Want to outsmart, outrank, and outperform your competition in the content marketing game? The answer is hiding in plain sight.

Every day, your competitors are publishing blog posts, whitepapers, and videos in a bid to shape your prospects' perceptions and preferences.

This makes your rivals' content a treasure trove of insights waiting to be mined. Every piece of content they churn out contains clues about what makes your shared audience tick. Ignore this intel, and you're fighting blind. But learn to analyse it strategically, and you can unlock a powerful edge.

By systematically dissecting your competitors' content strategies, you can reverse engineer their successes, exploit their weaknesses, and shortcut your way to marketing that drives leads and revenue. Stay with us for a step by step guide on exactly how to do it.

What is Competitive Content Analysis?

Before we dive into the how, let's clarify the what and why. 

Competitive content analysis is the process of systematically researching and evaluating the content produced by other players in your market. 

Think of it like corporate espionage, but legal and ethical. The goal is to understand the topics, formats, and tactics that are resonating with your shared audience, so you can extract actionable insights you can apply to your own content strategy.

The Purpose of Competitive Content Analysis

By examining your competitors' content strategies, you can:

Benchmark your performance: Competitive analysis provides a realistic yardstick for your own content metrics. By seeing how your traffic, shares, and conversions stack up against similar brands, you can set ambitious but attainable goals.

Identify proven topics and tactics: Why reinvent the wheel when you can borrow from what's already working? Analysing top-performing competitor content can uncover the subjects, formats, and promotion strategies that reliably engage your target audience.

Find content gaps and opportunities: Studying your rivals' content can reveal topics and keywords they're overlooking. By filling these content gaps with your own original insights, you can attract untapped audiences and establish thought leadership.

Optimise your content production: Competitive research can help you prioritise your content investments for maximum ROI. By seeing the publishing frequency, content length, and production quality needed to compete in your space, you can allocate your time and budget more strategically.

Spot industry trends and disruptors: Keeping tabs on your rivals allows you to stay ahead of emerging trends, technologies, and consumer needs. You can newsjack relevant stories, put your spin on hot topics, and address shifting priorities before the rest of the pack.

Differentiate your brand voice and content experience: Knowing how your competitors position themselves in the market can help you find your unique niche. You can identify opportunities to counter their claims, target a more specific persona, or take a fresh stance that sets you apart.

At its core, competitive content analysis is about working smarter, not harder. By learning from your rivals' successes and failures, you can fast-track your own content performance and avoid costly missteps. In the following sections, we'll show you exactly how to do it.

7 Steps to Turn Competitive Insights into Action

1. Identify the competition

First, you need to set the scope of your analysis by compiling a list of your main competitors. Aim to identify 5-10 top competitors to include in the next stages. 

By casting a wide net in this initial stage, you'll get a more comprehensive view of the content landscape in your industry. Don’t forget to include both established players and up-and-coming firms. You should also include brands who occupy a market position that you aspire to attain or embody a content direction you admire.

Depending on the aim of your competitive analysis, you could include:

• Direct competitors: Brands offering similar products/services to a similar target audience.

• Indirect competitors: Businesses solving the same customer problem in a different way.

• Content competitors: Influencers, publications, or brands creating content for your audience without necessarily offering competing products.

To identify potential competitors:

• Use SEO tools like Semrush, Ahrefs, or SpyFu to uncover domains that rank for keywords similar to yours. This can help find both direct and indirect competitors you may not have been aware of. Plugging your own domain into these tools will often surface close competitors as well.

• Analyse search results. Perform Google searches for your main keywords and examine the top-ranking pages. Look beyond just your direct business competitors to include industry publications, influencers, and other content creators targeting your audience.

• Conduct social media research. Explore social media platforms to identify brands and influencers creating content for your target audience. Look at who your followers also follow and engage with.

• Ask your audience. Survey your customers or leads to find out what other content sources they rely on for information related to your industry.

• Consult industry specific reports, directories, or associations that list key players in your field.

By doing a quick top level analysis of each potential competitors' online presence you can quickly decide who is in and out of your competitive set. You will also gain a solid understanding of who they are, their goals, their audience and how they are reaching and acquiring customers online. 

List their websites, blogs, social media profiles, and any other channels they use to distribute and promote content.

Next, dive into their positioning and the messaging they use to appeal to their target audience. Review their homepage, About Us page, and key product or service pages. How do they describe their unique value proposition? What pain points and benefits do they focus on?

Finally, you could use a tool such as LinkedIn to enrich your competitor intelligence with some firmographic data.

