15 Best On Page SEO Tools to Beat Your Competition [2024]

In this article you'll find the 15 best on page SEO tools on the market, fully ranked and reviewed plus recommendations to find out which one is best suited to your needs.

But first, here are our editor's top 10 on page SEO tools on the market:

Why Do You Need On Page SEO to Spy on the Competition?

The Internet is a highly competitive space to operate in because the technological barriers to entry are low and operating costs are affordable. 

As a result, no matter what niche you choose to be in, you’ll find that there will be many players like yourself competing for a slice of the pie. 

Is this a problem for online entrepreneurs like yourself? Not necessarily. The fact that there are a lot of people doing the same thing doesn’t mean that they all know how to do it right — for example by choosing the best SEO tools for the job. 

Armed with the right on page SEO software, you'll be easily able to analyze, dissect and reverse-engineer your competitor’s every move so that you can outsmart them and outrank them every step of the way.

Here's a good analogy:

the real estate industry is packed with novice realtors because becoming accredited is not a high barrier to entry.

Yet, only a relatively small percentage of realtors make most of the sales because they're the ones who know the tricks of the trade that generate the best results.

Technically, the same dynamic takes place on the Internet with one big exception: you have a key advantage that doesn't exist in any other business — it’s really easy to legally spy on your competitors and learn all their tricks!

The reason is that everything that’s performed online is tracked, measured and archived for posterity.

If you know where to look, you can always find the specific strategies that are making your top competitors successful.

How do you find this information? By using one of the online on page SEO programs recommended below.

What Are the Best On Page SEO Tools?

1. Surfer

The ability to spy on your competitors to find out what they're doing will give you a significant leg up when you’re planning your own online strategy.

If you don't take the time to figure out what your competitors are up to before you plan your own strategy, you’ll be just shooting in the dark.

Fortunately, the Internet has some fantastic on page SEO software that make it easy to reverse-engineer what your competitors are doing, and an SEO tool that can quickly do this at the push of a button is Surfer.

When it comes to analyzing your competitors, you want to be able to focus on the following areas:

• What’s their keyword strategy?
• What target keywords are they ranking for and which ones drive the most traffic to each web page?
• Which specific pages are bringing the most traffic to their sites?
• How do their pages rank in search results?
• What specific backlinks are pointing to their pages and what domain authority do the referring sites have?
  

Surfer will provide you with the above information and more.

In fact, Surfer is one of the best all-around on page SEO programs and it’s even priced lower than many of its peers while offering an innovative approach to reverse-engineering competitors.

Here are some examples:

Keyword Reverse Engineering

Backlink Reverse Engineering

Surfer's Main Benefits

• Easily find your competitors' best ranking pages and how much traffic they're generating for them
  
• High accuracy (many competing SEO tools are known for producing inaccurate results)
• Powerful backlink explorer to spy on your competitors' backlinks and see what websites they're originating from so you can target them in your link building strategy
• Keyword audit SEO tool, to check how your competition has ranked historically for your chosen keywords
• Ability to track your competitor's organic keywords and traffic
  
• Google analytics integration
  

Now Some Drawbacks...

• Surfer is a truly innovative on page SEO tool. However, since they are relatively new in the field, they don't have as large a database of keywords and backlinks as competitors like SEMRush and SpyFu
  

Latest Improvements

Grow Flow, a new AI-based growth management SEO tool, provides weekly actionable SEO insights to grow traffic on your site.

Some examples are: internal link building suggestions, article ideas, high potential keywords, and backlink recommendations (when linked to a SEMRush account.)

Pricing

Surfer has three subscription plans:

• The Basic plan costs $59/month (or $49/month if paid annually,) it supports one website, and it allows you to audit 20 pages per month against competitors vying for the first page of Google search results. In addition, you can perform on-page optimization for up to 10 articles per month.
• The Pro plan costs $119/month (or $99/month if paid annually,) it supports 3 websites and it allows you to audit 60 pages per month. In addition, you can perform on-page optimization for up to 30 articles per month.
  
