How to Audit Your Competitor's Content Strategy

Understanding what your competitors are doing with content marketing provides crucial insights that can inform and accelerate your own strategy. A competitive content audit reveals which topics resonate most powerfully with your shared audience, which content formats drive the most engagement and lead generation, and which gaps represent significant opportunities for you to outrank and outsmart competitors. 

Rather than blindly guessing about what content topics matter most, you can study your competitors' content performance, understand what works in your market, and identify opportunities they're missing. This guide shows you how to conduct a thorough competitive content audit that informs your strategy and identifies opportunities to capture market share from competitors who've missed critical topics.

Why competitor content analysis matters

Your competitors are running continuous experiments with their content strategy, testing different topics, formats, and promotion approaches. Some of their content will rank well, generate significant engagement, and produce leads. Other content will underperform despite their investment.

By analyzing what works for them and what doesn't, you can learn from their successes and mistakes without bearing the cost of experimentation yourself. This competitive intelligence dramatically accelerates your own content strategy development.

Competitor content analysis reveals market standards and expectations. If all your top competitors are publishing long-form comprehensive guides exceeding three thousand words, short blog posts of one thousand words probably won't cut it in your market. 

If competitors are all investing in video content and interactive tools, static text-only content might underperform. If certain topics consistently rank well across multiple competitor sites, that's a strong signal that the topic matters to your shared audience. Understanding what's standard in your market helps you set realistic expectations for your own content.

Competitor analysis also reveals gaps and opportunities. Perhaps all competitors are publishing comparison guides but none are publishing case studies on a particular topic. That's an opportunity for you. 

Perhaps competitors are covering certain topics but are noticeably absent from others. That's another opportunity. Or maybe your competitors are emphasizing certain formats but neglecting other formats. That's a potential differentiation opportunity. The gaps you identify represent content opportunities where you can create superior assets and capture market share from competitors who missed them.

Finally, competitor analysis helps you benchmark performance and set goals. If your top competitor's blog post on demand generation best practices generates ten thousand monthly visits, you know that topic has significant traffic potential. If you see that competitor webinars typically generate hundreds of registrations, you know webinars are worth investing in. Understanding competitor performance helps you set realistic goals for your own content.

Identifying your most relevant competitors

Start by identifying your real competitors—companies targeting the same audience with similar solutions. These might be direct competitors selling essentially the same product or service, or indirect competitors solving the problem through a different approach. 

For this analysis, focus on three to five competitors who are strong in content marketing and SEO. You're looking for competitors whose content strategy you can learn from, not necessarily your biggest sales competitors.

Look for competitors with established content programs and significant organic traffic. These are the ones running experiments you can learn from. Visit their websites and review their content libraries:

• How extensive is their content library? 

• How frequently do they publish? 

• What range of topics do they cover? 

• How professional is their content production quality? 

• Which competitors seem to be taking content marketing seriously? 

These questions help you identify which competitors merit detailed analysis. Additionally, consider indirect competitors and complementary companies. If you're a marketing automation company, your direct competitors are other marketing automation platforms. 

But you might also learn from companies selling adjacent solutions like email platforms, CRM systems, or analytics platforms. These adjacent companies might be reaching your audience with different content and using approaches you can learn from. Include some adjacent companies in your competitive analysis to get a broader perspective on content approaches in your market.

Create a shortlist of three to five competitors and adjacent companies that merit detailed analysis. Prioritize competitors with established, visible content programs. You want to analyze competitors who are doing content seriously, not companies with minimal content efforts. Focus on competitors who are similar enough to you that their approach is relevant but perhaps not exactly identical so you can learn from different perspectives and approaches.

Tools for auditing competitor content and rankings

Manual analysis of competitor websites becomes overwhelming quickly. Professional SEO and content analysis tools dramatically accelerate competitive analysis and provide data impossible to gather manually. The primary tools for competitor content analysis are Semrush, Ahrefs, and similar platforms that provide comprehensive data on competitor keywords, rankings, backlinks, and content performance.

Semrush provides exceptional competitive analysis capabilities. You can enter a competitor domain and see which keywords they rank for, how much organic traffic they generate, which landing pages generate the most traffic, and detailed information about their backlinks and referring domains. 