2. Conduct a qualitative review of competitors' content strategies

The next step is to get a bird's eye view of each competitor's overarching content strategy. This will give you a sense of their content marketing maturity and priorities.

Some key elements you can include in your evaluation are:

Content architecture

A clean, logical content architecture makes it easier for visitors to find the information they need and signals authority to search engines. It also helps you to understand the topics your competitors are focused on and how they structure their content.

Use tools like Screaming Frog or Ahrefs' Site Audit to crawl each website and visualise their content hierarchy. This will reveal how they organise their pillar pages (broad, authoritative pages that cover a core topic) and cluster pages (more specific pages that relate to a pillar page). You’ll also be able to make an assessment of other factors, such as whether they jump on trending topics or prioritise evergreen content.

Publishing cadence and consistency 

How often does the competitor publish new content, and how consistently do they stick to that schedule? A regular, frequent publishing cadence signals a higher investment in content marketing. Use tools like Ahrefs' Content Explorer to view a timeline of their publishing history.

Content length and comprehensiveness 

Do your competitors favour short blog posts and videos, or do they invest in long-form, in-depth content? Analyse their average word count per post for a sample of posts. Longer, more comprehensive content often performs better for SEO and positions the brand as an authority.

Content quality

Evaluate the overall calibre of their writing, research, insights, and production values. Is their content shallow and generic, or does it offer unique, valuable perspectives? Do they cite credible sources and provide original data? Is their content well-structured and easy to consume? 

Look for original research, expert interviews, and detailed tutorials. High-quality, in-depth content can position them as a trusted resource and encourage more backlinks and shares.

Content format mix

What range of content types does the competitor produce? A diverse mix of formats like blog posts, videos, podcasts, infographics, and interactive tools can help them reach different learning styles and audience preferences. Identify any formats they're not leveraging that you could use to stand out. Do they repurpose high-performing blog posts into gated eBooks and webinars? 

Buyer journey mapping 

A well-mapped buyer journey can accelerate the sales process. Look at how the competitor's content aligns with key stages of the buyer's journey, from awareness to consideration to decision. Do they have content that addresses common questions and concerns at each stage? Are there clear calls-to-action and next steps to move buyers forward? How are related pieces interlinked to move prospects through the buyer's journey?

As you’re reviewing their site, you should also make a note if the use any specific content strategies, for example:

Gated content for lead generation: Does the competitor gate any of their premium content like ebooks, whitepapers, or webinars behind a lead capture form? This can be an effective way to generate qualified leads, but it needs to be high-value enough to justify the information exchange.

Personalised content experiences: Look for content that's tailored to specific industries, job roles, or account types. Personalised content can increase relevance and engagement. For example, Salesforce has created dedicated sections of their website for different industries like retail, healthcare, and financial services, with content tailored to each vertical.

Client Retention Content: While most analysis focuses on acquiring new customers, content plays a vital role in retaining and expanding existing client relationships. Check if your competitors have dedicated resource centres, email newsletters, or webinar series designed for current clients. Assessing their post-sale content can spark ideas to boost your own retention efforts.

Localised content: If you’re competing to serve multiple geographic markets, examine whether your opposite number creates localised versions of their content. This could include translating blog posts into different languages, creating region-specific case studies and testimonials, or covering local industry events and trends. Localised content can make a brand feel more authentic and trustworthy to international buyers.

By evaluating these elements of your competitors' content strategies, you'll get a clearer picture of their strengths, weaknesses, and priorities. You may uncover content gaps you can fill, formats you can adopt, or funnel stages you need to invest in more. Use these insights to refine your own content strategy and editorial calendar.

3. Gather qualitative data

With a general sense of your competitors' content strategies, it's time to collect the hard data that will fuel your analysis. You'll want to gather a range of SEO and content marketing metrics to benchmark your competitors' performance and identify trends over time.

To make your data gathering and analysis easier, create a centralised spreadsheet or dashboard to track all your competitive metrics in one place. Use tools like Google Sheets, Airtable, or Klipfolio to automate your data collection and visualise trends over time.

Some key data points to track include:

Search engine rankings, domain authority and keyword performance 

Use tools like Ahrefs, SEMRush, SpyFu, and Moz to analyse your competitors' search performance and site authority. Look at factors like:

• Number of keywords each competitor ranks for in the top 3, top 10, and top 100 search results

• Percentage of total search traffic coming from branded vs. non-branded keywords

• Average position for priority keywords related to your products and services

• Estimated monthly organic traffic and traffic value per page and keyword

• Domain Authority (DA) and Page Authority (PA) scores

• Year-over-year trends in search visibility and traffic

By collecting these SEO metrics, you can see which competitors are outranking you for high-value terms and identify opportunities to improve your own keyword targeting and content optimisation.

