Your competitors’ rankings are public information. Every keyword they rank for, every page that pulls traffic, every gap in their strategy — all of it is visible if you know where to look. A free SEO competitor analysis will not just tell you why they outrank you; it hands you a to-do list where every item is already proven to work in your market.

Here is the exact 7-step process, using free tools only.

Step 1: Identify Your Search Competitors

Your business competitors and your search competitors are not the same list. Google your five most valuable services the way a customer would (“roof repair sarasota,” “pool cleaning near me”). Whoever occupies page one — including directories and lead-gen sites — is who you are actually competing against. Pick the three or four real businesses that appear most often.

Step 2: Map Their Keywords Against Yours

The core question: which keywords do they rank for that you don’t? These gaps are your fastest wins, because a competitor ranking for a term proves a local business can rank for it.

Step 3: Find the Missing Keywords

Prioritize gap keywords in two buckets: money terms (service + city — these produce customers) and question terms (“how much does a roof cost in florida” — these build the authority that lifts money terms). Ignore vanity keywords with no buying intent, whatever their volume.

Step 4: Reverse-Engineer Their Best Pages

Visit the competitor pages that outrank you and read them like an editor: How many words? Do they answer pricing questions you avoid? Real photos or stock? City-specific content or a template? Reviews embedded? You are cataloguing what Google already rewards in your market — your job is to do it meaningfully better, not marginally different.

Step 5: Compare On-Page Fundamentals

• Title tags: do theirs lead with keyword + city while yours say “Home | Company Name”?
• H1s: one clear, keyword-bearing H1 per page.
• Meta descriptions: written to earn the click, sized to Google’s real pixel limits.
• Schema markup: LocalBusiness and FAQ structured data — check theirs and yours.

Step 6: Gauge Their Authority (Links & Reviews)

Check their backlink sources with free tool tiers — local sponsorships, chamber memberships, supplier directories are all replicable. Then compare Google review count, rating, and velocity. In local SEO, review momentum is authority you can act on this month.

Step 7: Turn Findings Into a 90-Day Plan

Rank every gap by revenue potential × achievability. A sane structure: month one, fix on-page fundamentals and publish two gap-keyword service pages; month two, build the review system and match their best local links; month three, publish question-answering content and re-run the analysis to measure movement. Re-audit quarterly — competitor analysis is a rhythm, not an event.

Worked Example: A Sarasota Pool Company vs. Its Top Competitor

To make the seven steps concrete, here is how the analysis played out for a mid-size pool service company. Step 1 surfaced a competitor appearing on page one for eleven of twelve money searches. Step 2’s gap map found 34 keywords the competitor ranked for alone — including “pool resurfacing sarasota” (their #3 revenue service, zero content). Step 4 explained why: the competitor’s resurfacing page had 1,400 words, twelve real photos, a price range table, and embedded reviews; our subject’s equivalent was 180 words and a phone number. Step 6 found the review gap — 89 versus 214 — but also that the competitor’s velocity had stalled, meaning momentum was winnable. The 90-day plan that came out of it: rebuild three service pages to beat the competitor’s depth, launch the review-request system, and publish six question posts targeting gaps. Ninety days later the subject held page one for seven of the 34 gap keywords and had cut the review deficit in half. None of that required a tool subscription — just the discipline of looking.

Free Tool Stack: Who Does What

• Google Search Console — your own rankings, impressions, and CTR; the baseline every comparison starts from.
• Our free competitor analysis tool — side-by-side ranking comparison, no signup.
• Missing Keywords tool — the gap list, prioritized.
• Google Business Profile + Maps — review counts, categories, photo activity for every map competitor.
• Free tiers of Ahrefs/Semrush — backlink samples sufficient for a local link-parity list.
• The competitor’s own site — still the highest-signal free tool in SEO; read it like an editor, not a rival.

The Bottom Line

Your competitors have already spent years and thousands of dollars discovering what ranks in your market — competitor analysis is simply reading their receipts. Run the seven steps quarterly: identify true search competitors, map the keyword gaps, study the pages that beat you, close the on-page and authority gaps, and convert findings into a 90-day plan with owners and deadlines. Free tools cover the entire loop. The businesses that win local search are rarely the ones with secret tactics — they are the ones that systematically did what the data in plain sight told them to do.