Semrush's content marketing platform shows you competitor content performance including estimated traffic, social engagement, and which topics drive the most engagement. Semrush's competitive positioning report shows your website's performance compared to competitors across key metrics.

Ahrefs offers powerful backlink analysis and keyword research capabilities. You can analyze competitor backlinks to understand their link-building strategy and identify high-authority sources linking to competitor content. 

Ahrefs' content explorer shows which competitor content pieces generate the most backlinks and organic traffic. This information helps you identify which topics and formats perform best in your market. Ahrefs' site explorer provides detailed breakdown of competitor traffic sources and top-performing pages.

SimilarWeb provides website traffic analysis and audience insights. You can analyze competitor traffic volume trends over time, understand traffic sources, and see the breakdown of traffic to different pages. This information helps you understand which pages drive most of your competitor's traffic and how their traffic has evolved.

The combination of tools provides comprehensive competitive intelligence that would be impossible to gather manually.

Evaluating their topic coverage and content gaps

Use your analysis tools to identify all topics your competitors rank for and cover in their content library. Export lists of keywords your competitors rank for using Semrush or Ahrefs. Analyze the topic distribution to understand which areas they emphasize and which areas they neglect. Create a spreadsheet listing major topics competitors cover, ranking competitiveness for each topic, and estimated search volume.

Compare your competitor's topic coverage to your own content. Which topics are they covering that you aren't? These gaps represent opportunities where competitors own mindshare that you could capture. Which topics do you cover that competitors don't? These represent potential competitive advantages you should protect and expand. Which topics do you both cover? These competitive battlegrounds require differentiation and superior content to win.

Look for topic clusters within their content. Competitors often naturally cluster content around core themes. If your competitor has twenty blog posts about email marketing, email marketing is clearly a priority for them. If they have only a few pieces on a tangentially related topic, that's a lower priority. Understanding their topic emphasis helps you understand their strategic priorities.

Look for gaps where neither you nor competitors have covered topics. Perhaps no one has created comprehensive content about a particular topic that's clearly important to buyers. These uncovered opportunities represent whitespace where you could establish authority. Survey your sales team about topics prospects frequently ask about but that no one seems to have covered well. These often represent significant content opportunities.

Analyze the depth of competitor coverage on topics they do cover. Perhaps a competitor has five pieces on demand generation but none of them comprehensively address a particular subtopic like demand generation for enterprise companies or demand generation without marketing automation. That's an opportunity for you to create more comprehensive, specialized content that addresses that specific angle or audience segment.

Assessing their content formats and engagement

Analyze what content formats your competitors emphasize. Do they publish primarily blog posts, or do they invest heavily in whitepapers, videos, webinars, and interactive tools? Which formats seem to drive their traffic and engagement? Blog posts might generate decent engagement while videos generate exceptional engagement. Webinars might generate more registrations than blog posts. Analyze engagement metrics on their content pieces: 

• How much time do visitors typically spend on their blog posts? 

• What's their average scroll depth?

• Do readers interact with embedded elements like videos or interactive tools? 

  
  

These engagement metrics indicate content quality and relevance. Higher engagement typically indicates higher-quality content and higher alignment with audience needs. Look at their call-to-action strategy. 

• What CTAs do they use on different content pieces? 

• Do they primarily promote their product?

• Do they use content upgrades and gated resources to build their email list? 

• Do they primarily drive to product demo requests?

• Do they nurture through lead magnets and email sequences? 

  
  

Understanding their CTA strategy reveals their demand generation and lead generation approach. Analyze their social media promotion strategy. 

• Are they promoting on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, or multiple platforms? 

• How frequently do they promote pieces? 

• Do they promote new content immediately or use evergreen promotion campaigns?

  
  

Observing their promotional cadence reveals whether they're pursuing one-time viral reach or long-term, consistent promotion. Look at which content formats they seem to consider high-priority. 

• Do they invest in professional video production, suggesting videos are important? 

• Do they have a sophisticated webinar program with consistent production? 

• Do they invest in interactive tools and calculators? 

  
  

Content that receives substantial investment often indicates it drives results. Formats they neglect might be lower priorities or lower performers.

Understanding their promotion and distribution strategy

Analyze how competitors promote their content across channels. Monitor their social media accounts to understand their posting frequency, tone, and messaging.