Backlink profile and referral traffic 

Backlinks from authoritative, relevant websites are an indicator of content quality. Use tools like Ahrefs, Majestic, or Moz's Link Explorer to evaluate competitors' backlink profiles, including:

• Number of referring domains and total backlinks

• Domain authority and page authority of linking sites

• Ratio of follow vs. nofollow links

• Percentage of backlinks from unique domains and IPs

• Top pages and posts by number of backlinks

• Trends in backlink velocity and link loss over time

Analysing competitors' backlink profiles can uncover their most linkable content assets and identify untapped link building opportunities for your own site.

Content engagement metrics 

Engagement metrics like pageviews, time on page, bounce rate, and social shares can indicate how well a piece of content resonates with its audience. Use tools like Google Analytics, SimilarWeb, and BuzzSumo to benchmark competitors' engagement levels, including:

• Average pageviews and unique visitors per post

• Average time on page and bounce rate for key content assets

• Number of social shares, likes, and comments across platforms

• Top content by social engagement and amplification rate

• Estimated traffic and engagement by content format (e.g., blog posts, infographics, videos)

Examining these engagement metrics over time can reveal which content topics, formats, and promotion channels are driving the most audience interaction for your competitors.

Content reach and amplification 

To gauge the reach and influence of your competitors' content, look at factors like:

• Follower counts, engagement rates, and content performance from LinkedIn Pages’ competitor analytics, as well as other social platforms where available

• Brand mentions and shares from influencers and industry publications

• Media coverage and PR pickups for their content and campaigns

• Referral traffic from social, email, and other owned channels

Tools like Sprout Social, Hootsuite, and Mention can help you track competitors' content reach and amplification across earned, owned, and paid channels. You can also set up Google Alerts and use PR monitoring software to help you track off-site brand mentions.

4. Assess high-performing content assets

Studying your competitors' top content can teach you a lot about what resonates with your shared audience. By drilling down into the key characteristics and performance metrics of your competitors' top content, you can glean valuable insights to inform your own content strategy.

Identify top content by performance metrics

Start by using the SEO and social media tools listed above to surface your competitors' highest-performing content assets. As we’ve seen, there is a wide range of tools you can use to generate reports that rank a domain's pages by key metrics like:

• Backlinks: The number of unique external domains linking to the content, a strong indicator of its authority and referral traffic potential.

• Social Engagement: The volume of shares, likes, and comments the content earns across social networks.

• Organic Traffic: The estimated monthly search traffic the content attracts from Google and other search engines.

Categorise and analyse content characteristics

Once you've identified each competitors' top content, export the data into a spreadsheet for deeper analysis. For each top-performing piece, note key characteristics such as:

• Primary topic and subtopics covered

• Content format (blog post, infographic, video, etc.)

• Length of the piece

• Target funnel stage (TOFU, MOFU, BOFU) or buyer’s journey stage

• Headline type (listicle, how-to, question, etc.)

• Author and their domain expertise

Then, critically read or watch to assess more qualitative factors like:

• Depth and originality of insights (surface-level vs. in-depth, unique angle vs. derivative)

• Accuracy and recency of information

• Quality of writing and production value

• Inclusion of proprietary research, data, examples

• Presence of expert quotes and authoritative sources

• Use of storytelling and emotional appeal

• Actionability and practical utility for the reader

Link content traits to performance metrics

Try to spot patterns and commonalities across your competitors' top content that can inform your own content strategy. 

Look for correlations between the content characteristics you've identified and the performance metrics like backlinks and social shares. For example, do particular topics or formats seem to consistently outperform? You might find that long-form ultimate guides tend to earn more backlinks, while short, punchy opinion pieces get more traction on social media.

Note any specific tactics that could be responsible for amplifying content reach and engagement, such as:

• Partnering with influencers or thought leaders for contributor quotes

• Leveraging original research and data visualisations to attract links and press mentions

• Tapping into trending topics and newsworthy angles

• Including practical templates, checklists, and other lead magnets

• Using employee advocacy for social amplification

5. Analyse your competitors' strengths and weaknesses

Armed with both quantitative data and qualitative insights on your competitors' content, it's time to zoom out and assess the big picture. Analysing each competitor's overall strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) will help you position your own content strategy for success.

Conducting a competitive content SWOT analysis

A SWOT analysis is a simple yet powerful framework for understanding the competitive landscape. It forces you to look at each rival's content from multiple angles and crystallise the key insights that should drive your approach.

SWOT stands for:

• Strengths: What are they doing well? Where do they have an advantage?

