Want to dominate local search results and leave your competitors in the dust? A thorough competitive local SEO analysis is your secret weapon.
By evaluating your local rivals' keyword strategies, Google Business Profile optimization, citation profiles, content approaches, and overall local SEO tactics, you can reverse engineer their successes and identify gaps to exploit.
In this guide, you'll learn a proven process to analyze your local SEO competitors and extract insights to boost your local rankings.
We'll cover how to:
A competitive local SEO analysis involves assessing competing local businesses to uncover their location-based optimization strategies and tactics.
The process allows you to benchmark your own local SEO performance against your rivals. You can pinpoint their strengths and weaknesses to inform your own hyperlocal strategy.
The insights gleaned can help you:
Analyzing the local competition can give you a roadmap to local search visibility and domination. Proximity explains 55.2% of ranking variance in local search, making understanding your geographic advantages key to success.
If your business is already established and ranking locally, you probably already know who your competitors are. However, if this is your first time performing a local competitor analysis, then now is the time to meet your rivals.
Your local SERP competitors will be businesses that rank high in the Google Map Pack and organic results for the same local keywords you're targeting. They often offer similar products and services as you and are competing for the same local audience, though that's not always the case. Sometimes you'll have local SERP rivals that aren't your direct business competitors. For example, a local plumber could compete with Home Depot in local search even though they might not compete otherwise.
It's important to know that:
It's a classic battle tactic: You need to know your enemy in order to defeat them.
Once you know who you're competing against locally, you can gain a ton of insight into what your own business is missing.
For example, while performing your local competitor analysis, you might find services your competition is failing to provide in certain neighborhoods, but your local audience clearly wants. This is a major opportunity for your company.
A local competitive analysis can shed light on multiple opportunity areas: service gaps, location coverage gaps, local content gaps, citation gaps, and more. All of these can lead to strategic local marketing decisions to drive growth.
The end goal of a competitive local SEO analysis is to spot opportunities that will help you outperform the local competition.
By capitalizing on the weaknesses of your local competition and improving on your own shortcomings, you put yourself in the running to dominate local search results.
In this section, I'll detail how to first find your local rivals and then demonstrate how to perform individual local competitor analysis tasks, such as:
Without knowing who your local competitors are, how would you be able to analyze their local strategies?
So, how do you find your local competitors?
The easiest and most obvious way to identify your local competitors would be to search your main local keywords on Google and note down all the top results in both the Map Pack and organic listings.
If you come across the same businesses consistently appearing in the local search results for multiple location-based keywords then this is usually a good indicator that these businesses are your main local organic competitors.
Set up a Google Sheet and take note of all the top-ranking local businesses that show up for your target local keywords.
This manual method of searching your local keywords on Google does work if you're just trying to rank for a handful of terms, but it's not exactly practical if you're trying to rank for hundreds of local keyword variations.
It would take forever.
This is where Semrush can do all the heavy lifting for you.
Finding your local competitors on Semrush is super easy and can save you a lot of time.
First, click on "Domain Overview" and type in your URL:
Then scroll down to the bottom, and you'll find a section called "Main Organic Competitors"
These competitors are websites that are ranking for similar local keywords and targeting similar local audiences as you are.
If you click on the "View details" button, you'll be able to review all your competitors as well as more insightful info.
You can look at how many common local keywords you share with these domains, and the amount of local traffic these sites are pulling in.
The "Common Keywords" section is useful as it shows you the total number of local keywords you share with each site.
If you see sites with a high number of common local keywords, then you can consider them your local competitors.
At the end of this step, you should have identified at least 4-5 main local organic competitors.
Website authority refers to how authoritative Google and other search engines view a domain to be in local search.
Factors that influence a site's local authority include:
Highly authoritative local sites are usually very hard to compete against.
For example, if you've just started a local restaurant, you'd probably struggle to compete with established chains or long-running local favorites right away.
In this instance, the local SERP spots would probably be dominated by well-established local businesses and major brands—in other words, highly authoritative sites and seriously fierce local competition!
So, the first thing you'd need to do is take note of your authority score to see where you stand locally.
Head back over to "Domain Overview" and type your domain name in, hit "Search" and you'll see your Authority Score.
Now, you need to check the authority score of each of the local competitors you've listed in your spreadsheet.
Given that you need to analyze the authority score of several websites at once, I'd recommend using Semrush's Bulk Backlink Analysis tool. This allows you to check the authority of several domains at once.
