How to Do a Competitor Reputation Analysis (With a Template)
How to compare your online reputation with your competitors': what to measure, how to gather it ethically from public data, a comparison table template, and how to turn the gaps into actions.
By Editorial Team
8 min read
A competitor reputation analysis compares how your business looks online with how three to five direct competitors look, using public information: star ratings, review volume and recency, how often each business replies, the themes that come up in complaints, what appears when you search each brand name, and how often each is mentioned. Put the results in one table, look for the gaps where you trail or lead, and turn each gap into a specific action. Repeat it every quarter or two.
The point isn’t to copy competitors or to catch them out. It’s to see your brand’s reputation the way a customer does: side by side with the alternatives, in the same search results, often on the same screen.
Why compare your reputation with competitors
A 4.3-star rating means little on its own. If every competitor in your area sits at 4.8, it’s a weakness. If they sit at 3.9, it’s a selling point. Customers rarely judge a business in isolation; they compare it with whoever else showed up in the map pack or the search results.
A competitor analysis also shows you things your own data can’t:
- Which complaints are common across the whole industry, and which are specific to you.
- What customers praise in competitors that you could do better or talk about more.
- Whether a competitor’s review profile or search results are more active and more current than yours.
If you haven’t looked closely at your own reputation yet, start there. Our guide on how to check your online reputation walks through that first audit.
Choose which competitors to compare
Pick three to five businesses that customers genuinely choose between. For a local business, search your main service plus your city and note who appears in the map results and the top organic results. For an online business, think about who comes up in comparison searches and who your customers mention when they explain why they chose you or nearly didn’t.
Include at least one competitor you think is ahead of you. Comparing only with weaker businesses feels good but teaches you little.
What to compare
Ratings on each platform
Record the average star rating on the platforms that matter in your industry: usually Google, plus Yelp, Facebook, Trustpilot, Tripadvisor, the BBB or an industry site. Note the rating separately for each, since a business can be strong on one and weak on another.
Review volume and recency
Count the total reviews, and more usefully, how many were posted in the last three months. A business with fewer reviews but a steady stream of recent ones often looks more trustworthy to customers than one with a large, stale total. Recency is also one of the easiest gaps to close legitimately, by asking every customer for a review.
Response rate and quality
Look at the most recent twenty or so reviews for each business and count how many have an owner reply. Then read a few replies. Are they specific and calm, or generic, copied and pasted, or defensive? This is often where a smaller business can stand out quickly.
Common complaint and praise themes
Read the negative and mixed reviews for each competitor and group them into themes: price, wait times, communication, quality, staff attitude, billing. Do the same for positive reviews. Patterns across competitors tell you what customers in your market care about most.
Search results for each brand name
Search each competitor’s name, in a private browser window, and note what shows on page one. How many results does the business control (website, social profiles, directory listings)? Are there negative articles, forum threads or complaint sites? Is there a knowledge panel or a Business Profile with photos and up-to-date hours?
Share of voice
Share of voice is roughly how often each business is mentioned compared with the others: in local news, on social media, in forums and in industry publications. You can estimate it manually for a small market or use a monitoring tool. Our brand monitoring service tracks mentions for you and your competitors if you want this done continuously.
How to gather the data ethically
Everything in this analysis should come from public information that any customer could see. That keeps it honest and keeps you out of trouble.
- Use public data only. Review pages, search results, public social posts and news coverage. Don’t create fake accounts to access private groups or pose as a customer to extract information.
- Don’t post fake reviews, positive for yourself or negative for competitors. The FTC’s 2024 rule on consumer reviews and testimonials bans fake reviews, and platforms such as Google remove them and can restrict the businesses involved.
- Don’t report competitors’ genuine reviews. Flagging real positive reviews on a competitor’s profile to get them removed misuses the reporting system and can backfire on your own account.
- Do report genuine violations, carefully. If you find a competitor’s listing that is fake, for example a business that doesn’t exist at the address it claims, that is a legitimate issue to report. Our guide to reporting a fake Google Business listing explains how.
