Precisely! You mention that all of these things you are thinking about are part of the idea generation process for you. You also mentioned above that what I am referring to as 'strategy' is fundamental to the idea.
Let's look at this way: Your idea is not a single, standalone thought. It is a collection of thoughts and ideas that work off of each other and, as a whole, make up a 'great idea'. This is very important because you don't just 'find/come up with a great idea'. People who wish they could just come up with that one great idea that would create their unicorn are not realizing that a great business idea is not one single idea but a collective strategy.
Let's use the great examples you gave to relate your idea generation process to a formal business strategy.
My thinking is aligned with you on this. The idea is much more than the top level abstraction or the "explain it to grandma" pitch because you cannot do anything with the top level abstraction idea. It is not well-thought out and expanded yet. It is not a a complete strategy to why it will work and how you will make it happen. If you were to just have said "Let's build a rank tracker" and started cranking, you are working towards building a rank tracker but have no idea why, how it's valuable, or probably just copying another rank tracker in the market.
You need to think through other parts of the overall business strategy to think about how your business will find a fit and compete in the marketplace.
I view your bullet points here as specific features of your solution that can be mapped directly to pain points or needs of your targeted customer. I am only familiar at a high-level in the digital marketing industry and I am unfamiliar with your specific circumstances and company (sorry, been active on this forum just recently), but I would be willing to bet that these features you listed were needs that customers were looking for and not getting delivered in a satisfying manner. Perhaps the existing tools catered to a more wider digital marketer audience, or perhaps the space was relatively new and so opportunities were abundant. Regardless, you saw an area where you could enter, play, and win. Your business strategy: 1) Where will I compete?: digital marketing space, SEO niche; 2) How will I win? I will differentiate myself from other players by addressing some key needs/pain points that no one else is addressing, or addressing poorly.
Then you thought of other ideas to support your main strategy. You lightly mentioned things like competitors, funding, CENTS, etc. Competitors I have explained a bit with the above on how competitors weren't addressing the needs you saw very well, or at all. Maybe they were good companies but focused on addressing other SEO needs so there was a gap. Competitive Analysis can typically fall under your Marketing Strategy umbrella because you use those findings to see where you will choose to focus on and be 'the best at' -- this supports your 'How will I win' broader strategy.
Some other areas that you didn't mention in your post but probably also thought about: marketing/sales channels (ads, calls/in-person sales, social media, word of mouth, referrals, etc). Again, all the decisions taken here should have a purpose and be helping your overall strategy.
What about Execution? It should go hand-in-hand with your strategy because without executing on the plan you won't validate the business or get feedback to refine it. You just gotta be doing both iteratively until you have a working and repeatable business operation.
I also wanted to mention that I think Execution is different than operational efficiency. The way I see it, execution is just taking the required actions needed to carry out the business plan/strategy. For your case, it was getting the tool created, talking to the customers to get their feedback, calling customers to offer them your tool, creating ads, w/e it is that you needed to do.
Operational efficiency on the other hand is what I think many commodity businesses end up competing on because they have chosen to, blindly or not, compete with a non-differentiated business. If there is nothing unique or special about you in the eyes of the customer, and you are just like many other competitors out there, ultimately they will pick the cheapest seller then. What does this mean for you? You have to compete on price, which means you are ultimately competing on operational efficiency with your competitors. The one who can create more with the least amount of resources (maximizing efficiency) will have the margin advantage.
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