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Lavanya
Staying ahead in SEO requires more than optimizing your own website. You also need to understand what your competitors are doing, which keywords they rank for, how much traffic they receive, and where their backlinks come from. This is where SEMrush becomes one of the most powerful tools.
With its detailed analytics and competitive research features, SEMrush allows you to track competitor traffic, uncover high-performing keywords, identify backlink opportunities, and refine your own SEO strategy. At Shriasys, we use SEMrush competitor analysis to help businesses build stronger content, outperform rivals, and create sustainable SEO growth.
In this comprehensive guide, you’ll learn how to track competitor traffic, keywords, and backlinks using SEMrush—step by step.
Why Competitor Analysis Matters in SEO
Competitor analysis is not about copying your competitors. It’s about learning from their performance and identifying opportunities to outperform them.
With SEMrush, you can:
◆ Discover keywords bringing traffic to your competitor
◆ Find their most visited pages
◆ Analyze their backlink sources
◆ Understand their strengths and weaknesses
◆ Identify keywords you’re missing
◆ Get ideas to improve your content strategy
Competitive SEO research is essential because it helps you make data-driven decisions rather than guessing what might work.
1. How to Identify Your Competitors in SEMrush
Before tracking competitor traffic or keywords, you need to identify the right competitors.
Step 1: Use the “Organic Research” Tool
◆ Enter your domain into SEMrush
◆ Go to Organic Research
◆ Click Competitors
SEMrush will automatically show:
◆ Enter your domain into SEMrush
◆ Go to Organic Research
◆ Click Competitors
Sometimes your real competitors are not the ones you think—SEMrush helps reveal those hidden players.
2. How to Track Competitor Traffic With SEMrush
Understanding competitor traffic volume gives you a clear idea of their SEO performance and growth.
Step 1: Open “Traffic Analytics”
Go to:
Competitive Research → Traffic Analytics
Enter your competitor’s domain.
Step 2: Check Traffic Overview
You’ll find:
◆ Total visits
◆ Unique visitors
◆ Average session duration
◆ Bounce rate
◆ Top traffic sources (organic, paid, social, referral)
This helps you see how well your competitor attracts and retains users.
Step 3: Analyze Traffic Sources
SEMrush shows where their traffic comes from:
◆ Organic Search
◆ Paid Search
◆ Direct
◆ Referral
◆ Social
If most traffic is organic, they have strong SEO strategies. If it’s paid, they may be spending more on ads.
Step 4: Study Geographic Distribution
This helps you understand:
◆ Which countries bring them the most visitors
◆ Whether they target local or global markets
Shrisys seo tools use this data to refine targeting for businesses aiming at specific regions.
3. How to Track Competitor Keywords With SEMrush
Keyword tracking is the most important part of SEMrush competitor analysis. This will reveal exactly how your competitor ranks in Google.
Step 1: Go to “Organic Research → Positions”
Enter your competitor domain.
Here you’ll see:
◆ All keywords they rank for
◆ Current positions
◆ Search volume
◆ Keyword difficulty
◆ URL ranking
◆ Estimated traffic percentage
This gives insights into which keywords drive their traffic.
Step 2: Discover Top Ranking Keywords
Filter by:
◆ Top positions (1–10)
◆ High-volume terms
◆ High-traffic keywords
This helps you identify keyword opportunities for your own website.
Step 3: Analyze Keyword Trend
SEMrush shows if a keyword’s ranking is increasing or decreasing.
If a keyword trend is rising, it’s a chance to create content before competition grows.
Step 4: Use the “Keyword Gap” Tool
Go to Keyword Gap and compare:
◆ Your domain
◆ Competitor domain
This reveals:
◆ Keywords your competitor ranks for but you don’t
◆ Keywords both of you rank for
◆ High-value opportunities you can target
Tracking competitor keywords helps you build a content strategy that fills gaps and outperforms them.
4. How to Track Competitor Backlinks With SEMrush
Backlinks are one of the strongest ranking factors. SEMrush makes competitor backlinks research easier.
Step 1: Open “Backlink Analytics”
Enter your competitor’s URL.
You’ll see:
◆ Total backlinks
◆ Referring domains
◆ Authority score
◆ Anchor texts
◆ Toxic score
◆ Follow vs nofollow links
These metrics help you evaluate the strength of your competitor’s link profile.
Step 2: Identify Their Best Referring Domains
Look for:
◆ High authority websites
◆ Relevant industry sites
◆ News publications
◆ Guest post platforms
◆ Partners or collaborators
These are backlink opportunities for you as well.
Step 3: Analyze Anchors
Anchor text analysis shows:
◆ Which keywords competitors use in their backlinks
◆ What topics they want to rank for
◆ Over-optimization risks
Anchor diversity tells a lot about SEO strategy.
Step 4: Find New Backlinks With “Backlink Gap”
Compare your domain with competitor domains.
You’ll discover:
◆ Websites linking to competitors but not you
◆ Link building opportunities
◆ Domains with high authority worth targeting
Shrisys meta advertising and SEO teams use this method to create smarter link-building campaigns.
5. How to Analyze Competitor Top-Performing Pages
A great way to understand competitor strategy is by looking at their highest-traffic pages.
Step 1: Go to “Organic Research → Pages”
This reveals:
◆ Best-ranking pages
◆ Estimated traffic
◆ Keywords bringing traffic
◆ User interest and content type
You can use this to:
◆ Create similar or better content
◆ Optimize your pages for similar keywords
◆ Understand user intent
This is one of the best ways to plan SEO-friendly blogs, articles, and landing pages.
6. How to Track Competitor Paid Ads (Bonus)
SEMrush also allows you to monitor competitor Google Ads.
Using Advertising Research, you can find:
◆ Paid keywords
◆ Ad copy
◆ Traffic from ads
◆ Landing pages
This helps you improve your own paid marketing strategy as well.
7. Build a Competitor-Driven SEO Strategy With SEMrush
After collecting all insights, use them to build a strong SEO plan:
🔹 Improve your keyword targeting
Target missing keywords and build content to outrank competitors.
🔹 Strengthen backlink profile
Reach out to domains linking to competitors.
🔹 Optimize top pages
Improve page speed, content quality, UI, and on-page SEO.
🔹 Create better content
Use competitor content gaps as opportunities.
🔹 Monitor performance regularly
SEMrush tracking ensures your strategy remains aligned with market trends.
Final Thoughts
SEMrush is one of the most powerful tools for competitive SEO research. By analyzing competitor traffic, keywords, and backlinks, you get a clear understanding of what works and what doesn’t in your industry. You gain an advantage by learning from real data—not assumptions.
At Shriasys, we use SEMrush competitor analysis to help businesses:
- Improve rankings
- Increase traffic