• The Business plan costs $239/month (or $199/month if paid annually,) it supports 10 websites and it allows you to audit 140 pages per month. In addition, you can perform on-page optimization for up to 70 articles per month

Finally, here's my take...

I selected Surfer as my top pick because of their game-changing approach to on page SEO aided by AI.

Ever since they entered the SEO tool space, they've been making waves with their constant innovations. Although there are copycats out there, Surfer's on page SEO features are really unmatched by their competitors, imho.

All top on page SEO experts I know are currently using it and you should give it a serious try if you want to outrank your competitors on your path to the first page of search results.

2. SEMRush

A great alternative to our top pick, Surfer, is SEMRush. Although both SEO tools are extremely capable, and in fact quite comparable feature-wise, the main reason SEMRush was relegated to the status of runner up is the price — it’s much costlier for roughly the same results.

This is not to say that SEMRush doesn’t have unique features that Surfer doesn't have, in fact, they have one of the best features for researching and creating backlink outreach campaigns.

It’s just that this activity is not related to competitor intelligence.

SEMRush has a comprehensive keyword research tool, their domain analysis is superb and so is their backlink analysis and tracking tool.

For example, you can enter your competitor’s website into their position tracker tool and then compare how your own site is performing over time for your chosen keywords in relation to them to spot areas for improvement.

They also have a very useful competitive-positioning map that shows where you are placed in relation to your competitors, using the number of ranking organic keywords on the x-axis and the amount of organic monthly traffic on the y-axis.

SEMRush is also very intuitive and easy to use and they offer live support via phone and chat as well.

Example of Competitive Positioning Map

SEMRush's Main Benefits

• Easy to use, domain and keyword analysis are straight forward
• Excellent support (phone, live chat and email)
• Offers a great data set of both organic and pay-per-click keywords
• Very high limit of daily reports that you can run before hitting a cap, compared to its competition
• Excellent backlink analysis SEO tool, including broken links
• Provides both desktop and mobile data breakdowns (very few competitors currently do this, although that’s bound to change in the future)

Now Some Drawbacks...

• Compared to Surfer, SEMRush's on page SEO is very basic
  
• Also, their keyword difficulty score is not always accurate
  

Latest Improvements

• New Backlink Analytics Database
  
• New keyword category: Keyword Intent (options: navigational, informational, transactional, and commercial)
  

Pricing

SEMRush has three subscription plans:

• The Pro Plan allows you to track up to 5 projects (basically, 5 websites, with some exceptions) and up to 500 keywords for $119.95/month, or $99.95/month when paid annually
  
• The Guru Plan allows you to track up to 15 projects and up to 1,500 keywords for $229.95/month, or $191.62/month when paid annually
  
• The Business Plan allows you to track up to 40 projects and up to 5,000 keywords for $449.95/month, or $374.95/month when paid annually
  

Finally, here's my take...

SEMRush has been around for a long time and as a result they have accumulated one of the largest databases of keywords and backlinks in the industry.

Although not as innovative as Surfer on a feature-by-feature basis, SEMRush does offer a lot of useful SEO tools that are essential for spying on your competition.

In fact, they have one of the most sophisticated backlink analysis tools, which will make your backlink outreach campaigns a lot more effective.

3. SpyFu

If you’re working on a budget, SpyFu is the perfect solution for you. While not as feature-rich as Surfer, it still manages to punch above its weight.

One of the features that makes it stand out is that even though it provides you with a smaller data set, it doesn’t cap your searches.

For example, you can spy on an unlimited number of domains, keywords and backlinks and you can export unlimited data as well. In contrast, many competitors impose monthly caps.

On the downside of things, they track keyword rankings weekly instead of daily as is more typical in the space.

But this is a reasonable trade-off for a monthly lower cost, especially considering their great user experience. SpyFu's simple to use UI is perfect for beginners.

SpyFu User Interface (SEO Keywords Panel)

While more pricey competitors tend to offer a more complete approach to on page SEO (along the lines of an SEO "Swiss army knife"), SpyFu specializes just in competitive analysis SEO.