Now you know who your main local competitors are. Next, it is time to conduct the local keyword gap analysis.
The "gap" in local keyword gap analysis refers to the location-based keywords that your competitors are ranking for, but you're not.
The object of a local keyword gap analysis is to identify any and all of these local keywords that are relevant to your business, with the intent of:
The goal, as always, is to create better local content than your competitors that adds more value to your local customers.
Identifying these local keyword gaps also ensures you stay competitive in your service areas.
With the help of Semrush's Keyword Gap tool, performing a local keyword gap analysis is incredibly easy to carry out.
To use this tool, all you've got to do is paste in your URL, alongside the URLs of your 4 main local competitors.
After you hit the "Compare" button, scroll down to the "All keyword details for" section and click on the "Missing" tab.
Here, you'll see all the local keywords that your competitors rank for, but you don't.
Does this mean you have to grab them all?
Not at all.
Not all local keywords will be relevant, so you'll need to go through the list to find the location-based keywords more pertinent to your business and service areas.
This can take a while but luckily you don't have to copy and paste each local keyword you want into a spreadsheet.
Semrush has a feature called Keyword Strategy Builder that allows you to create keyword lists that you can add local keywords to.
So, while you scroll through your list, you can simply tick the box next to the relevant local keywords you find, then click the "+ Add to keyword list" button.
By performing a local keyword gap analysis, you also perform a local content gap analysis to some extent. Uncovering these local keywords can lead to new location-specific content ideas.
"Lost keywords" isn't a phrase you want to hear in relation to your own local business. However, when your local competitors lose rankings for certain location-based keywords, it presents a massive opportunity for you.
Semrush makes it easy for you to find and analyze any lost local keyword opportunities through its Organic Research tool.
Click on "Organic Research", and add the URL of one of your top local competitors in the tool and select "Search."
On the next page, go to the "Position Changes" tab, then select "Pos: Top 20" to narrow down your results. Finally, select "Lost" from the "Position Changes" drop-down menu and hit the "Apply" button.
Here, you'll see all the local keywords your competitor has lost, as well as other key pieces of information, including search volume, keyword difficulty scores, and page URLs.
With your findings, you can create new location-specific pages to target the local keywords recently lost by your competitors. Or, you can make improvements to your existing local pages that already feature these keywords and try to overtake your competitor.
Just as it's important to keep tabs on the local keywords your competitors have recently lost, it's just as important to look out for the new location-based keywords your competitors have started to rank for.
This can provide you with insights into the new local directions they are taking in terms of content and target service areas. It can serve as inspiration as to what local direction to take your own content in.
Analyzing the new local keywords your competitors are ranking for can also be done via Semrush's Organic Research tool.
Your Google Business Profile (GBP) is now the digital "homepage" for local businesses, making competitor GBP analysis essential for local SEO success.
When analyzing your competitors' Google Business Profiles, these are the key elements you should examine:
Start by looking at how complete your competitors' GBP profiles are. Check if they have:
You can use tools like BrightLocal to get insights into how well your competitors' profiles are performing compared to yours.
Pay attention to their posting frequency because this tells you how active they are in engaging with local customers.
If you see that a competitor's GBP gets significant engagement through posts and updates, this format is quite successful and is something local customers obviously like.
Nice!
Review volume and quality significantly impact local competitive positioning. Review count accounts for 19.2% of ranking variance globally, increasing to 26% for top 10 positions.
When analyzing your competitors' review strategies, ask yourself the following:
You can analyze your competitors' review profiles by simply searching for their business on Google and assessing their reviews as they appear in the Map Pack and GBP.
However, it may not be efficient to do this manually, so I'd recommend using a tool like BrightLocal or ReviewTrackers to help you.
These tools will not only make it easy for you to analyze your competitor's review volume and ratings, but they can also identify review response patterns and sentiment analysis.
Pretty cool.
Google Business Profile posts are where many local businesses fall short, presenting opportunities for you to outshine them.
If your competitors do have regular GBP posts, it would be beneficial to understand exactly what type of content performs well for them.
You can manually check your competitors' GBP posts by visiting their profiles and scrolling through their recent updates.
Based on this, you could then optimize your own GBP posting strategy to try and "outpost" your competitors with more engaging, frequent, and valuable local content.
Local citations are mentions of your business on directories, review sites, and other online platforms. They're essential for local SEO success and provide valuable insights into your competitors' local strategies.