• Do they promote content immediately upon publication?

• Do they use delayed promotion strategies? 

• Do they repurpose content repeatedly across multiple platforms?

• Do they post once and move on? 

  
  

Understanding their promotion patterns reveals what works in your market. Identify their paid promotion strategy. Run a competitive paid search campaign analysis using Semrush or to understand which landing pages they're promoting through paid search.

Are they promoting webinars? Lead magnets? Product pages?

Understanding their paid strategy reveals which content pieces they believe warrant paid promotion investment. Look for their email marketing strategy. If you're on competitor email lists, analyze their email promotion frequency and approach.

• Do they email subscribers about new content?

• Which content pieces get emailed?

• How frequently do they email about content versus sales messages?

Understanding their email strategy reveals how they nurture audiences. Analyze their partnership promotion strategy.

• Do they have webinars featuring partner companies?

• Do they republish content on partner platforms?

• Do they cross-promote with complementary companies?

Understanding their partnership approach reveals distribution channels you might pursue. Look for their media relations and earned media strategy. Search for which competitor content has generated media coverage and industry publication mentions. Use Google Alerts or similar tools to monitor when competitors get media mentions. Industry publications that cover competitors might be good outlets for your thought leadership and content as well.

Identifying backlink sources and authority building

Use backlink analysis tools to understand where competitors are earning links. Which sites link to their content? Are there patterns in which sites link to them? High-authority sites linking to competitors are sites you should target for backlinks to your own content. Look for industry blogs, resource pages, and authority sites consistently linking to competitor content. These are high-value link sources worth pursuing.

Analyze which competitor content pieces earn the most backlinks. Blog posts on certain topics might earn dozens of backlinks while other pieces earn none. The content earning the most backlinks reveals the topics that industry experts and influencers consider most valuable and linkable. These are topics worth covering comprehensively in your own content.

Look for patterns in competitor link-building strategy.

• Are they using guest posting? 

• Are they conducting original research that naturally attracts links? 

• Are they creating resource pages that attract links? 

• Are they participating in industry associations that link to member content? 

  
  

Understanding their link-building approach reveals tactics you might replicate. Search for which publications consistently link to competitors. Industry blogs, news sites, and resource pages that link to competitors are potential outlets for your own content. Reaching out to these publications with your own expertise and content helps you build your authority. Analyze competitor digital PR strategy. 

• Do they conduct interviews with media outlets? 

• Do they participate in industry events and conferences that generate mentions and links? 

• Do they build relationships with industry analysts? 

  
  

Understanding their digital PR approach reveals ways to build authority beyond just content creation.

Finding the content opportunities they're missing

After analyzing what competitors are doing, identify the gaps and opportunities. Look for keywords they don't rank for despite high search volume. These represent content opportunities where demand clearly exists but competitors haven't capitalized on it. Search for keywords related to their products and business that they don't currently rank for. These often represent untapped opportunities.

Look for content angles and formats they're not using. Maybe they publish blog posts but rarely produce videos. Or perhaps they cover broad topics but rarely drill into specific use cases or audience segments. Or maybe you find that they cover evergreen content but rarely address trending topics. These format and angle gaps represent differentiation opportunities where you can create content they haven't tried.

There’s also potential for targeting underserved audience segments. Let’s say your competitors focus on enterprise companies but largely ignore mid-market. Or you discover that they focus on specific industries but ignore others. Perhaps they focus on specific job titles but ignore related roles. Creating content for underserved segments helps you expand your addressable market.

Don’t discount thought leadership opportunities either. You may find that the executives in your space lack significant media presence or speaking engagements. You may also find the ones in your industry rarely publish original research. Or perhaps they rarely contribute to major industry publications. These thought leadership gaps represent opportunities to establish yourself as a more visible industry voice.

Lastly, look for content quality issues. Some of your competitors may not keep the content they publish fresh, and you find that it’s outdated, poorly structured, or doesn't comprehensively address topics. Or maybe their content is technically accurate but not palatable to your audience. If you can create more readable, actionable content, trust that superior content quality often wins despite competitors having earlier presence.

Creating a competitor content benchmarking report

Document your competitive analysis findings in a comprehensive report your team can reference as you develop strategy. Structure your report to include key findings, detailed competitive comparison, identified opportunities, and recommended actions. 

