No matter how glued we are to our phones all day, people will still crave quality content from brands, influencers, and connections.
For brands, content is a cost-effective way to attract prospective customers and nudge them into finally converting. That’s why content creation should be at the top of your to-do list if you want to market your product successfully.
However, making content is easy (anyone can post on the internet) but creating good content is incredibly hard. This is where your competitors can help.
They know what makes your audience tick and click but like a greedy classmate, they’re not sharing their notes with you!
To plumb the depths of their knowledge, you need content marketing competitor analysis. We’re here to show you how from why it’s important to what content pieces to gather to how to audit and analyze their content marketing.
Without further ado, let’s get into it.
What is a Competitive Content Analysis?
Content marketing competitor analysis is the process of taking inventory of your competitor’s content and content strategy and evaluating the content so you can surface takeaways for your content strategy.
Some things you can evaluate include SEO tactics, topics, angles, publishing frequency, and brand messaging.
Why should you analyze your competitors’ content?
“Why on earth should I look at my competitor’s content, instead of coming up with my own?” I can hear you ask.
The benefits are diverse but its biggest advantage is that it will help you produce differentiated content that your audience will love and that is better than your competitor’s content.
Another benefit is that it will be a benchmark for you to gauge how well your content strategy is doing compared to your industry peers.
It will also highlight the gaps in your content (things your competitors are doing that you aren’t yet) and opportunities to seize (things your competitors aren’t doing yet that you should do).
Competitor Content Marketing Analysis: A Step-By-Step Guide
Step 1: Identify your competitors
You first need to determine who your competitors are and which of them are worth analyzing. Your competitors can fall under two camps:
- Direct competitors are businesses that have the same or similar offerings and target audiences as you
- Indirect competitors are businesses that serve the same target audience but do not offer the same products as you
For brands, content is a cost-effective way to attract prospective customers and nudge them into finally converting. That’s why content creation should be at the top of your to-do list if you want to market your product successfully.
Identify relevant competitors and choose the main ones you want to analyze. Some ways you can pinpoint your competitors are:
- Social media: Go on social media (LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, X) and see who your target audience follows and interacts with. Look at hashtags relevant to your product.
- Industry research: Search for thought leaders in your industry and read industry publications.
- Keyword research: Google content topics that you’re covering or want to cover and check which brands consistently show up on the top search results.
Step 2: Perform a content audit
After identifying your competitors, it’s time to crack your knuckles and do a content audit.
Go through all their blog posts, whitepapers, webinars, social media posts, videos, podcasts, newsletters, and case studies.
Your competitor’s website will be the primary source for most of the content. Look at things like:
- Site menu
- Navigational tools
- Tags and categories
Content Categories and Topics
What topics does your competitor talk about? What categories are those topics grouped under?
Content-Type
List the types of content your competitor publishes. Examples of content types are:
- Blog article
- Video
- Whitepaper
- Podcast
- Webinar
- Case Study
Note how many content pieces there are for each type. Categorize each type further, if you can.
For example, if your competitor runs a blog, check what types of blog posts they produce (instructional guides, review posts, listicles).
Content Purpose
Draw a hypothesis about each content piece’s objective in your competitor’s content strategy (e.g., conversions, awareness).
Content Frequency
Note how often your competitor publishes a type of content and if they stick to a content schedule or not.
To make this easier, use Panoramata’s calendar feature to decode the frequency of their ad and email publishing schedule, as well as patterns in their content throughout the year.
Step 3: Investigate their SEO strategy
For this step, you have to use SEO analysis tools like Ahrefs to conduct keyword research and backlink analysis. SEO matters because it affects how discoverable their content is on search engines.
The three primary things you need to consider for this step are:
- Keywords: Use SEO keyword research tools to uncover your competitor’s target keywords. This will help you determine what keywords they want their content to rank for.
Through this process, you’ll also discover keywords that you need to integrate into your content marketing strategy.
- Backlinks: Observe the quality and quantity of your competitor’s backlinks, especially for their highest-viewed pages.
Which websites are linking back to your competitor’s content? How do you think your competitor is acquiring these backlinks?
- On-page SEO: This includes technical aspects of SEO like meta descriptions, internal linking, and title tags, all of which affect SEO rankings heavily.
Step 4: Evaluate the quality of the content
Next, observe the quality of your competitor’s content. Create a table and list details about each content piece you have collected.
Write down its length, frequency, quality score, and notes about the score.
When assessing a piece of content for quality, consider these:
- Readability
- Accuracy
- Typos and errors
- Production values (for video and audio)
- Tone
- Length
- Lead generation tactics (do they have signup forms one needs to fill out before you can access the content?)
- Frequency of posts
- Authors (who are they, are they part of the team, or are they outsourced)
- Reader engagement (comments, likes, and shares)
Take note of what distribution channels your competitor uses to disseminate their content, aside from their website.
Do they use Facebook, Instagram, and other social media platforms? If so, look at the engagement trends for their content.
You will quickly see which content pieces are performing well.
In short, analyze the intent for each content piece your competitor publishes and how their audience responds.
Step 5: Break their content down into topics
Next, go through each content piece you’ve collected and tag them with a topic or topics. This process will highlight your competitor’s content gaps.
This step entails reading, watching, or listening through their content so you can review them thoroughly and surface insights. Also note the content’s title, description, and other copy.
If time is scarce, you can start with one channel (such as social media or their blog), the most visible or engaging content. You can also analyze their most recent posts first to save time.
Use this information to populate a spreadsheet, a master document of your competitor’s content themes.
Analyze these topics further to see what gaps you can fill and what topics you can avoid. Look at both quantity and quality. This master doc will help you immensely with upgrading your content marketing strategy.
Alternatively, use Panoramata’s Insights feature to reveal your competitor’s content gaps and foresee what they’ll post in the next two weeks.
This feature is a tool for comparing your brand with competitors and predicting your competitor’s next campaigns. Panoramata recommends what to improve in your marketing strategy, whether it’s SEO, email marketing, or ads.
Simplifying Competitive Content Analysis
Content marketing competitor analysis doesn’t have to be complicated. If you follow the steps above, you will be on your way to a healthy content mix that your audience will love.
Make sure to dedicate time to regular competitive analysis to keep your insights fresh.
For more information on Panoramata’s competitive analysis features, check out our website. We wish you the best in your marketing endeavors!
Frequently Asked Questions
1. What is content marketing competitive analysis?
Content marketing competitive analysis involves researching and evaluating your competitors' content strategies to identify their strengths, weaknesses, and gaps.
This process helps you understand what topics, formats, and platforms are working well in your industry. By learning from their successes and failures, you can improve your own content and stand out.
2. How can I identify my top content marketing competitors?
Start by analyzing companies in your industry that are ranking for the same keywords, publishing similar content, or targeting the same audience.
You can also use tools like Panoramata and Semrush to find competitors based on content performance and your industry. Monitoring social media and industry influencers can also reveal indirect competitors you might have overlooked.
3. What should I look for when analyzing competitors' content?
Examine the type of content they produce, including blogs, videos, and social media posts, and assess how frequently they publish. Pay attention to engagement metrics, such as likes, shares, and comments to gauge audience interest.
Identifying their best-performing topics and formats will help you refine your strategy and create more compelling content.
