP actual property as attainable — think about pursuing these key phrases as nicely.

One other approach to gauge a key phrase’s significance is to take a look at its advert place historical past. An extended and constant historical past suggests it’s possible a helpful ‘cash’ key phrase, whereas a brief historical past would possibly point out your competitor is simply experimenting with it.

Wish to try their advert copy and touchdown pages? Head to the Adverts report. You possibly can set the placement the place your competitor runs their advertisements and see the touchdown pages and key phrases related to every advert.

to see how a lot your rivals spend to get all of that paid visitors?

1. Go to Web site Explorer.
2. Enter your competitor’s area.
3. Open Paid pages report.
4. Set the popular location to see the price range per nation (go away it set to all places to see the whole advert spend).
5. Set the Efficiency report back to Paid visitors price set and alter the timeframe.

Use this knowledge to set a benchmark for visitors efficiency relative to advert spend and to barter the price range to your campaigns.

How one can analyze different visitors sources

In case you’re within the general competitor visitors efficiency, right here’s the place to look.

To get a fast reply to how a lot visitors your rivals get general (from all visitors sources), you may get that data free of charge with Similarweb.

When you arrange a free account, merely go to Web site evaluation > Web site efficiency report.

Arguably, one of the best ways to make use of Similarweb is as compared mode. This strategy ensures that the info is directionally correct: whether or not the info is overestimated or underestimated, it’s persistently so throughout all websites. By evaluating your visitors together with your rivals, you may establish the relative variations that set you aside.

Similarweb is just not the one instrument with basic visitors insights. One other one is Sparktoro, an viewers analysis instrument.

What’s nice about Sparktoro is that its knowledge and performance revolve across the customers behind the clicks. So you need to use Similarweb to know how common the positioning is after which Sparktoro to get to know the individuals who go to it. Take that knowledge and use it for persona growth, fine-tuning your messaging, and searching up influencers to associate with or websites to promote on.

Merely arrange an account at Sparktoro and kind your competitor’s area within the search bar. Ensure the “Go to the web site” mode is on.

From there go to:

• Social networks: scroll down a bit and see which social community the model makes use of essentially the most. This not solely tells which social networks possible ship essentially the most visitors but additionally which proved to be essentially the most partaking.
• Demographics tab: see knowledge like gender, age, geography and pursuits. What’s distinctive about this knowledge is that it comes from social media profiles.
• Social accounts tab: to see what social media accounts website guests are more likely to comply with and have interaction with. It is a nice supply of potential influencers to work with.
• YouTube channels, Reddit, and Podcast tabs: see the place it’s extremely more likely to meet your rivals’ (and presumably yours) viewers.

The place does the info come from? Is it correct?

Relying on the instrument, the info in your rivals will largely come from:

• Internet crawlers. Also called spiders or bots. They’re automated applications that browse the web to assemble data. For instance, Ahrefs’ crawler is known as AhrefsBot, one of the lively ones round.
• Clickstream knowledge. Clickstream knowledge refers back to the recording of a consumer’s on-line exercise as they navigate by means of web sites. This knowledge is anonymized and aggregated.
• Google Key phrase Planner and Search Console. These instruments present helpful knowledge on search engine efficiency and key phrase utilization. Additionally, this knowledge is anonymized and aggregated.
• Social media APIs. Some social media platforms enable third-party instruments to entry their knowledge.

Which means that, normally, the info is estimated as an alternative of precise knowledge taken out of your rivals and handed over to you.

So, on the subject of the info’s accuracy, you need to anticipate a blend of estimated accuracy and directional accuracy. Regardless of finest efforts, the info can be approximated and designed to offer you an concept of relative efficiency as a result of there’s no different approach.

This additionally signifies that in the event you’re serious about a selected sort of visitors, say visitors from serps, it’s in all probability finest to get a devoted instrument for that. You’ll get entry to greater knowledge units and extra succesful performance, permitting you to do extra.

Ultimate ideas

Wish to go deeper into competitor evaluation? Take a look at our different guides to transcend visitors knowledge:

Received questions or feedback? Let me know on X or LinkedIn.