For example, they have a feature called SpyFu Kombat where they show you where your site fits inside a Benn diagram in relation to your competitors.

From this diagram you can figure out what keywords you all share, which ones are unique to each competitor and which ones are shared between two or more competitors.

This unique view makes it really easy to identify keyword gaps that you can then exploit.

Kombat View

SpyFu's Main Benefits

• Affordable pricing
• Competitor-focused keyword research tool
• Easily discover competitors you didn’t know you had
• Reverse-engineer you competitor's organic as well as paid keyword strategies
• Uncover top-performing keywords for any website
• Track the historical ranking of keywords from any website
• Excellent live support: phone and chat
  

Now Some Drawbacks...

• SpyFu has a much smaller keyword and backlink database than SEMRush 
• Keyword difficulty scores tend to be hit and miss
  

Latest improvements

• The latest update to SpyFu's SEO Keyword tool tracks twice as many SEO results as before (from the top 50 organic results in the SERP to the top 100)
  

Pricing

Spyfu has two subscription plans:

• Basic: For $39/month (or $33/month if paid annually) you'll be able to track up to 5,000 keyword SEO rankings per week, but you'll have to contend with some monthly search and reporting caps
• Professional: For $79/month (or $58/month if paid annually) you can track up to 15,000 keyword SEO rankings with no search and reporting caps
  

Finally, here's my take...

SpyFu rounds up the top three because, although not as capable as the above SEO tools when it comes to organic spying, it does an amazing job when it comes to search-ad spying.

If paid search ads play an important role in your traffic generation and lead acquisition, then SpyFu will help you reverse engineer in minutes entire ad campaigns that your competitors might have spent years fine tuning.

Although many other SEO tools claim to support search ad spying, none does it as well and as insightfully as SpyFu.

4. SeoQuake

Best SEO Tool Extension for Chrome (free)

This great browser extension (Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Opera and Edge), brought to you by the folks at SEMRush, is the perfect free SEO tool for spying on your competition.

Since the data is served by SEMRush, you can count on its reliability and accuracy.

Now, being free to use, you’re not going to find the range of features you'll find in any of the best SEO tools.

However, the domain and on page SEO information about your competition it’s able to unearth is extremely useful.

Once installed on your browser, all you have to do is to visit a competitor's page, click on the SeoQuake browser extension icon on the top menu bar and you’ll immediately see a wealth of on page SEO information, including:

• Page information including meta descriptions and meta titles
• Parameters like the Alexa rank
• Page traffic
• Page backlinks
• Internal and external links
• Keyword density
• On page SEO audit

In order to get many of its features to work, SeoQuake will ask you to create a free SEMRush account and will guide you through the integration process.

Once the two SEO tools are connected, you’ll be ready to dig deep into the page you're visiting.

The best part is, you can easily export the on page SEO data into a file that you can then open and manipulate on a spreadsheet, all for free!

SeoQuake Features that Stand Out

• SEO data export (you can get a thorough analysis of search engine results pages and export the output in a convenient csv format or print reports directly from the browser)
• SEO dashboard (this is a compact mini-panel that opens on top of the page chock-full of juicy on page SEO information, including a brief SEO overview of your competitor with page, domain and backlink details, including broken links)
• Keyword Analysis (you can get a detailed report on all keywords found on your competitor's page!)
• Access to the SEMRush's massive SEO dataset
  

Finally, here's my take

SeoQuake is a browser extension that can be easily installed to get a quick overview of a website's SEO metrics. It's great for assessing the authority of a site or webpage right on your browser.

Having said that, the data provided by SeoQuake can sometimes be limited, and you often have to rely on other tools for a more comprehensive analysis.

5. Ubersuggest

Best for Website Audits (from $29/mth)

This budget SEO tool doesn't have the ability to do on-page optimization, but it does have an excellent site audit feature that packs as much punch as other SEO tools that cost two or three times more.

Ubersuggest is backed by Neil Patel, one of the industry’s most prolific SEO bloggers and a large agency owner.

He has a tremendous amount of experience helping clients rank high on search engine results and has automated much of his knowledge in this powerful SEO tool.

