Competitive analysis and SEO software companies often try to gauge a website’s traffic using a variety of indicators such as which keywords they rank for, estimated volumes, social indicators, etc. In the end, they try to figure out how much traffic a website might have, where that traffic comes from, how much they are spending on advertising, etc. In our experience, these estimates are a good relative barometer but almost never correct or close to correct. Still, using software to estimate this gives a good relative view of how much traffic your competitor may have compared to you or your client.
On this page, we’ll look at different SEO Software that brings capabilities to gauge competitor website traffic and other on-site metrics.
Competitor Website Traffic Tracking Software
| Provider | Pricing | Organic SEO | Paid SEM | Competitor Traffic | Review | Free Trial | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 SEMrush | $99 Month | Yes, full suite of organic SEO research tools | Yes, the best selection of tools | Yes, estimates on competitor on-site metrics | Review | Free Trial | @semrush | Technical SEO Analysis, Backlink Research, Backlink Management, Keyword Rank Tracking, Ranking History, Organic Traffic Estimates, Local Rankings, Local SEO Listing Research, Keyword Competitors, PPC Keyword Research, PLA Research, Display Ad Research, PPC Ad Research, Paid Search Research, Competitor Traffic Analysis, |
 Spy Fu | $40 Month | Yes, limited to backlinks and keywords | Yes, limited to search PPC only | No | Review | Free Trial | @spyfu | Backlink Research, Ranking History, Backlink Management, Keyword Rank Tracking, Organic Traffic Estimates, Keyword Competitors, Paid Search Research, PPC Keyword Research, PPC Ad Research, |
 Mangools | $50 Month | Yes, limited only backlinks and keywords | Yes | Yes | Review | Free Trial | @mangools | Backlink Research, Keyword Rank Tracking, Organic Traffic Estimates, Local Rankings, Keyword Competitors, |
 SEO Power Suite | $299 License | Yes, robust and full featured | No | Yes, traffic estimates and other metrics | Review | Free Trial | @seopowersuite | Technical SEO Analysis, Backlink Research, Backlink Management, Keyword Rank Tracking, Ranking History, Organic Traffic Estimates, Local Rankings, Keyword Competitors, Competitor Traffic Analysis, |
 Raven Tools | $110 Month | Yes, well-featured only missing competitor keyword analysis | No | No | Review | Free Trial | @raventools | Technical SEO Analysis, Backlink Research, Keyword Rank Tracking, Organic Traffic Estimates, Local Rankings, |
Choosing the Best SEO Software with Competitor Traffic Tracking
As we mentioned, most of the software today isn’t really effective at gauging the actual traffic that a website gets. This information is only available to the website owner via Google Analytics. Instead, software companies try to make an educated guess based on search rankings, volumes, social signals, etc. Our take on this data is this- While bad data is sometimes worse than no data, this data is only a good relative gauge of traffic and should be taken with a grain of salt. Typical traffic estimates that SEO software gives are:
- Visits: Number of website sessions
- Unique Visits: Number of unique sessions
- GEOs: Which countries send traffic?
- Medium: Which mediums send traffic (search, social, direct, etc.)
Why Do Software Companies Report On This if it’s not Accurate?
We’re not sure except that it’s a good sales tool. Again, we caution relying on this data as our analysis of real website traffic compared to reported traffic in 3rd party tools is no where in the same neighborhood as being similar.
Related Resources
- SEMrush: SEO software with competitor traffic estimates.
- SpyFu: SEO software with competitor traffic estimates.
- SEO Articles