When analyzing your competitors' citation profiles, you need to assess both the quantity and quality of their local listings.
Start by examining how many citations your competitors have and where they're listed. You can use tools like Whitespark or BrightLocal to conduct citation audits for competitor businesses.
Look for citations coming from authoritative local sources such as:
If you see these types of sites listing your competitors then you will need to up your game and try to get listed on these sites too.
You'll need to check which business information your competitors are using consistently across citations.
Then you need to either:
Once you've identified citation opportunities or optimized your existing listings, you'll have a stronger local foundation to compete.
NAP (Name, Address, Phone) consistency is essential for local search success. When analyzing competitors, check how consistently they maintain their business information across different platforms.
You can use Semrush's Listing Management tool to analyze citation consistency for competitor businesses and identify discrepancies that might be hurting their local rankings.
If you find that your competitors have inconsistent NAP information across citations, then you'll know you can easily overtake them by maintaining perfect consistency across all your local listings.
As I already mentioned, local content analysis involves a close look at your competitors' location-specific content to determine what makes their local content effective, and how to identify opportunities to capitalize on areas where they are falling short.
When analyzing your competitors' local content, these are the things you should look out for:
Start by looking at the different types of local content your competitors might be creating. For example:
Determine if your competitors have success with these types of local articles and if so, take inspiration from this and start creating these different types of location-specific content on your site.
You can use Semrush's "Pages" report to get insights into how well your competitors' local pages are performing.
In the Organic Research tool, paste in the URL of your competitor and click on "Pages."
You will then see your competitor's pages and various metrics including local traffic and location-based keywords.
Pay attention to the traffic metric because this tells you how much local traffic the specific page gets.
Clearly, successful local content formats are something local searchers obviously like and engage with.
How well do your competitors integrate local keywords into their content?
Is their content optimized for "near me" searches and location-specific service terms?
Do they naturally incorporate neighborhood names, local landmarks, and regional terminology?
And overall, does their local content genuinely help local customers and answer location-specific questions?
These are all signs of quality local content optimization.
So, if the answer is yes to all of the above, you could class this as a major strength of your local competitors.
On the other hand, if their local content lacks location-specific optimization and doesn't address local customer needs, this is a major weak point.
Other signs of poor local content quality that you should look out for include:
If your competitors' local content could be described as any of the above, you could easily capitalize on this by creating better, more locally-relevant content that will be more valuable to local searchers and provide a better user experience.
Local backlinks are where a local business gains its regional ranking power from. They're incoming links from local websites, community organizations, and area-specific sources linking to your website.
When analyzing your competitors' local backlink profiles, you need to assess both the quantity and quality of their local links.
You can save plenty of time by using Semrush's Backlink Analytics tool to analyze local competitor link profiles.
All you have to do is paste your competitor's URL into the tool and hit "Analyze."
Then, on the "Overview" page, you'll need to add in additional competitors' domains and then hit "Compare."
You'll then see a table detailing the number of Referring Domains and Total Backlinks for your competitors as well as other metrics such as local organic traffic.
However, that's not to say that all the backlinks your local competitors have received will be from relevant local sources. Many of the referring domains could be irrelevant, spammy sites, or non-local sources.
You, therefore, need to assess the quality and local relevance of your competitors' backlinks.
As you scroll through your local competitor's backlinks, look out for links coming from local authoritative sources such as:
If you see these types of local sites linking to your competitor then you will need to up your game and try to acquire links from these local sources too.
You'll need to check which pages on your competitor's domain are gaining these local links.
Then you need to either:
Once you've created local content for these pages or amped up your existing local content, it's time for local outreach.
Get in contact with the webmasters of these local authoritative sites and inform them of your superior local content and ask for a backlink.
You can use Semrush's "Backlink Gap" tool to identify local link building opportunities.
The Backlink Gap tool allows you to compare your site to several local competitors at once to find gaps in your local link building strategy.
All you got to do is, type your URL in and paste in your local competitors' domains.
When you hit "Find prospects", you'll be able to identify the local domains that are linking to your competitors but aren't currently linking to you.
From this information, you have an idea of local sites you need to include in your link-building outreach campaign.
Focus on the backlinks coming from reputable and authoritative local sites with strong domain authority.
This local link building approach not only provides insights into your rivals' local backlink profiles. It can also help you to uncover new local content ideas and community partnerships you might not have otherwise considered.
Last but not least, you should also assess the technical aspects of your site to see how it sizes up to your local competitors in terms of performance and local user experience.