Your report should list all analyzed competitors with their content program characteristics. Document their major content pillars, primary content formats, typical publishing cadence, estimated monthly organic traffic, and content quality assessment.

Create a comparison matrix showing how your content strategy compares to competitors. Compare topic coverage, content formats, publishing frequency, promotion strategy, and estimated performance. This visual comparison helps your team understand your competitive position. Identify where you're ahead of competitors and where you're behind. Understand where you're differentiated and where you're undifferentiated.

Document the top ten to twenty content opportunities you've identified. For each opportunity, specify the topic, estimated search volume, competitor gap (why competitors aren't ranking), recommended content approach, and estimated potential traffic and leads. Prioritize opportunities by impact potential.

Include a section on competitor strengths you should monitor and competitive threats you should watch. If you’re monitoring their output, it’ll be easy to spot when a competitor recently pivots aggressively to pursue a certain topic area. Perhaps they've hired experienced content leaders. Understanding competitive movements helps you stay ahead of competitive threats. Document lessons learned from competitive analysis. 

• What formats perform best in your market? 

• What topics generate the most engagement? 

• What promotion approaches seem most effective? 

• What content quality standards exist? 

  
  

These findings help you set realistic expectations for your own content.

Using insights to inform your own strategy

Don't copy competitors. Be inspired by them and use insights to make better strategic decisions about your own content. If competitors excel at video content while your video presence is weak, invest in video production. Your videos will be better positioned because you can learn from their video approaches and avoid their mistakes.

If certain topics consistently rank well across multiple competitor sites, those topics deserve emphasis in your strategy. If certain content formats drive strong engagement across competitors, those formats warrant investment. If competitors are weak on a particular topic, own that topic. 

Create the most comprehensive, highest-quality content on that topic in your industry. When no one has covered demand generation specifically for mid-market companies, you create the definitive guide on that topic. You earn authority and attract prospects competitors missed.

If certain websites consistently link to competitor content, pursue relationships with those publications. Share your expertise and content with them. Contribute articles, participate in interviews, and build relationships that lead to links and mentions of your content.

Let’s say you realize certain content pieces generate exceptional backlinks and social engagement. Analyze them to understand what made them so linkable and shareable. 

• Was it original research? 

• Was it controversial? 

• Was it exceptionally well-designed? 

• Was it the topic itself? 

  
  

Understanding what makes content linkable helps you create linkable content. Use competitive analysis to set realistic performance benchmarks. If a competitor's blog post on a competitive topic generates five thousand monthly visits, you know that topic has traffic potential. Set goals to match or exceed that performance. Understanding competitor performance helps you set ambitious but achievable targets.

Competitive analysis is an ongoing process

Make competitive content analysis an ongoing discipline rather than a one-time project. Conduct quarterly reviews of your top competitors. Monitor whether they've adjusted their content strategy, launched new content initiatives, or changed their emphasis. Subscribe to competitor content updates through email or RSS feeds. Track their latest publications. Use Google Alerts to monitor competitor news and mentions.

Share competitive intelligence with your team regularly. Monthly competitive briefings help your team stay aware of competitor movements and market trends. When competitors launch new initiatives, discuss how you should respond. When competitors miss opportunities, discuss how to capitalize. When competitors do something well, discuss how to learn from it.

Remember that competitive analysis is about learning and positioning, not copying. Your goal is understanding your market, identifying opportunities competitors missed, and developing a differentiated strategy. The best competitive advantage comes from executing a unique strategy better than competitors, not from copying what competitors do.

Leveraging competitive intelligence

A thorough competitive content audit provides invaluable intelligence that accelerates your content strategy development. Rather than guessing about what content topics matter most and what formats perform best, you can analyze your market and make data-driven decisions. This competitive intelligence helps you identify content opportunities, set realistic performance targets, and develop a differentiated content strategy that captures market share from competitors.

Ready to conduct a competitive content audit? At MQL Magnet, we help enterprise companies analyze their competitive landscape and develop content strategies that outpace competitors. We conduct thorough competitive audits using professional analysis tools, identify gaps and opportunities, and help you develop strategies to capture market share through superior content. Book a time with our team to discuss how we can help you leverage competitive intelligence to build a content strategy that wins in your market.