Understanding Competition Overview

In  GEO, understanding your competition isn’t just about knowing who ranks—it’s about seeing how well they’re positioned across the discovery landscape, from search engines to generative answers.

The Scalenut Top Page Statistics table gives you a quick, strategic view of competitor performance. It includes three columns for ranking positions: 1–10, 1–20, and 1–30. Each figure in these columns represents the average score of all ranking URLs in that range, giving you a high-level benchmark of competitive strength—not just individual page performance.

Example: If you select Top 30 URLs, the averages shown will be based on those top 30 results. You can easily customize this view to focus on Top 10 or Top 20 rankings, depending on your GEO strategy and content goals.

This way, you can instantly see where competitors have the strongest visibility footprint and spot opportunities to outperform them in both search rankings and generative engine recommendations.

Where to Find the Competition Overview?

STEP 1

Log in to your Scalenut account and click on the ‘Article Writer’ option under GEO Core.

STEP 2

You can either create a new report, or click on the status of an already created article to head to the GEO AI Editor. On the editor, click on Detailed Report available on the Research tab.

STEP 3

Here, the default view is of the Competition Overview.

What Are The Top Page Statistics & How Are They Useful in the GEO?

In the age of GEO, ranking on search engines is just one part of the visibility puzzle. Your content also needs to be structured, authoritative, and contextually rich enough to be picked up by generative AI platforms like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude.

Scalenut’s Overview of the top ranking URLs give you precise, data-backed benchmarks to shape content that not only ranks high on search results but also earns a place in AI-generated answers.

1. Word Count – The Right Content Depth for Discovery

Word count reflects the total number of words in a content piece. Scalenut’s SEO Hub suggests an ideal word count range based on the average of the top 30 ranking URLs for your target keyword.

Why it matters in GEO: Generative engines favor content that covers a topic completely and contextually. The right word count ensures you provide enough depth to answer user queries thoroughly, increasing the likelihood of inclusion in AI responses and ranking in search.

2. SEO Score/Content Score – Your Optimization Blueprint

Scalenut’s Content Score uses AI to measure how well your content is optimized compared to your top competitors. It also shows the highest and average SEO Scores for your chosen keyword, giving you a clear competitive benchmark.

Calculated using key parameters: Key terms, Schema Markup, Prompt Coverage, Meta tags,  H1 heading, H2-H6 heading, URLs, Featured snippet, Keyword density, Content depth, etc.

It also evaluates your metadata and gives actionable recommendations to boost your score—helping your content perform better on SERPs and in generative summaries.

Why it matters in GEO: A high Content Score means your piece is structured, semantically rich, and user-focused—all factors that generative engines use to decide whether to cite your content in answers.

3. H Tags – Structuring for Readability and Authority

H Tags (Headings) show how many H1, H2, H3, etc. headings competitors use. This helps you structure your own content for clarity, hierarchy, and keyword placement.

Why it matters in GEO: Both search and generative AI prefer well-organized content with clear headings—it’s easier to parse, extract, and present in response to user queries.

4. Images – Enhancing Engagement and Context

Images make your content more interactive, visual, and memorable. Scalenut’s research shows you how many images top-ranking competitors use.

Why it matters in GEO: While generative AI tools mostly process text, search engines reward content with rich media for better user engagement—this indirectly boosts your authority and discoverability in both search and AI results.

What are Metric Trends?

Metric trends are a graphical visualization of the content parameters for the top 10/20/30 ranking URLs, depending on your competition benchmark. It allows you to easily analyze and observe a trend for parameters such as the Content Score, Word count, Images, and heading tags individually in a graphical form.

How to Read the Metric Trends?

In the top right of the given graph, there is an option to check the metric trends for each statistic, Content Score, word count, images, and H tags individually. In the graph, the horizontal axis represents the rank of the article, ranging from 1 to 30. The vertical axis represents the measure of each statistic. You can observe the trends for each parameter by clicking on it. 

You can also click on a single bar to see the statistics for that particular URL, as shown below.

What is the Competitors Section?

The ‘Competitors’ section of our competitions overview displays a list of all 30 top-performing content pages for your primary keyword and the target location, arranged according to their ranks. You can also sort these pages as per their word count, Content Score, number of images, and number of headers which are visible right next to the name and link of each URL. 

You can click on each URL if you want to visit it separately. However, the ‘ view’ option lets you read the entire article without opening new tabs. 

It displays the URL’s top page statistics all in one place, and also offers a brief description of the article, as shown here.

You can also insert the URL you want to use as a reference to your content brief so that you can refer to it directly while creating your content without going repeatedly back and viewing the article in a new tab. All you have to do is click on the ‘Insert as a reference’ option right next to the URL.

How to Effectively Use Competitive Insights in Long-form Writing?

Competitor research is a crucial step before creating any article. 

The ‘Competition’ button in the Research section makes it easy for writers and content planners to explore insights from the top 10/20/30 competing articles at any stage of the writing process. By reviewing this data, you can quickly spot what competitors are doing well—and more importantly, where they’re falling short.

Here’s how you can leverage the Research section to gather insights and craft a stronger, more comprehensive content piece:

STEP 1

Log in to your Scalenut account and click on the ‘Article Writer’ option under GEO Core.

STEP 2

On the redirected screen, find the article you want to view the report for and click on its respective ‘Status.’

In this case, we want to view the SEO Research Report of the article ‘Content Marketing’, so click on ‘Editing in Progress.’

STEP 3

Click on the ‘Competition’ tab under the Research tab on the right panel.

STEP 4

You can see the detailed article outline in the box for each top-.ranking article by your competitors by just clicking on the ‘Expand’ option, as shown in the image. 

For example, if you want to ‘Expand’ for the #2 ranked article, this is what your screen will look like -

Click ‘Collapse’ when you are done and want to minimize the appearance of the article outline. 

Further, if you want to read the article as well for a better understanding of the content, you can click on the ‘Read Article’ option at the end of an outline.

STEP 5

You can click on the ‘Paste Outline’ button to add the basic outline of that particular piece in the AI Editor to create your content according to that brief. The outline is pasted in the AI Editor, as shown in the image below.

STEP 6

You can also view the content covered in any particular heading of a competitor’s article by clicking the drop-down icon. It will be available in the given format.

STEP 7

Not sure what to include under a heading you found in a competitor’s article? Simply click the ‘robot’ icon (as shown in the image below). Our AI will instantly generate relevant content for that specific heading, giving you a strong starting point to build on.

Please Note: You can tailor your competition benchmarking based on your content and marketing goals right at the step where you choose your keyword and target location. This feature allows you to focus on the top 10, 20, or 30 ranking pages, depending on your strategy.

Conclusion

Our competitor overview equips you to strengthen your business strategy by outperforming rivals. With it, you can uncover gaps, capture customer attention, and gain a true competitive edge. 

Scalenut delivers actionable insights from your competitors’ articles in just a few clicks—empowering you to create content that stands out.