By simply entering your domain name into the SEO tool and running a site audit, Ubersuggest will crawl all of your pages in real time no matter the size of your site and show you site audit results against a 44-point SEO checklist, broken down into critical errors, warnings and recommendations.

For example, you can find out if you have:

• Any pages without a single H1 tag (your goal) or with multiple H1 tags (a no-no in SEO)
• Pages with meta descriptions and titles that are either too long or too short
• Are missing your meta descriptions
• Pages with a low word count
• Pages that take too long to load
• An SSL certificate that's about to expire
• Pages with broken links

You can also find out what keywords your pages are ranking for, how many backlinks each page has and which pages on your website drive most of your traffic.

And as importantly, you can find the above information about any of your competitors!

For example, what keywords are driving traffic to their sites, what pages are attracting the most visitors, and what websites are linking to their pages.

Ubersuggest Features that Stand Out

• Site-wide audits
• Backlink profile, including new and lost backings, shown on a daily basis
• Historical backlink data
• Demographic data about your searchers
• Keyword and content ideas, including keyword suggestions, related keywords, keywords phrased as question, keywords containing prepositions and comparisons
• Monthly search volume, average cost per click, pay-per-click competition and SEO competition for each keyword
• Facebook and Pinterest shares for your pages
• SEO Keyword ranking
• Priced much lower than competitors with similar features (however, it's very slow, which can be frustrating)

Finally, here's my take

Ubersuggest has been a go-to tool for me when it comes to free keyword research. The suggestions it provides are comprehensive and include long-tail keywords.

I also like the fact that it shows search volume, competition, and CPC data, which is very helpful to do competitive analysis.

On the downside, though, I've found that the accuracy of the search volume data can sometimes be questionable and the speed can be painfully slow during peak times.

Overall, I think Ubersuggest is a handy tool for keyword research, but it may not offer enough functionality for more advanced users.

6. Ahrefs

Best for Large Sites (from $99/mth)

Ahrefs is the granddaddy of SEO tools and one of the most popular platforms among on page SEO professionals.

The reason I relegated it to position 6 on the list is cost: Ahrefs is very expensive.

Unless you're doing on page SEO research at high volumes, say if run an agency with many clients, then the high cost may hard to justify.

Having said that, they have a very generous 7-day trial, and if you work diligently you may be able to get a lot of work done in that time frame.

Ahrefs Features that Stand Out

• All-in-one on page SEO tool: competitor research, keyword research, website audit, content research, and rank tracking
  
• Keyword research available for the world's three largest search engines: Google, YouTube and Amazon
• Handy browser toolbar
  
• Google analytics integration
  
• 396.68 billion crawled pages in index
• 7.5 billion pages crawled a day
• 3.35 trillion external backlinks in database
• 26.15 trillion internal backlinks in database
• 543.33 million keywords in database

Finally, here's my take

Ahrefs has become an indispensable tool for me when it comes to backlink analysis and competitor research. The wealth of data it provides is impressive, and I find the interface to be clean and easy to use.

I've been able to identify high-quality backlinks, discover new link-building opportunities, and monitor the overall health of my keywords with ease.

I do feel, however, that Ahrefs can be a bit pricey for small businesses or individuals just starting out. Also, while it's a great tool for general SEO, it doesn't offer on-page optimization like Surfer does.

Despite the above, I consider Ahrefs to be a workhorse in the industry.

7. KWFinder

Best for Low Cost Keyword Research (from $49/mth)

KWFinder is a simple yet powerful keyword research tool that beats its competitors for one simple reason: all they do is keyword research and they do it better than everybody else, who tend to clutter you with additional data you don’t need.

In fact, KWFinder provides exactly the information that you need to succeed without taking you on twelve different tangents.

Once you enter a group of seed keywords, KWFinder will generate a large list of suggestions, autocomplete keywords (harvested from Google’s autocomplete feature) and keywords phrased as a question (harvested from Google's “People also ask” section).

