How to win customers from your competitors

You win customers from competitors by being the better answer at the moment buyers compare. Find out who your rivals are, which searches send them traffic, how they advertise and what their customers complain about. Then write honest comparison pages, sharpen your pitch around their weak spots, and get mentioned on the sites that already mention them.

You can do each step in an afternoon.

1. List your real competitors

Start with the companies buyers actually compare you with. Ask your last few prospects what else they looked at. Search your main keyword in Google and note who ranks.

Our Competitor Finder finds the sites that rank in Google for the same keywords as yours. It sorts them into close competitors and large general sites by traffic overlap. It does not find offline or ads-only rivals, so add those by hand. For more ways to build the list, see how to find competitors.

Keep three to five names. With more than that, you will not finish the rest of the steps.

2. Size up each competitor

Run each site through Domain Overview. It shows how many Google keywords the site ranks for, its estimated visits, what those visits would cost in ads and how many sites link to it. The numbers are estimates. Use them to compare rivals with each other.

A rival with many links and years of content is hard to beat head on. A rival with few keywords and thin pages is where search can work for you sooner.

3. Find the searches they win and you miss

Most of the quick wins are here.

Keyword Gap lists the keywords a competitor ranks for on Google's first two pages that your site does not rank for. It sorts them into blog topics and keywords worth bidding on. Look for searches with buying intent, like "[category] for [use case]", "[competitor] pricing" and "[competitor] alternative".

Pick the five closest to a purchase and write a page for each. Our keyword gap guide shows how to read the list.

4. Write honest "alternatives" and "X vs Y" pages

People who search "[competitor] alternatives" are already unhappy or shopping. A good comparison page meets them there.

• Make one "[competitor] alternatives" page for each main rival.
• Make a "[your product] vs [competitor]" page for the two or three you are compared with most.
• Use a table for price, main features and who each tool suits.
• Say where the competitor is the better pick. Buyers trust a page that admits it.
• Check every claim against the competitor's current site, and date the page.

Keep it fair and accurate. A wrong price or an invented weakness gets screenshotted, and false claims about a rival can get you into legal trouble. Update the page when their pricing changes.

5. Study how they advertise on Google, Meta and LinkedIn

Ads show which messages a competitor pays to repeat. That tells you what they think sells.

• Competitor Google Ads shows the Google ads a site runs, their formats, how long each has run, and the headlines of its longest-running text ads.
• Meta Ad Finder shows the Facebook and Instagram ads a competitor runs right now, with wording, call to action and landing page.
• LinkedIn Ad Finder shows a company's LinkedIn ads, with headlines and start and stop dates.

None of these show spend or performance. An ad that has run for months hints that it works. It does not prove it. Write down the pain each ad names and the offer it makes. The PPC competitor analysis guide goes further.

6. Read their reviews and build your pitch on the complaints

Competitor reviews tell you, in the customer's own words, what the rival gets wrong. Reading them costs nothing.

Go to the review sites for your category, the app stores and Reddit threads. Read the two- and three-star reviews first. They come from people who wanted the product to work and hit a wall.

Copy the complaints into a sheet and group them, for example by price, missing features, support and setup. If one complaint keeps coming up and you solve it, put that in your headline, comparison pages and ads, in the buyer's own words.

7. Get links from sites that link to them

Sites that link to a competitor already write about your category. Many will mention you too if you give them a reason.

Run a competitor through Backlink Finder. It lists the strongest sites linking to it, how strong each one is and whether it looks spammy. Skip the spammy ones. Look for roundups, "best tools" lists, directories and partner pages.

Email the author one line on what you do differently and offer a login. Backlink Finder does not give contact details, so find those yourself. See how to get backlinks for a new website for outreach steps.

8. Check who AI names when buyers ask for options

Many buyers now ask ChatGPT or Perplexity for a shortlist. If a competitor shows up there and you do not, they get the first look.

Give AI Answer Visibility a question a buyer would ask, like "best invoicing tool for small agencies". It asks ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini and shows whether they mention or cite your brand, and who they name instead. The sites those engines cite are your next outreach list. It does not track changes over time, so run it again after you publish.

Tools to research competitors for your own site

Start with Keyword Gap on your closest rival. It costs 85 credits and shows the Google searches that rival ranks for on the first two pages and you do not, sorted into blog topics and keywords worth bidding on. If you are not sure who to compare against yet, run Competitor Finder first for 38 credits. Then check their Facebook and Instagram ads with Meta Ad Finder for 5 credits.