• Weaknesses: Where are they falling short? What gaps or missed opportunities do you see?

• Opportunities: Based on their strengths and weaknesses, where do you see untapped potential or areas where you could gain an edge?

• Threats: Are there areas where their content poses a significant challenge to your own efforts?

To get started, create a four-quadrant grid for each competitor, labeled Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. As you review your data and notes from the previous steps, fill in each box with your observations.

Strengths

• What topics and formats are consistently driving high engagement and performance for them?

• How strong is their brand authority and thought leadership in the market?

• What unique value and perspective do they bring to the conversation?

• How sophisticated are their content production capabilities?

Weaknesses

• Are there key topics, formats, or funnel stages where their content is thin or missing?

• Is their content quality inconsistent or weaker than competitors in certain areas?

• Are they over-reliant on a narrow range of tactics or distribution channels?

• Do they struggle to gain traction and engagement in certain channels or markets?

• Is their voice too promotional or out of touch with audience needs and priorities?

Opportunities

• What topics, angles, or audience segments have they neglected that they could target?

• Are there emerging formats and platforms they've been slow to adopt?

• Could they be more agile and responsive to trends and news hooks?

• Are there potential partners and influencers they've failed to align with?

Threats

• Is another competitor beginning to encroach on topics or audience niches they've owned?

• Have they raised audience expectations for content quality, depth, and production value?

• Are audience preferences and behaviours shifting in ways that could make their content less relevant or effective?

Analysing competitors' content SWOT doesn't have to be an exhaustive process. Often, just spending 30-60 minutes on each will surface the key insights you need. The goal is to identify the patterns and takeaways that will help you make more informed strategic decisions.

As you complete your SWOT analysis for each competitor, step back and look for common themes and implications across the set. Are there table stakes expectations for content quality and comprehensiveness that you'll need to meet? Are there any widespread weaknesses you could exploit to gain an edge?

Make a note of your observations. For instance:

• Double down on in-depth content for [topic] to meet rising audience expectations set by [competitor]

• Differentiate from [competitor 1] and [competitor 2] by taking a strong stance on [trend/issue]

• Invest in [underutilised format] while competitors are preoccupied with [overused format]

• Target [buyer persona] with content tailored to their needs at every stage of the journey

• Build relationships with [influencer 1] and [influencer 2] to expand reach and credibility in [topic area]

You can also use your SWOT analysis to gut check your content priorities and resource allocation. It's important to be realistic about where you stand relative to competitors. An honest competitive SWOT assessment may reveal that some of your original content ideas or assumptions need rethinking.

For example, if your competitor analysis shows that a rival has already established dominant thought leadership on a topic you were planning to prioritise, you may determine that it would be an uphill battle to unseat them. Instead of attacking them head on, you might focus on an adjacent niche or complementary angle they've ignored.

The key is to be flexible and adapt your approach based on the competitive realities you uncover. Don't get trapped in a rigid and unchanging content plan that ignores the evolving landscape. Instead, use your newfound competitive insights to allocate your resources intelligently and make smart bets that play to your unique strengths.

6. Find content gaps and opportunities

One of the most valuable outputs of a competitive content analysis is a clear picture of the gaps and whitespace in your market. By methodically comparing your competitors' content against each other and your own, you can identify untapped opportunities to differentiate your voice and provide unique value to your audience.

Identifying content and topic gaps

Start by looking at your competitive content audit data to surface areas where your rivals' coverage is thin, outdated, or missing altogether.

Cross-reference these with your own content inventory to find topics you're uniquely qualified to own. If you notice competitors lacking content for a specific industry vertical you specialise in, for example, that's a prime opportunity to become the go-to resource for that audience.

Also consider the competitive landscape and difficulty of ranking for certain topics. If a gap exists because the topic is too narrow or low-value to justify investment, it may not be worth pursuing. Focus on opportunities that align with your brand's unique value proposition and have sufficient search demand to generate meaningful traffic and engagement.

Analysing competitors' keyword strategies

By analysing the terms and phrases your rivals are targeting - and ignoring - you can find untapped niches to exploit.

Plug your competitors URLs into keyword gap analysis tools to surface terms they're not targeting that you could potentially rank for. For example, Ahrefs' or SEMRush’s Content Gap tools to compare multiple competitor domains to find keyword overlap and opportunities.

You can also:

• Analyse related searches for competitors' target keywords to uncover long-tail variations and content ideas.

• Use a tool like SEMRush's Topic Research or BuzzSumo's Question Analyzer to discover popular questions and topics related to your competitors' core focus areas.

