Competitor analysis
Competitor analysis for local search and Maps
Finding out why a specific competitor outranks you in Maps and search, and what it would take to close the gap.
What this is
This starts with a name. You point at the business that keeps appearing above you and I work backwards from their profile, their pages and their links to find what they have that you do not.
The answer is usually less mysterious and more actionable than people expect.
What you get
What gets compared
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01
Google Business Profile
Categories, services, description, photos, hours and attributes. The primary category is the single heaviest lever in local ranking and a surprising number of businesses have the wrong one.
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02
Reviews
How many, how recent, how often new ones arrive, and whether they are being replied to. Review velocity matters as much as total count and is the thing most often behind a competitor pulling ahead.
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03
Their pages
What they have a page for that you do not, how those pages are structured, and which of them are actually doing the ranking.
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04
Links and citations
Who links to them and where they are listed. Local link sources are usually reachable, which makes this the most directly copyable part.
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05
Where they beat you on the map
Their position across your service area rather than at one point, using the same grid approach as rank tracking.
The part people do not want to hear
Sometimes a competitor is ahead because of things you cannot copy. They are physically closer to the centre of the search area, they have eleven years of reviews, or they are a genuinely larger business.
Where that is the case I will say so, and the recommendation becomes competing where you can win rather than grinding against something structural. That is a more useful conclusion than a list of tactics that will not close a gap of that kind.
What it costs
Quoted after a free consult, because what it takes depends entirely on what you already have. Book a call, I will tell you what is involved, and you get a number before anything starts. Website plan details are on the pricing page.
Priced per engagement and scoped by how many competitors you want examined. One or two done properly beats five done shallowly.
How this differs
This starts with a named rival and works backwards. An SEO audit starts with your own site and no comparison, and answers a different question: what is broken here.
Both are diagnostics rather than fixes. What comes out is a plan, and the work itself is separate.
Questions
What people ask
How many competitors should I look at?
One or two who genuinely take work from you. A survey of everyone in your market produces a longer document and less clarity.
Can you tell me exactly what they are doing?
I can see everything public: their profile, pages, reviews and links. I cannot see their advertising spend or anything private, and I will not speculate about it as though I could.
What if they are just bigger than me?
Then that is the finding, and it is worth knowing. The plan becomes where you can realistically win rather than a head-on fight you would lose slowly.
Is this a one-off or ongoing?
Usually one-off. The landscape does not change fast enough to justify monthly, and repeating it quarterly is over-monitoring for most small businesses.
Find out what they have that you do not
Tell me what is going on and I will tell you whether this is what you actually need. No pitch deck and no pressure.
Book a free consult