How to Check Competitor Website Traffic: Tools, Benchmarks & Keyword Wins

You might think you know what a competitor’s SEO strategy looks like. But are you really going to market on gut feel alone?

Sure, if you had an unlimited budget, you could afford to guess. Most of us don’t.

When you’re working with near-zero budgets and million-dollar growth targets, assumptions get expensive fast. What you actually need is real data on which content formats bring in visitors before you spend a single rupee.

That visibility comes from analyzing competitor website traffic. 

The only catch is, you cannot access their first-party data through Google Analytics or Search Console. 

So, let’s talk about the next best method to find competitor website traffic and keywords so you can compete for them on the SERPs.

What tools do you need for Competitor Website Traffic Analysis?

Before jumping into competitor analysis, you need the right website traffic analysis tools. Here’s a quick list of the free and paid ones you can use based on what your budget is and how deep you want to go into your analysis. 

Free Tools for Quick Checks and Analysis

• Similarweb Website Traffic Checker provides directional visits, traffic sources, and country breakdowns with five free daily comparisons. 
• Semrush Website Traffic Checker offers 10 free traffic reports per month showing estimated traffic, channel mix, and accuracy scores.
• Neil Patel's Ubersuggest gives limited daily searches for traffic estimates and top keywords.

These free options work well for occasional competitor checks or when you're just starting to build competitive intelligence. 

But when you need comprehensive website traffic data across multiple competitors with historical data tracking, premium tools become worthwhile investments.

Paid Tools for Deeper Analysis

Semrush Traffic Analytics + Market Explorer compares traffic share, audience overlap, and growth velocity across five domains. Key features include the Growth Quadrant showing who's gaining or losing position. According to Semrush's documentation, their clickstream data covers over 200 million users.

• Ahrefs Site Explorer excels at organic search intelligence with traffic estimates, top pages, and traffic share by domains. Ahrefs updates hourly, making it reliable for tracking recent ranking changes and gaining a competitive advantage over slower-moving competitors.
• Semrush paid plans are powerful and offer additional features, such asquite powerful and offer additional features, like Semrush Trends, advertising research, social media tracker, and more. 
• SE Ranking provides organic and paid breakdowns with geographicgeography distribution. Their AI algorithm adjusts click-through rates based on SERP features.
• SpyFu specializes in PPC intelligence with budgets, paid keyword history, and ad copy variations. SpyFu tracks 15+ years of historical data, revealing seasonal patterns and campaign trends.

Step-by-Step: How to Check Competitor Traffic

Running a one-time competitor check gives you a snapshot. Building a repeatable process gives you actionable traffic insightstraffic insights you can act on. The workflow below helps you move from curiosity about competitor traffic to actionable insights that plug directly into your content marketing calendar and paid campaigns.

1. Build Your Competitor List

Track both direct competitors (same products, same audience) and search competitors (ranking for your keywords). 

Semrush Organic Research helps you expand beyond obvious rivals by showing sites competing for the same organic keywords.

Your direct competitor might be another project management tool, but your search competitor could be a productivity blog ranking for "how to organize team tasks." Both steal potential customers at different funnel stages. And you need to pay attention to both. 

Both steal potential customers at different funnel stages. And you need to pay attention to both. 

Here’s how you could go about it:

• Start by listing 3-5 companies you know that you know are compete for the same deals. 
• Enter your domain in Semrush, navigate to Organic Research > Competitors, and you'll discover 2-3 sites you never considered. 
• Pay attention to competitors with 30-50% keyword overlap. A CRM might compete with a sales automation tool and a lead generation guide for "sales pipeline management."

2. Get Traffic & Channel Mix

Pull up each competitor in Similarweb or Semrush. Then, note estimated monthly visits (US-filtered), channel split (organic, paid, direct, referral, social), and three-month traffic patterns. 

Channel mix reveals resource allocation.

• Competitor A shows 150k monthly visits: 65% organic, 15% paid. 
• Competitor B shows 180k visits: 35% organic, 45% paid. 

Despite similar traffic, they run different SEO playbooks. 

In this above case Competitor A has built an SEO moat while Competitor B relies on paid acquisition with higher customer costs and ad platform vulnerability.

3. Benchmark Share & Growth

Semrush Market Overview shows traffic share percentages and positions competitors in a Growth Quadrant: "Game Changers" (high growth, rising share), "Leaders" (high share, stable), or declining players. 

For instance, you may celebrate 100k monthly visits while competitors capture 500k each. Then you discover the total addressable search volume sits at 5M monthly searches. You're fighting for 2% market share while three competitors own 10% each. That 70% unclaimed territory represents your real opportunity for gaining a competitive edge.

4. Identify Top Pages

Semrush Traffic Pages shows which URLs drive the most visits. The question you want to be asking is, does your competitor dominate with comparison pages, long-form guides, or product landing pages?

Go through 10-20 SERP competitors and look for repeatable content patterns. For instance, if 60% of your competitors have “A vs. B” comparison pages ranking in the top 10 and you don’t, that’s a clear gap you need to fill. 

5. Monitor Changes

Set weekly snapshots in your chosen tool. For example, a tool like Visualping alerts you when competitor pages update. 

You can create a simple tracking dashboard for the same. Every Monday:

• Log each competitor's total traffic, top 5 ranking changes, and new content published. 
• Watch for sudden traffic spikes. 
• Check Google Trends for the target keyword. 
• Flat trend means they improved the content. 
• A rising trend means they caught a wave.

Also set up Visualping to track their pricing page, features page, and main landing page. Pricing changes often precede major campaigns. New feature launches reveal product roadmap priorities. 