• Monitor industry forums, social media discussions, and customer support interactions to identify common pain points and content needs your competitors aren't addressing.

Finding low-hanging content opportunities

Look for "low-hanging fruit" - topics and terms with relatively high search volume and low competition that you could potentially rank for with the right content.

One tactic is to use keyword difficulty scores from tools like SEMRush to gauge the ranking potential for specific terms. Generally speaking, keywords with a difficulty score below 30 are considered low competition, while those above 70 are very competitive. Look for relevant keywords in that low-to-medium difficulty sweet spot. SEMRush will also help you to understand your ranking potential based on your Domain Authority.

SEO tools can help you to find competitor pages with strong traffic and engagement but relatively few backlinks. If you can create content that's more comprehensive, up-to-date, and authoritative on those topics, you may be able to leapfrog those pages in search results over time.

Expanding into new content formats and channels

Finally, don't limit your gap analysis to just text-based content. Look for opportunities to reach your audience through content formats and channels your competitors are underutilising.

For example, if you notice competitors neglecting video content or lagging on emerging platforms like TikTok, you may be able to gain an edge by being an early adopter. Or if they're over-investing in top-of-funnel blog posts, you might differentiate by creating more middle- and bottom-of-funnel assets like case studies, ROI calculators, and product demos.

The goal is to find the right mix of content types and touchpoints to engage your audience at every stage of their journey - especially in areas where your competitors are falling short.

7. Create a plan for action

All of this hard work is for nothing without a clear way forward.

Synthesise your analysis into a list of high-level insights and strategic recommendations. For example:

• Invest in more comprehensive, data-driven content to match rising quality expectations set by competitors X and Y.

• Prioritise video content and optimise for YouTube to take advantage of competitors' lack of presence on that channel.

• Partner with industry influencers and thought leaders to expand reach and credibility, especially on topics where competitor Z is dominant.

• Implement a more agile, newsworthy content process to capitalise on timely trends and gain share of voice from larger competitors.

Then, brainstorm a list of specific content initiatives and tactics that will help you execute on those priorities.

Prioritising content initiatives and tactics

Of course, not all content opportunities are created equal. Once you've identified a list of strategic initiatives, you'll need to prioritise the highest ROI opportunities. Consider factors like:

• Relevance to your target audience and business goals.

• Potential impact on key content KPIs and revenue metrics.

• Competitive urgency and importance for differentiating your brand.

• Alignment with your unique expertise and value proposition.

• Feasibility and resources required for execution.

• Dependencies and interrelationships with other initiatives.

You'll also want to validate your content ideas with additional layers of research, such as:

• Conducting additional keyword research to gauge interest, competitive difficulty, ranking potential, and search intent.

• Potential for backlinks and social engagement.

• Interviewing subject matter experts to assess whether you have something unique to say, and the depth and value of insights you can provide.

• Considering how you can produce valuable, engaging, and differentiated content formats for a premium content experience.

By taking a data-driven approach, you can build a content roadmap that's laser-focused on the highest-impact opportunities for your brand. You'll be able to create content that not only fills competitive whitespace, but also delivers genuine value and utility to your audience.

Operationalising your content strategy

Finally, turn your prioritised initiatives into a tangible action plan by assigning owners, deadlines, KPIs, and resource allocations to each tactic.

Remember that your content strategy should always remain flexible and iterative based on real-world performance data and ongoing competitive analysis.The more you can make data-driven optimisation a regular habit, the better equipped you'll be to adapt to changing competitive landscapes and audience needs.

Some tips for ensuring your content stays ahead of the curve:

• Build in regular time for competitive content audits and gap analysis to stay on top of new opportunities and threats.

• Continually gather audience feedback and user data to validate and optimise your content ideas.

• Foster a culture of experimentation and learning on your content team to encourage new ideas and approaches.

• Stay plugged into industry trends and conversations to anticipate shifts in audience needs and competitive strategies.

Turn Competitive Insights into your Content Advantage

Conducting a competitive content analysis is a crucial starting point for developing a strategy that drives real business results. By reverse engineering your competitors' content performance, you can skip the guesswork and focus on proven topics and tactics. 

Equipped with rich data-driven insights, your content can also become a true differentiator for your brand. 

However, even the most brilliant, data-rich strategy will fail without operational excellence. Put in place the right people, processes, and tools to bring your content vision to life. With a commitment to quality and a focus on your audience's needs, your content can become an unbeatable competitive advantage for your B2B brand.
Transform your content strategy with data-driven insights and expert execution. 1827 Marketing’s content strategists can help you mine the data to outshine the competition. Let's get started.