Check Out the Top 8 SEO Competitor Tools that Let You Monitor the SERP in Different Ways, and Dive into the Data to Outcompete the Competition.

To do SEO well, you need to know what’s happening in the search engine results pages (SERP). That calls for keeping an eye on the latest SERP changes, and also being able to analyze it for insights.

As an SEO, tracking you and your competitors’ search engine performance is key to identifying challenges and opportunities, and ensuring your SEO efforts aren’t falling behind. That means devising an SEO plan to get to the top of the results and bring new website traffic to you, or your clients’, website.

Diving into the data is important, too. Every query and keyword poses a unique marketing challenge and opportunity. Understanding the data is critical in unlocking specific action items that will help you improve your SERP rankings and top the competition.

But that doesn’t mean you need to sit down and manually sift through the search engine results pages (SERPs) for your hundreds and thousands of target keywords, and record you and your competitors’ positioning over time.

Instead, you can use some popular industry-standard SEO competitor monitoring tools that make it easier for you to maintain your SERP rankings, and watch out for competitors creeping up on you in the rankings.

In this blog post, we will explore why competitor analysis is crucial for effective SEO and how Visualping's tools can help you outsmart your rivals. Get ready to revolutionize your SEO game with the power of knowledge.

Let’s dive in.

Why is Competitor Analysis Crucial for Effective SEO?

To succeed in the world of content marketing and organic search, understanding what your rivals are doing is paramount. Competitor analysis in SEO lets you come up with insights from your competitors’ strategies for competitive intelligence, enabling you to uncover opportunities and threats.

By first monitoring the SERP for changes, and then analyzing the relevant data for actionable insights, you can do a lot to benchmark their performance against yours:

• Compare your competitors’ backlink profile and PageRank to yours
• Evaluate which domains are sending your competitors SEO juice, and
• Identify untapped niches and target keywords.

An effective SEO strategy incorporates a mix of SEO competitive intelligence tools that each offer their own perks and data, to meet your marketing team’s goals.

Below is a list of the top 8 seo competitor tools to help you improve your SERP rankings, with an overview of what each tool is best at, and their pricing.

Top 8 SEO Competitor Tools to Boost Your SERP Rankings

1. Visualping

Best for Visual Snapshots of Target SERPs

Visualping is the top SEO competitor tool for staying on top of what the SERP looks like, over time, for your queries and target keywords. When an update occurs on a particular SERP you care about, you get notified with automatic visual snapshots of what it looks like, with the changes highlighted.

You or your competitors may be creeping up the search results, or your content could be slipping. Maybe you want to know about updates to featured snippets, or the meta description Google’s selected for your content. Maybe you want to know when new competitor domains emerge on the page, and whether it’s time for an SEO refresh.

Either way, Visualping is the top solution for keeping track of changes to the SERP, which you can then associate with your recent SEO efforts. By drawing connections between your organic search performance and recent SEO work, you can gauge the effectiveness of your strategy over time.

You can monitor your rankings over time, as well as the rankings of your competitors to see whether your performance is gradually improving or declining.

Beyond SERP monitoring, as an overall SEO change monitoring tool, Visualping can also help you stay on top of updates other critical SEO components, such as:

• Robots.txt files
• Important website headers
• Target keywords and copy,
• Visual regression changes
• New content in the sitemap

You can monitor your own website or track competitors' websites for these changes.

Pricing

Visualping’s most popular pricing plan starts at only 25/month – you can monitor up to 100 pages, at a maximum frequency of 15 minutes. This competitor tool is, by far, the most affordable option.

2. SpyFu

Best for basic keyword research and PPC-focused competitive research

With Visualping sending you notifications of visual SERP snapshots, you can then use a plethora of other SEO competitor tools to dig deeper into the data, and identify unique marketing challenges and opportunities.

One such tool is SpyFu. Rather than a visual snapshot of specific SERP pages you care about, SpyFu offers several unique competitor analytics tools to help you with keyword research and PPC marketing.

If your team is looking to ramp up your PPC marketing, this SEO competitor tool is a good place to start.

For instance, besides basic keyword research, SpyFu offers detailed historical data surrounding competitors’ advertising campaigns. You can get the competition’s most successful ad copy variations and respective estimated PPC budgets.

Additionally, if you’re looking to spy on the competitor’s recent PPC strategy, you can sort the list by new keywords and see where the competitor is looking to expand their digital marketing strategy.

It’s a solid and more affordable alternative for basic keyword research and PPC-focussed competitor research.

Pricing

Starts at $16/month, when billed annually.

3. Screaming Frog

Best for understanding your competitors’ technical SEO

An “SEO spider”, the Screaming Frog specializes in all things website analysis and technical SEO. You can use it to get a technical snapshot of a website. For example, you can quickly see how your successful competitors are optimizing their page titles and meta descriptions for different keywords.

If you’re wondering how to structure your website successfully, you can also look to your competitors’ site structures for inspiration. See if they’re creating specific cluster content you need to prioritize and unearth other similar opportunities.

