Audit a competitor in 15 minutes: a structured checklist

Competitor analysis doesn’t need to be a big strategy consultation. 15 minutes with a structured checklist often gives more concrete insight than a big external project.

The most important thing to understand about competitor analysis: the goal isn’t to copy. The goal is to see where you’re already stronger and where you have qualified weaknesses to address. The most common trap is seeing a competitor do something nice and thinking “we have to have that too”. Often the competitor does it because their position requires it. Your position may require something completely different.

Here’s the checklist.

Step 1: Identify 3 main competitors (2 min)

Search for your main category + your city/neighbourhood. Which three other businesses rank highest in the Local Pack?

Write down their names. They’re the ones you primarily compete with for attention.

Step 2: Audit their Google Business Profile (5 min, 1.5 min/competitor + 0.5 min for the summary)

For each competitor, note:

Primary category (more specific than yours?)
Description (longer/better than yours?)
Photo count (more/fewer than yours?)
Latest GBP post (when?)
Number of reviews + average rating
Latest review (when?)
Response rate (do they answer all of them?)

This gives an immediate competitive picture of Google presence.

Step 3: Audit their website (5 min, ~1.5 min per site)

Open their site. Note:

Hero heading (what does it say?)
Visible CTA (clear?)
Reviews directly visible?
Pricing information?
Service pages (dedicated per service?)
Mobile experience (quickly test on mobile)

This gives a comparison on website conversion.

Click to their Instagram (if they have one). Note:

Follower count (local? or just many?)
Latest post (when?)
Posting frequency (regular or sporadic?)
Content type (real photos or stock?)
Engagement (likes/comments per post?)

Quick picture of social presence.

Step 5: Audit their Bokadirekt/industry platform (if relevant) (2 min)

For salons, hairdressers and treatments, Bokadirekt is often where the actual bookings happen. Audit:

Number of reviews and average rating on Bokadirekt (can differ from Google)
Bookability: are there available times this week? Next week?
Service range: more or fewer services than yours?
Price position: cheaper, more expensive or comparable?

For craftspeople: audit Reco and Offerta. For restaurants: Tripadvisor and The Fork.

Use it not as a one-off but as monitoring over time. Platform data is often a stronger signal than social media.

Sum up the result

After the walk-through, fill in:

What the competitors do better than us:

What we do better than the competitors:

Top 3 levers for us to close the gap:

What you should not do

Copy their strategy. It works for them because they established it. Your strengths are different.
Try to beat them in every area. Pick 2-3 where you can win.
Get discouraged if they’re far stronger. Building visibility is long-term. They built theirs over years.

How often should you run this?

For established businesses: every 3 months.

For new businesses: monthly during the first six months, then quarterly.

Competitors change. Your own changes need to be measured against theirs.

What you actually do with the insights

For every “competitor does better” point:

Is it worth addressing? (cost vs effect)
How long does it take to close the gap?
Who’s responsible?

Set 90-day goals for 1-3 specific gaps. Measure again after 90 days.

The practical first step

Block 15 minutes now. Do the analysis. Note the result.

You’ve just done one of the most valuable strategic analyses a local business can do, for zero cost.

Ethical limits for competitor analysis

Two things worth keeping clean in competitor analysis so you don’t end up in legally or ethically murky water:

It’s okay to:

Review all public information (website, GBP, social media, reviews, platform profiles)
Book their service as a regular customer to experience it (mystery shopping is legal, but debatable if you express yourself negatively about it publicly afterwards)
Ask local contacts to share their experiences (anecdotal feedback)
Use industry data and public financial data (Allabolag, Bolagsverket)

It’s not okay to:

Create fake accounts to access private data (against platform TOS, GDPR issues)
Try to hire their staff to steal trade secrets (FHL, the Swedish Trade Secrets Act 2018:558)
Lure customers to you through claims about the competitor (improper marketing)
Hack, scrape behind logins, or download their customer data

Tools that can complement

The 15-minute walk-through is intentionally manual: that’s where the insight is. But for deeper recurring monitoring there are tools:

Google Search Console for your own rankings (free)
SEMrush, Ahrefs, Sistrix for competitor SEO (cost money, but powerful)
BrightLocal for specific local-SEO monitoring
Hreflang Checker, PageSpeed Insights for technical benchmarking
Brand24, Mention for mentions in media and social

For most small businesses the manual method is enough. If you’re going to invest in a paid tool, start with Google Search Console + possibly BrightLocal: they give the most value per krona for Swedish local SEO.

Want to go deeper? Read Visibility gap: what your competitor does that you don’t or Local radar: what appears at the top in your city.