Then, KWFinder will show you the three critical pieces of information you need to land you on page one of search engine results: the monthly search volume, the organic keyword difficulty and the paid difficulty.

It can’t really get easier than that!

On top, KWFinder has the reputation of being highly accurate on all three measures (many of its competitors produce inconsistent data) and better yet, it’s very intuitive and easy to use for beginners.

KWFinder Features that Stand Out for Online Earners

• Very well priced compared to the competition
• Super easy to use (minimal learning curve for beginners)
• Excellent, highly responsive support
• Goes straight to the point and provides you exactly what you need in order to rank high in one place, without forcing you to drill into multiple screens to find relevant data
• Allows you to import your own list of keywords and still obtain the three critical SEO metrics to qualify you for a first page result

Finally, here's my take

Although not as feature-rich as Ahrefs or SEMRush, KWFinder is a reliable and straightforward keyword research tool.

I've used it many times to quickly find long-tail keywords with decent search volume and low competition. The interface is simple and easy to use.

One downside is that the search volume data can sometimes be inconsistent when compared to other tools. It also lacks some of the more comprehensive features found in other SEO tools.

Nonetheless, I think KWFinder is a solid choice for those looking for an easy-to-use keyword research tool.

8. Woorank

Best for Marketing Optimization (from $79.99/mth)

Woorank is a website review and analysis suite of SEO tools that allows you to audit websites and track how they rank on search engines.

You can use it to rank yourself as well as your competitors to see how you benchmark against them, using features such as on page SEO monitoring, competitive analysis, the keyword tool and site crawl analysis.

Woorank Features that Stand Out

• Website review
• Backlink analysis, including broken links
• In-depth reporting
• Competitive Analysis
• Continuous tracking
  

Finally, here's my take

Woorank is great when it comes to running website audits to identify areas for improvement. They have several in-depth reports with actionable insights to enhance your site's SEO, usability, and performance.

I wish the tool offered more features in terms of competitor analysis and backlink tracking. Woorank is definitely a useful tool for website audits, but it may not be the best choice if you're looking for a comprehensive SEO solution.

9. Similarweb

Best for Competitive Analysis (from $199/mth)

Similarweb is not so much a spy tool at the nuts and bolts level but a tool that can allow you to observe and learn from your competition's overall search engine optimization strategy so you can outsmart them.

For example, you can use Similarweb to benchmark your website against your competitors by comparing visitors, bounce rates, page views and time on site.

You can also use it to find out what sources generate traffic for your website as well as your competitor's by tracking visitors from social media, organic search, paid ads and direct traffic.

Similarweb Features that Stand Out

• Uncover top keyword trends
• Uncover unique visitor data
• Analyze and create benchmarks for any category
• Uncover top referring sites for your site and your competition's
• Uncover audience interests

Finally, here's my take

Similarweb is great for analyzing website traffic and understanding audience behavior. The data on referral sources, top-performing pages, and demographic information is particularly insightful.

It'll definitely help you identify new opportunities for traffic growth and help you fine tune your marketing strategies. A caveat is that the accuracy of the traffic data can sometimes be hit or miss for smaller websites.

Also, Similarweb focuses primarily on website traffic analysis, so it doesn't provide the same level of detail for more traditional aspects of SEO.

10. SpyOnWeb

Best for Insights from Competitors (free)

SpyOnWeb is a tool that allows you to get traffic insights for any competitor, including their global rank, country rank, category rank, visitors coming from social media platforms, organic search, referrals, display ads and more.

In addition, SpyOnWeb allows you to find out if you're competing against multiple websites that happen to belong to the same owner, by inspecting their IP addresses, Google Analytics codes and online ad account numbers.

SpyOnWeb Features that Stand Out

• All data is aggregated from publicly available sources
• Current database: 243,101,616 Unique Domains; 21,444,939 Unique IP Addresses; 6,454,165 Unique Nameservers; 11,994,159 Unique Analytics IDs; 1,779,188 Unique Adsense IDs
  
• It’s 100% free to use plus no registration is required!

Finally, here's my take

SpyOnWeb is great if you want to uncover hidden connections between websites.