A comparison table template
Put everything in one table so gaps are obvious. Adapt the rows to the platforms that matter in your industry.
| Metric | Your business | Competitor A | Competitor B | Competitor C |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Google rating | ||||
| Google reviews, total | ||||
| Google reviews, last 90 days | ||||
| Second platform rating (e.g. Yelp) | ||||
| Owner replies (of last 20 reviews) | ||||
| Top complaint theme | ||||
| Top praise theme | ||||
| Page-one results the business controls (of 10) | ||||
| Negative page-one results | ||||
| Mentions in the last 90 days |
If you want to go further and score each metric, our guide on how to measure online reputation explains how to build a simple scorecard you can track over time.
Not sure where to start?
Get a free audit of your search results and review profiles, with a prioritized fix list.
Get a free auditTurning gaps into actions
A table is only useful if it changes what you do. Go row by row and ask: where are we clearly behind, and what would close that gap?
| Gap you find | Action to take |
|---|---|
| Fewer recent reviews than competitors | Ask every customer for a review, by text or email, at the right moment. Don’t filter who you ask. |
| Lower reply rate | Reply to every new review within a couple of business days, with specific, human replies. |
| A complaint theme competitors don’t have | Fix the underlying process first. Reviews follow operations. |
| A praise theme competitors own | Decide if you can match it, and if you already do, say so on your website and in your profiles. |
| Fewer owned search results | Complete your Business Profile, claim key directory listings and social profiles, and publish useful content. |
| Negative page-one results | Respond where appropriate, check removal routes if the content breaks rules, and build stronger pages to compete. |
Pick two or three actions at a time. Trying to fix every gap at once usually means none gets done properly.
A worked example
This example is illustrative, and the numbers are invented to show the method. A dental practice compares itself with three others in the same suburb.
- Its Google rating is similar to the others, but it has far fewer reviews from the last three months. The two leading practices both get new reviews every week.
- It replies to a handful of its last twenty reviews. One competitor replies to nearly all of theirs, with short, personal replies.
- Across all four practices, the most common complaint is billing surprises. For this practice specifically, the second theme is appointment delays.
- Searching its own name shows its website, its Business Profile and an old directory listing with the wrong phone number. The leading competitor has a complete profile, photos and several directory listings.
The practice picks three actions for the next quarter: send a review request text after every appointment, reply to every review within two business days in a way that never confirms anyone is a patient (a HIPAA requirement), and fix the outdated directory listing. It also starts sending cost estimates before treatment, since billing is the industry-wide complaint. Three months later it repeats the analysis to see what has moved.
Common mistakes
- Comparing only star ratings. Volume, recency and replies often matter as much to customers.
- Picking the wrong competitors. Compare with who customers actually choose between, not who you’d like to be compared with.
- Collecting data with no follow-through. Each analysis should produce a short action list with owners.
- Trying to hurt competitors instead of improving. Fake reviews and false reports expose you to platform penalties and FTC risk.
How often to repeat it
For most businesses, a full analysis every quarter or every six months is enough, with a lighter monthly check on your own ratings and review volume. Repeat it sooner if a new competitor opens nearby, a competitor has a public crisis, or your own numbers change sharply. Keep each snapshot so you can see trends, not just a single moment.
Frequently asked questions
What is a competitor reputation analysis?
It’s a side-by-side comparison of how your business and your direct competitors look online, covering ratings, review volume and recency, replies, complaint themes, search results and mentions. It shows where you trail or lead in the eyes of customers comparing options.
Is it legal to analyze competitors' reviews?
Yes. Reviews, search results and public social posts are public information. What you must not do is post fake reviews, pose as a customer, or report genuine reviews to get them taken down.
How many competitors should I include?
Three to five is usually enough. Include the businesses customers most often choose between, and at least one you think is ahead of you.
Do I need special tools?
No. You can do a useful analysis with a spreadsheet, a private browser window and an hour or two per competitor. Monitoring tools save time if you want to track mentions continuously or across many locations.
