// SEO
How to Find Your Real Online Competitors (They're Not Who You Think)
Your business competitors and your online competitors are often different companies. Learn how to identify who you're actually competing against in search, ads, and content.
Business Competitors vs Online Competitors
A local plumbing company competes with other local plumbers for customers — but online, it might compete with Home Advisor, Yelp, Angi, and local news sites for 'best plumber' searches. These aren't business competitors, but they're search competitors.
Understanding this distinction changes your SEO strategy. You can't outbid Yelp's domain authority, but you can outflank it by targeting more specific queries they don't rank for.
How to Find Your Search Competitors
- Search your top 5 keywords and note position 1–10 for each
- Use Ahrefs 'Competing Domains' report for your domain
- Check who runs ads on your primary keywords (Google Ads Auction Insights)
- Search '[your product category] review' and '[your product category] vs'
- Look at who's featured in AI-generated answers for your topic
Finding Content Competitors
For informational keywords, your competitors may be bloggers, YouTube channels, Reddit communities, or Wikipedia. These content competitors don't sell what you sell — they just occupy the informational real estate your potential customers browse.
To compete with them, you need to publish better, more comprehensive content on the topics they rank for. This is a content marketing play, not a direct competitive play.
Building Your Competitor Map
Create a 2×2 matrix: business competitor (yes/no) vs online competitor (yes/no). Each quadrant requires a different strategy. Business-only competitors need brand differentiation. Online-only competitors need SEO outmaneuvering. Both need comprehensive strategy.