It can help you identify shared resources like IP addresses, Google Analytics, and Adsense codes, which can help you understand the connection between different websites to identify competitors.

One limitation I've encountered with SpyOnWeb is that the data it provides can sometimes be limited or outdated.

Overall, I think SpyOnWeb is a unique tool for uncovering website connections, but it may not be the best choice if you're looking for a more comprehensive SEO solution.

11. Majestic

Best for Backlink Research (from $49.99/mth)

Majestic scours the internet for backlinks in order to populate their link-intelligence database.

They then present this information in a way that allows you to create a competitive advantage.

This award-winning intelligence tool developed a number of proprietary SEO metrics to help you benchmark your site against your competitors, including Trust Flow, Citation Flow, Visibility Flow and Topical Trust Flow.

Majestic Features that Stand Out

• Broad array of backlink indexing and domain analysis tools
  
• Keyword generator based on AI-based NLP algorithms
• Industry-leading API

Finally, here's my take

This is a great tool for backlink analysis and domain authority tracking. Its backlink database and metrics, like Trust Flow and Citation Flow, can be very useful for understanding the quality and strength of your website's backlink profile.

However, I find Majestic's interface a bit challenging to navigate, especially if you're new to SEO. Also, the tool mainly focuses on backlink analysis and lacks some of the more commonplace SEO features found in other tools, such as keyword research and on-page optimization.

12. iSpionage

Best for CPC Competitive Analysis (from $59/mth)

Although iSpionage can be used for organic keyword analysis like the on page SEO programs above, where they truly shine is in their ability to spy on your competitors' online ad campaign strategy.

To facilitate this task, it offers a range of features designed to lower your PPC costs, including intelligence about your competitors' cost per click, number of ads, search volume, average position and first & last seen dates.

iSpionage Features that Stand Out

• Pay per click competitive analysis tools
• A/B testing tools
• Rank tracking
• Website monitoring

Finally, here's my take

iSpionage can be very useful for competitive intelligence and to monitor your competitors' PPC and SEO strategies. It provides solid insights on ad copy, keyword targeting, and landing page performance.

One downside I've encountered with iSpionage is that the data can sometimes be outdated or incomplete, which can limit its effectiveness. I also feel that the tool could be more user-friendly, as the interface can be a bit overwhelming at first glance.

Overall, I think iSpionage is a helpful tool for competitive intelligence, but it may not be the best choice for those looking for an all-in-one SEO solution.

13. Moz Pro

Best for Custom Reports (from $99/mth)

Moz Pro is an all-in-one SEO tool that works along the lines of Ahrefs, and SEMRush but with a smaller database.

In addition to crawling your site for SEO errors, it allows you to analyze your competitors' websites for top pages by backlinks, keywords and traffic as well as for page and domain authority.

Moz Pro Features that Stand Out

• Link Explorer
• Brand mention monitoring tool
• Keyword explorer
• Site auditing
  
• Rank tracker
  
• Page search engine optimization
• Google analytics integration
  

Finally, here's my take

Moz Pro has been another workhorse in the industry, offering a comprehensive suite of tools for keyword research, backlink analysis, and on-page optimization.

The Keyword Explorer, a central feature of Moz for years, shows valuable data on search volume, keyword difficulty, and other important metrics to help you make informed decisions about what keywords to target.

The pricing can be a bit steep, though, and while the tool offers a wide range of features, it may not always be the best-in-class for every specific function.

Despite these limitations, I still think Moz Pro is a versatile tool if you're looking for a swiss-army knife SEO solution.

14. Screamingfrog

Best for Off-Cloud Website Audits (from $165/mth)

Screamingfrog is an on page SEO tool that crawls websites to find broken links, duplicate content and other errors that can impact your performance in the eyes of search engines.

Unlike all other competitors on this list, Screamingfrog isn't a cloud-based solution but a piece of software you need to download and install on your computer.

