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Why Track Competitors?

Understanding your competitors’ AI search visibility helps you:
  • Benchmark performance: Know if your visibility is good or needs work
  • Identify opportunities: Find prompts where competitors are weak
  • Learn strategies: See what’s working for competitors
  • Track changes: Monitor competitive landscape over time

Adding Competitors

What You Need

For each competitor, provide:
  • Company name: The primary brand name
  • Website URL: Their main domain
  • Brand variations: Alternative names, abbreviations, common misspellings

How to Add

  1. Go to your project settings
  2. Navigate to “Competitors”
  3. Click “Add Competitor”
  4. Enter the competitor details
  5. Save
Competitor tracking will begin with the next crawl cycle.

Selecting the Right Competitors

Direct Competitors

Companies offering similar products or services:
  • Same product category
  • Similar target audience
  • Overlapping features
Example: If you’re a project management tool, direct competitors include Asana, Monday.com, Trello, etc.

Indirect Competitors

Alternative solutions to the same problem:
  • Different approach to the same need
  • Adjacent product categories
  • Substitute solutions
Example: For a project management tool, spreadsheets and email could be indirect competitors.

Aspirational Competitors

Market leaders you want to compete with:
  • Dominant players in your space
  • Brands with high AI visibility
  • Companies setting industry standards
Example: If you’re a new CRM, Salesforce is an aspirational competitor.

How Many Competitors?

Start with 3-5 competitors:
  • 2-3 direct competitors
  • 1-2 indirect or aspirational competitors

Scaling Up

Add more competitors as needed:
  • Different market segments
  • Regional competitors
  • Emerging competitors
  • Category adjacent players

Managing Competitor Lists

For large competitor sets:
  • Prioritize key competitors for detailed analysis
  • Group competitors by type or segment
  • Archive inactive competitors
  • Review and update regularly

Competitor Analysis

Visibility Comparison

Compare your visibility against competitors:
  • Overall visibility: Who’s mentioned most?
  • By prompt: Where do competitors win?
  • By platform: Which AI favors which competitor?

Position Comparison

See how rankings compare:
  • Average position: Who’s typically mentioned first?
  • First-place wins: Who leads most often?
  • Position trends: Who’s improving?

Sentiment Comparison

Compare how AI describes each brand:
  • Positive mentions: Who gets more praise?
  • Negative mentions: Who has more criticism?
  • Sentiment trends: Who’s improving perception?

Competitive Intelligence

Identifying Gaps

Look for opportunities where:
  • You have low visibility but competitors are strong
  • Competitors have negative sentiment you can contrast
  • Your position is poor despite good visibility

Learning from Leaders

Analyze high-visibility competitors:
  • What content do they have?
  • Where are they mentioned?
  • What sources cite them?
  • What makes AI favor them?

Finding Weaknesses

Identify competitor vulnerabilities:
  • Prompts where they’re absent
  • Topics with negative sentiment
  • Areas where you have advantages

Best Practices

Keep Competitor Info Updated

Regularly review competitor information:
  • Brand name changes
  • Product renames
  • New variations or aliases
  • Company acquisitions

Track Emerging Competitors

Monitor for new competitors:
  • New entrants to your market
  • Companies pivoting into your space
  • Startups gaining traction

Segment Your Analysis

Different competitors matter for different contexts:
  • Enterprise vs SMB competitors
  • Feature-specific competitors
  • Regional competitors

Using Competitor Data

Strategic Planning

Use competitor insights to inform:
  • Content strategy (address gaps)
  • Positioning (differentiate effectively)
  • Messaging (counter competitor strengths)
  • Product roadmap (address competitive weaknesses)

Reporting

Include competitor data in reports:
  • Competitive visibility trends
  • Win/loss analysis by prompt
  • Sentiment comparison
  • Position changes over time

Next Steps