How do I research what my local competitors are doing in SEO, ads, and content — and find gaps to exploit?

You don't need expensive tools to understand what your local competitors are doing. Search Google. Look at their GBP listings. Check Meta Ad Library. Read their websites. This takes two hours, it's free, and it tells you exactly where they're strong (don't fight them there) and where they're weak (build there first).

Here's the complete competitive research system organized by channel — for the full audit run quarterly, for the quick version run monthly.

SEO competitive research

Search your top 5 keyword phrases in an incognito browser window from within your service area. For each keyword, record: who is in the Map Pack (positions 1–3), who is ranking in organic positions 1–5, what their page titles and meta descriptions say, and what their landing page actually contains when you click through.

For each competitor ranking on page 1: What does their service page say that yours doesn't? How specific is their geographic targeting (do they name neighborhoods, or just the city)? Do they have dedicated pages for each service, or one generic "services" page? What page titles are they using — and are those titles in your meta as well?

Free tool add: Ubersuggest's free tier shows a competitor's top-ranked keywords and estimated traffic. Put each top competitor's domain in and look for keywords they rank for that you don't have a page targeting yet. Each one is a content opportunity.

GBP competitive research

Pull up each competitor's Google Business Profile listing directly from the Map Pack or Google Maps. For each one, note:

• Total review count and average star rating
• Date of most recent review — a competitor with 300 reviews but the last one posted 9 months ago looks abandoned
• Whether they're posting GBP Posts and how often
• Photo count and quality — are they showing real job photos or stock images?
• Whether the Q&A section has questions posted and whether those questions are answered
• Services listed — how detailed are their service descriptions?

Ad research: Meta Ad Library (free, no account needed)

Go to facebook.com/ads/library. Search your competitor's business name. You'll see every active Facebook and Instagram ad they're currently running — the exact creative, the copy, and how long the ad has been running (longer = it's working, they wouldn't run it if it wasn't). This is the most underused free competitive research tool available. You can see exactly what offers your competitors are making, what hooks they're using, what creative formats they've tested, and which ones they've kept running.

What to note: What service are they promoting? What offer are they making (free estimate, discount, guarantee)? What visual format are they using (video, before/after, team photo)? What's the opening line of their copy? Any ad that has been running for 30+ days is earning them results — that's your best signal about what works in your market.

Ad research: Google Search (manual, free)

Search your top service keywords and screenshot every competitor Google Search Ad. Note: what headlines they use, what offers they make in descriptions, what ad extensions appear (callouts, sitelinks, call extension). This tells you what messaging they've tested and chosen to run — and what you should test in your own ads to either match or differentiate.

Content gap research

Read through the top 3 competitor websites in detail. What questions do their pages not answer? What local specificity is missing? Which services don't have dedicated pages? What neighborhoods or nearby cities do they not target? Every missing page is a content opportunity for you. Every unanswered question their customers might have is a blog article or FAQ page you can create.

Competitor audit template

Do the full audit on your top 3 competitors quarterly (2 hours). Run a compressed version monthly (20 minutes): just check review recency and GBP posting frequency for your top 2 competitors. These two metrics change quickly enough to track monthly and tell you whether competitors are actively investing in local search.