The analysis will highlight areas where you need to improve in order to compete locally. It will allow you to identify technical issues on your competitors' sites that you can capitalize on.
Here's what a technical local SEO analysis entails:
With the majority of local searches happening on mobile devices, mobile-first optimization is essential for local SEO success in 2025.
Both search engines and local customers judge the quality of your local business based on website performance before the quality of the content.
Providing a great mobile user experience should be part of your local SEO strategy already, but performing local competitor analysis allows you to ensure you're delivering a better mobile UX than your local rivals.
You can find the Core Web Vitals scores and assess the overall mobile performance of your own site as well as your local competitors' using Google PageSpeed Insights.
Simply paste the URL into Google PageSpeed Insights and hit "Analyze."
After a few minutes, the tool will show you mobile performance scores. Compare these against your local competitors to identify opportunities for improvement.
Schema markup is a piece of code used to provide structured data to search engines about your local business. This helps Google get a better understanding of your local business information.
Search engines then present the information as rich snippets which appear in local search results. Local schema can include things like:
When analyzing your local competitors, check to see if they have local schema markup implemented. You can use Google's Rich Results Test to analyze competitor pages for local structured data.
If they do have local schema, and you don't then you'll need to implement local business schema markup to enhance your local search listings too.
You can use Schema.org to create your local business schema markup.
The most effective competitive local SEO analysis combines multiple specialized tools to get a complete picture of your local competitive environment.
Semrush offers thorough local competitor analysis features, including local keyword tracking, citation management, and Google Business Profile insights. Its local SEO toolkit provides everything from local rank tracking to review monitoring.
BrightLocal specializes in local SEO with tools for citation auditing, local search ranking reports, and Google Business Profile optimization analysis. It's particularly strong for reputation management and local listing analysis.
Whitespark focuses on citation building and local search visibility, helping you track and improve your local directory presence compared to competitors.
Ahrefs provides excellent backlink analysis capabilities, allowing you to uncover where local competitors are getting their most valuable local links.
Don't overlook the power of free tools for local competitive analysis:
Even with the right tools and strategies, local businesses face several challenges when conducting competitive analysis.
Often, businesses misidentify their local competitors based on assumptions rather than actual local search data.
Solution: Use local rank tracking tools to identify who is actually competing with you in local search results for your target service areas and keywords.
Local search algorithms evolve rapidly, and what worked for competitors last year may not work in 2025.
Solution: Stay informed about local SEO trends and adjust your competitive analysis approach accordingly. Focus on current performance metrics rather than historical data.
For businesses with multiple locations, analyzing competitors across different service areas can be overwhelming.
Solution: Use tools like Semrush Local or BrightLocal that offer multi-location tracking and analysis capabilities.
Here are five actionable best practices to maximize your local competitive analysis efforts:
Perform thorough local competitor analysis monthly, with weekly monitoring of key metrics like local rankings, review volume, and Google Business Profile activity.
Since proximity explains 55.2% of local ranking variance, analyze competitors at different distances from your business location to understand geographic advantages.
Identify location-specific content opportunities your competitors are missing, such as neighborhood guides, local event coverage, or area-specific service pages.
Use backlink gap analysis to identify local websites linking to competitors but not to you, then develop targeted local outreach campaigns.
With mobile-first indexing dominating local search, regularly compare your mobile site performance against local competitors using PageSpeed Insights and mobile usability tools.
When conducting local SEO competitive analysis, be aware of important regulatory considerations that may affect your strategies.
Google Business Profile Guidelines: Ensure your competitive research doesn't violate Google's guidelines for business listings. Avoid creating fake reviews or manipulating competitor listings, as these practices can result in penalties.
Local Advertising Regulations: Different industries and locations may have specific advertising and marketing regulations. Healthcare, legal, and financial services often have stricter requirements for local marketing claims and competitor comparisons.
Mastering local SEO competitive analysis is key to dominating your local market.
This guide has armed you with strategies to analyze and learn from your local competitors, allowing you to refine your local SEO tactics effectively. Regular local competitor analysis, innovative adaptation, and strategic improvements in local content, citations, and Google Business Profile optimization will elevate your local search rankings.
Stay ahead of the curve in the dynamic local SEO environment: analyze your local competition, adapt your strategies, and outperform your rivals.
Your route to local SEO success is continuous learning and agile adaptation – start your local competitive analysis now and keep evolving.
