# Competitive SEO Analysis: [Your Site] vs Competitors

**Date:** [YYYY-MM-DD]
**Site under audit:** [URL]
**Competitors analyzed:** [List]
**Analyst:** [Name]

---

## Executive summary

[3 to 5 critical findings. Lead with the most important. What is the single biggest gap to close, and what is the single biggest strength to defend?]

**Top 3 priorities:**
1. [Priority]
2. [Priority]
3. [Priority]

---

## Competitor profiles

### Competitor 1: [Name]
- **Domain rating:** [X]
- **Estimated organic traffic:** [X / month]
- **Total referring domains:** [X]
- **Top 3 ranking categories:** [What they win on]
- **Why they matter:** [1 to 2 sentences]
- **Their key advantage over us:** [1 sentence]

### Competitor 2: [Name]
[Same structure]

### Competitor 3: [Name]
[Same structure]

---

## SERP overlap analysis

**Keywords where we both rank top 10:** [N]
**Keywords where they rank, we don't:** [N]
**Keywords where we rank, they don't:** [N]
**Keywords where they hold a SERP feature we don't:** [N]

### Head-to-head wins
[Top 10 keywords where we currently rank above them]

| Keyword | Our rank | Their rank | Volume |
|---|---|---|---|
| | | | |

### Head-to-head losses
[Top 10 keywords where they rank above us]

| Keyword | Our rank | Their rank | Volume | Likely reason they win |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| | | | | |

### Their territory (we don't rank)
[Top 20 keywords they rank for that we don't, ranked by traffic potential]

| Keyword | Their rank | Volume | Difficulty | Strategic fit for us |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| | | | | |

---

## Content gap analysis

[Topics or page types they cover that we don't, organized by theme.]

### Theme 1: [e.g., "How-to guides for beginners"]
- **Their coverage:** [X pages, including these top performers...]
- **Our coverage:** [None / weak / partial]
- **Estimated traffic value if closed:** [X visits/month]
- **Recommended action:** [Produce / partial coverage / skip]

### Theme 2: [e.g., "Comparison content"]
[Same structure]

---

## Backlink gap analysis

**Their referring domains we don't have:** [N]
**Their unique referring domains (in our category):** [N]

### Top 10 backlink opportunities
[Domains linking to multiple competitors but not us. These are the highest-probability outreach targets.]

| Domain | Domain rating | Links to (competitors) | Why they link to them |
|---|---|---|---|
| | | | |

### Their linkable assets
[Pages on competitor sites that attract the most backlinks. These are the asset types we could replicate.]

| URL | Referring domains | Asset type |
|---|---|---|
| | | |

---

## Technical comparison

| Dimension | Us | Comp 1 | Comp 2 | Comp 3 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| LCP (mobile) | | | | |
| INP (mobile) | | | | |
| CLS (mobile) | | | | |
| Mobile-friendly | | | | |
| HTTPS / HSTS | | | | |
| Schema types | | | | |
| Sitemap quality | | | | |
| llms.txt present | | | | |
| Internal links per page (avg) | | | | |

**Key takeaways:** [Where are we ahead, where are we behind?]

---

## Brand and entity comparison

| Dimension | Us | Comp 1 | Comp 2 | Comp 3 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Branded search volume | | | | |
| Wikipedia entity | | | | |
| Knowledge panel | | | | |
| Editorial mentions / month | | | | |
| Social following | | | | |
| Reviews aggregate | | | | |

---

## Prioritized gap-closing roadmap

[Sequenced list of actions, with effort and expected impact.]

### Quarter 1
1. [Action] - [effort] - [expected impact]
2. [Action] - [effort] - [expected impact]

### Quarter 2
1. [Action]

### Quarter 3+
[Strategic plays that take longer to execute.]

---

## What we should defend

Areas where we currently lead and need to maintain:

- [Strength]
- [Strength]
- [Strength]

A defensive strategy is as important as a gap-closing one.