Pricing

While this competitor tool offers a free version, the features are limited. The only other subscription option is 200 euros for the whole year. There is no monthly payment option.

4. SimilarWeb

Best for top-down website traffic insights

SimilarWeb gives you some of the granular details, like keyword research and PPC data. But it’s particularly known for its birds-eye view of the competitive landscape. You have access to several unique competitive intelligence datasets like:

• Audience insights: Get a read on the competitors’ audiences by getting valuable information on demographics, engagement metrics, and interests.

• Affiliate performance: Check out who sends the most website traffic to your competitors to see if you’re missing any potential influencer marketing opportunities.

• Marketing breakdown: Benchmark your marketing performance across the different channels against your competitors to see where you shine and where you require improvement.

You can track macro trends in your industry, see the top traffic channels, and access historical traffic and engagement data for your market.

Pricing

SimilarWeb Pro plans cost between $199.00 and $799.00 per month

5. BuzzSumo

Best for Spying on Your Competitors’ Content and SERP Performance

For your target keywords, BuzzSumo specializes in showing you insights on ranking competitor content. Simply enter a keyword to see a group of top content pieces that rank for it, as well as info regarding each piece’s backlinks, social media shares, and other engagements.

Or, similarly, enter a domain, and you’re presented with a similar group of content and info.

It’s a great way to get to know your competitors’ content, source some creative content ideas, see what’s ranking for a particular keyword and why.

If you’re looking for a simple way to drill down on a particular competitor’s current rankings or see at a glance what’s happening with a specific keyword, BuzzSumo is definitely a tool to keep in your arsenal.

While BuzzSumo is super handy for checking out your competition at a glance, you may need to eventually acquire a more comprehensive tool if you’re looking for deeper insights.

Pricing

The cheapest pricing plan is the Content Creation plan, at $199/month. The next plan, at $299/month, PR and Comms features, for agencies looking to monitor coverage, research and outreach to journalists.

6. SurferSEO

Best for in-depth content audits to give your rankings a boost

SurferSEO is another powerful content optimization and auditing tool that has a strong focus on benchmarking against competitors.

Through the audit tool, you can get insights into your competitor’s SEO and content performance.

For example, if you have existing content that needs to rank better, you can use this tool to analyze your competitors’ content that’s ranking in the search results, so you can figure out what you’re missing in yours.

You can also get a comprehensive analysis of why your content isn’t ranking, such as which terms, links, and keywords are missing in your content compared to your competitors. It will also list problems with other features, such as title tags, page structure, and meta description.

Overall, SurferSEO is the perfect tool for digital marketers looking to gain an edge over their competitors and improve their on-page SEO efforts.

Pricing

Plans start at $89/month. There’s no free trial or free plan.

7. iSpionage

Best for automatically identifying your top competitors from PPC and keyword data.

It sounds like a cloak-and-dagger film noir, but iSpionage is a solid SEO tool for competitor analysis. If you don’t know who your competitors are, iSpionage will suggest a few to start. The tool provides more high-level information on your competitors’ PPC and organic keywords, as well as their top-performing paid ads.

Their AdWords Competitor Keyword Tool is ideal for paid ads, but you can use it for SEO, too. It displays 7 years’ worth of PPC and SEO keyword data for your competitors. Check their organic search traffic values, the number of first page organic keywords, and much more.

Like Visualping, it’s easy to use. ust visit its homepage and enter your competitor’s URL to “start spying” (their words, not ours). You’ll need to create a free account to view the data.

Pricing

iSpionage’s Starter plan is $50/month, while the Advanced plan is $254, with a custom enterprise option as well. There is no free plan.

8. Serpstat

Best for speeding up the competitor research process

Serpstat is another strong SEO competitor tool. Like the two above, it has a vast keyword database and offers PPC data. So you can use it for paid or organic search.

You can view your direct competitors and check all their ranking keywords in the search engine, so you can target the same topics and steal their traffic. In this way, you can cut down time in doing research.

At the same time, Serpstat also gives you in-depth data on your rival’s high-ranking content. the Link Intersect of Serpstat allows you to analyze your rival’s backlinks and collect authoritative sites for your link building campaigns.

Besides backlink analysis, Serpstat lets you do domain analysis for any website. This tool will give you an idea of your competitors’ actions in different aspects.

You’ll be able to peek at their SEO keywords, traffic, visibility, site authority, and internal links. These added data will help you develop better strategies for your website campaign.

Pricing

Serpstat’s cheapest plan costs $69/month. You can get a 7-day free trial as a new user.

That’s a Wrap!

Competitor analysis is the golden ticket to SEO success. It helps you understand how your SEO efforts are doing, keep an eye on your rivals, dive into the data to uncover opportunities, and outperform the competition in search engine rankings.

With Visualping sending you notifications of visual SERP snapshots, you can then use a plethora of other SEO competitor tools to dig deeper into the data, and identify unique marketing challenges and opportunities.

Interested in finding out more about how your team can use Visualping as a competitor tracker? Contact us today – our support team would be happy to help.