When three competitors simultaneously increase paid spend, industry competition is heating up. When all reduce content output, that's your window to dominate organic search.

Going from Competitor Traffic to Competitor Keywords and Beyond 

Traffic numbers tell you what. Keywords tell you the how. 

Knowing a competitor gets 500k monthly website visitors means little until you understand which search terms and paid campaigns actually drive those visitors. So let’s look at the extraction process. 

Organic Keyword Extraction

Semrush Organic Research shows every term competitors rank for, with position, search volume, difficulty, and traffic share. Filter for positions 1-10 with volume above 500 to surface their money keywords. Keyword Gap reveals shared keywords (you both rank, they outrank you), missing keywords (they rank, you don't), and weak keywords (you rank outside the top 20).

Ahrefs Site Explorer takes a page-level approach. Click any top page to see its organic keywords and traffic drivers. The "Traffic share by domains" report shows which competitors own visibility for specific keyword clusters.

Organic keyword research reveals what content attracts searchers. Paid keywords reveal where competitors invest actual budget, making them more reliable indicators of what actually converts.

PPC Competitor Keywords

SpyFu shows every keyword competitors bid on, estimated CPC, monthly spend, and ad copy variations. SpyFu's Kombat tool reveals keywords multiple competitors bid on for strong conversion signals. According to Directive Consulting, keyword overlap identifies high-value terms validated by competitor budgets.

Semrush Advertising Research and Ahrefs Paid Keywords show search ads copy, landing pages, and spend trends. Google Ads Keyword Planner offers free keyword discovery. Just enter a competitor's domain under "Discover new keywords."

Build Your Tracking Dashboard

Raw website traffic data doesn't help without organization. 

Create a spreadsheet with these columns: Domain, US Visits (est.), Traffic Share %, Channel Mix, Top Pages, Top Organic Keywords, Top Paid Keywords, Change vs Last Month %, and Notes. Populate monthly to spot patterns like paid plan budget shifts, new content hubs, or post-redesign traffic drops.

Accuracy Expectations

According to Reddit practitioners, estimates vary across tools. SpyFu's accuracy sits around 85-90% for US keyword data. Ahrefs acknowledges its data is "approximated for relative performance."

Absolute numbers fluctuate between tools, and trends remain consistent. Low-traffic sites have wider error margins; high-traffic sites generate more accurate estimates. Focus on share of voice rather than raw visits. Whether you own 15% or 45% of search visibility matters more than exact category size.

What External Tools Can't Show

You'll never see exact Google Analytics data, conversion rates, or real user behavior metrics. Email and app traffic stay largely invisible. MonsterInsights confirms: "First-party data gives exact numbers only for properties you control. Third-party tools provide estimates."

While these tools excel at tracking Google search visibility and organic rankings, they can't reveal what happens after visitors land on your competitor's site. You won't see bounce rates, time on page, or which pages drive conversions. For your own site's performance analysis, combine competitor traffic tools with Search Console data for complete visibility.

Turn Competitor Traffic Into Your Content Strategy 

Checking competitor traffic shows what's already working in your market. With that data, you're simply gathering validated strategies, then building better ones or filling in overlooked gaps.

To get started, pick one competitor and run them through Similarweb for traffic overview, Semrush for market share and top pages and organic keyword gaps. Export their top 20 ranking keywords and compare against your rankings. You'll typically find 5-10 terms where you could rank and haven't created content yet. 

That's your roadmap. For paid campaigns, download their SpyFu keywords and filter for consistent monthly spend (conversion signals). Then test a few keywords in your campaigns with lower bids, tracking performance against existing keywords.

Set monthly check-ins to find traffic share changes, content launches, and ranking shifts. When a competitor gains 20% more organic traffic, investigate what changed. New content hub, site speed improvements, fresh backlinks. Learn from their wins while avoiding their losses.

Web traffic analysis works because it proves what converts in your market. Your competitors already ran the experiments and validated the demand. You just need to analyze the results and execute better. Combine these website traffic checker insights with other tools like Google Analytics and Search Console for your own properties to build complete market intelligence.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: How can I see how much traffic a website gets?

A: Similarweb or Semrush provides directional estimates for understanding growth patterns and channel mix. Adding Ahrefs reveals organic keyword data and top pages. Treat numbers as trends, not exact figures. Cross-referencing multiple tools improves accuracy.

Q: What's the most accurate way to check traffic?

A: No external view matches internal analytics. Reddit practitioners recommend combining Semrush, Ahrefs, and Similarweb while validating with keyword rankings and backlink signals. When three tools show 25-35% growth, trust the trend even when exact numbers vary.

Q: How do I compare competitors' traffic against mine?

A: Semrush Market Explorer shows traffic share and growth quadrants. Ahrefs Domain Comparison provides side-by-side organic metrics. Both reveal relative positioning better than absolute visit counts.

Q: Which tools show competitors' top pages?

A: Semrush Traffic Analytics and Ahrefs Top Pages surface the highest-traffic URLs with engagement metrics, revealing which content formats drive sustained growth.

Q: How do I find competitors' PPC keywords?

A: SpyFu provides paid keyword lists, ad spend estimates, and ad copy history spanning 15+ years. Semrush Advertising Research and Ahrefs Paid Keywords also surface active terms and landing pages.

Q: Any free ways to get competitors' keywords?

A: Google Ads Keyword Planner offers zero-cost discovery. Navigate to "Discover new keywords" and enter a competitor domain. Ubersuggest provides limited free daily searches.