Screamingfrog Features that Stand Out

• Analyze page SEO titles and meta data for search engine optimization compliance
• Generate XML sitemaps
• Review meta robots & directives
• Compare staging vs production environments
• Google Analytics, Google Search Console and PageSpeed Insights integration

Finally, here's my take

Screaming Frog's claim to fame is its ability to quickly crawl a website, uncovering broken links, duplicate content, and other technical issues that could hurt your SEO.

While Screaming Frog is excellent for technical SEO, it's worth noting that it may not be as comprehensive in other areas, such as keyword research and backlink analysis.

Also, the tool has a bit of a learning curve, especially for those not familiar with technical SEO concepts.

Overall, I think Screaming Frog is a great tool if you're looking to perform in-depth technical audits on your website.

15. KWSurfer

Best Keyword Research Chrome Extension (free)

If you're looking for 100% free tools to help you do a reasonable job with your keyword research, look no further than KW Surfer, from the developers of the top of the line on-page SEO tool Surfer.

KW Surfer is a free Chrome browser extension that taps into Surfer's database of keywords to serve keyword suggestions whenever you do a search on Chrome.

KW Surfer Features that Stand Out for Online Earners

• Great source of related keywords based on your seed keyword
• Great source of monthly search volume for target keywords
• Handy clipboard feature for exporting your keyword list and associated traffic numbers to a spreadsheet
  
• They claim datasets from 70 countries, so the results are not just restricted to the English language
  
• It’s 100% free!

Finally, here's my take

KWSurfer is a browser extension from the folks that have brought you Surfer SEO, and it's very helpful for conducting quick keyword research, with a simple and intuitive interface for finding relevant keywords right on your browser.

Having said that, sometimes it can be limited and it may not provide as many keyword suggestions as some other tools on the market. Also, being free of charge it lacks most typical features found in other SEO tools.

How Do I Spy on My Competitors' SEO Strategy?

When it comes to search engine optimization and SEO tools, there are three core words that you need to consider: target keywords, content and backlinks.

To be able to fully understand how your competitors are ranking on search engines and what what strategies they're using to rank, you'll need to use tools like the ones listed above to deconstruct their SEO strategies.

For example, you can use SEO tools to discover your competitors' top ranking pages, how many domains are linking to their content and what keywords they're using to rank those pages.

Then, once you learn what pages are bringing them their online success, all you have to do is to analyze them to find clues from their content — in short, what are they doing that you're not?

How Do You See What Keywords a Competitor Website Is Using?

Unless you own a website, you won't have access to the Google Search Console to find out what keywords it's ranking for — they consider this privileged information.

As a result, a great number of on page SEO platforms, like most of the ones listed above, have had to set up a parallel universe of crawling servers to replicate what Google does in order to harvest critical keyword information.

Some on page SEO programs operate more servers than others, based on their financial ability, therefore revealing what keywords websites they've crawled are ranking for.

Large outfits, like Ahrefs and SEMRush, run the largest banks of crawling servers outside of Google itself and will be able to provide you with the most actionable competitor keyword data.

How Do I Track Traffic on a Competitor's Website?

The best way to track traffic from your competitors is to use tools like Ahrefs and SEMRush to run a site explorer search since you won't access to their individual Google Search Console accounts.

These on page SEO programs will show you their traffic variations from day to day so you can spot trends.

Now these tools use traffic approximations and not absolute values, since Google only reveals those to website owners. But, since what you're looking for are trends over time, this is not really an issue.

Can the Google Search Console be Used to Spy on Your Competitors?

It's no secret that the Google Search Console can be a powerful on page SEO tool to help you rank higher on search engines.

Not only does it provide insights into how all your web pages are ranking, but it can also be a treasure trove for keyword research.

Unfortunately, it won't give you any information on websites you don't own or have admin access to, and that includes all your competitors.

What to Do Next?

Now it's  time to get your hands dirty with SEO tools to get online intelligence on all your competitors!

So, make a short list and then sign up to some of the on page SEO tools above, taking advantage of free trial periods or money-back guarantees.

You'll be surprised (and delighted) by how much of your competitors' best strategies are just sitting out there, all in the open for everyone to see, if you use the right competitor analysis tools!