Competitor Content Analysis Template

Understanding what your competitors are doing with content isn't about copying them — it's about finding the gaps they're ignoring, the audiences they're underserving, and the positioning you can steal. The best content strategy decisions come from a clear map of the competitive landscape.

This template walks you through a systematic competitor content analysis: what to look at, how to evaluate it, and how to turn your findings into a content advantage.

Who to Include in Your Competitor Content Analysis

You need to analyze two types of competitors:

1. Product Competitors Companies selling a similar solution to a similar buyer. These are your business competitors.

2. Content Competitors Sites ranking for the same keywords you're targeting, regardless of whether they sell anything competing with you. A media site, industry blog, or tool with a free resource hub can be a content competitor without being a business competitor.

Both matter. Business competitors tell you how they're using content to sell. Content competitors tell you what you're up against in the SERPs.

Start with a shortlist of 3-5 product competitors and 3-5 content competitors.

Section 1: Competitor Content Profile

Complete this for each competitor:

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Competitor: ___ Website: ___ Category: Product Competitor / Content Competitor / Both

Basic Content Metrics

Metric	Data	Source
Estimated monthly organic traffic		Semrush/Ahrefs
Domain Authority / Domain Rating		Moz / Ahrefs
Total indexed pages		Google: site:competitor.com
Blog posts published (estimate)		Site crawl
Content publishing frequency		Manual review
Approximate content team size		LinkedIn
Est. monthly content investment		Calculate from headcount

Content Pillars (What Topics Do They Own?)

Review their blog categories, pillar pages, and top-performing content to identify the 3-5 topics they publish most about.

Pillar	Estimated # of Posts	Quality (1-5)	Notes
Pillar 1:
Pillar 2:
Pillar 3:

Top Performing Content (Pull from Semrush/Ahrefs)

URL	Estimated Traffic	Target Keyword	DA	Backlinks

Content Formats Used

Format	Used?	Volume	Quality
Blog posts	✅ / ❌
Long-form guides	✅ / ❌
Case studies	✅ / ❌
Data/research reports	✅ / ❌
Podcast	✅ / ❌
YouTube channel	✅ / ❌
Newsletter	✅ / ❌
Webinars	✅ / ❌
Free tools / calculators	✅ / ❌
Certification / course	✅ / ❌
Community	✅ / ❌

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Section 2: SEO Gap Analysis

Shared Keyword Overlap

Use Semrush, Ahrefs, or Moz to identify keywords your competitor ranks for that you don't.

Step-by-step process:

1. In Ahrefs: Site Explorer → [competitor URL] → Organic Keywords
2. Filter by position 1-20 (keywords they're actually getting traffic from)
3. Export and sort by traffic
4. Cross-reference with your own keyword list
5. Anything on their list but not yours is a gap opportunity

Keyword Gap Table:

Keyword	Their Position	Their Traffic	Monthly Volume	Difficulty	Opportunity Score

Opportunity Score: High volume + low difficulty + high relevance to your ICP = best opportunities

Topic Gaps (What They're Not Covering)

Sometimes the biggest opportunities are topics that nobody in your space covers well. Look for:

• Keywords with decent search volume but poor SERP quality (thin, outdated, or not relevant content in top results)
• Topics where they cover basics but not advanced use cases
• Topics where search intent doesn't match what's currently ranking

Topic Gap	Why It's Underserved	Opportunity Size	Priority
		High/Med/Low

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Section 3: Content Quality Assessment

For each competitor, evaluate their content quality across key dimensions. Score 1-5.

Content Quality Scorecard

Dimension	Score (1-5)	Notes
Depth — Do they cover topics comprehensively?
Originality — Do they have original research, data, or perspectives?
Practicality — Is their content actionable?
Voice — Is their writing personality distinctive?
SEO Execution — Are titles, headers, and structure well-optimized?
Visual design — Are posts well-formatted and visual?
CTAs — Are conversion paths clear and relevant?
Update frequency — Do they refresh existing content?

Overall Quality Rating: ___/40

Summary Assessment: What's the one-line verdict on their content quality? What are they doing better than you? What are they doing worse?

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Section 4: Distribution and Promotion Analysis

Social Media Presence:

Platform	Followers	Posting Frequency	Engagement Level	Notes
LinkedIn
Twitter/X
YouTube
Instagram
Facebook

Email Newsletter:

• Do they have a newsletter? Y / N
• Estimated subscriber count (if public): ___
• Newsletter format/topic: ___
• Frequency: ___
• Opt-in offer: ___

Top Traffic Sources (Estimate from Similarweb or Semrush):

Channel	% of Traffic	Notes
Organic Search
Direct
Referral
Social
Email

Backlink Profile:

• Total backlinks: ___
• Referring domains: ___
• Top linking sites: ___
• Primary link-earning content types: ___

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Section 5: Competitive Content Positioning

Their Positioning Statement (Inferred)

Based on their content, who are they talking to, and what do they want to be known for?

Example: "Competitor X's content positions them as the expert for large enterprise marketing teams, emphasizing scale, compliance, and cross-team collaboration. They largely ignore the startup and SMB segment."

Their Messaging Gaps

What do they not say? What audiences do they ignore? What problems do they underplay?

Gap	Why It Matters	Our Opportunity

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Section 6: Competitive Content Matrix

After analyzing all competitors, create a competitive content matrix. This gives you a bird's-eye view of the competitive landscape.

Plotting Instructions:

• X-axis: Content breadth (narrow focus ↔ broad coverage)
• Y-axis: Content depth (surface-level ↔ expert depth)

Map each competitor (and your own current position) on this 2×2. The ideal position is usually deep + broad, but if you're a startup, deep + narrow is more achievable and defensible.

	Narrow Focus	Broad Coverage
Surface Level	Low investment; easy to beat	High volume; low quality
Expert Depth	Niche authority ← target this first	Market leader ← long-term goal

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Section 7: Synthesis and Strategic Recommendations

After completing the analysis for all competitors, answer these questions:

1. Which competitors are we actually competing with for content real estate? (These are the ones you should benchmark against monthly)

2. What are the 3 biggest keyword/topic opportunities competitors are ignoring?

1. ---

2. ---

3. ---

3. Where can we outperform competitors on quality? (Specific topics, formats, or perspectives where you have an unfair advantage)

4. What formats are underutilized in this space? (Data reports? Original research? Free tools? Video?)

5. What's our content differentiation strategy?

Complete this sentence: "Unlike our competitors, our content will ________ because we ________. We will own the ________ positioning for ________ audience."

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Section 8: Competitor Content Monitoring Plan

Competitive analysis isn't one-and-done. Set up ongoing monitoring so you're never surprised.

Monitoring Setup:

• Google Alerts for competitor brand names (catch PR, launches, funding)
• Ahrefs Alerts for competitor new backlinks (see what content is earning links)
• Feedly/RSS subscribed to competitor blogs (see what they publish)
• LinkedIn company follow for their posts and hiring signals
• SparkToro for audience overlap analysis
• Monthly Semrush traffic check (are they growing?)

Monthly Review (15 minutes):

• What did they publish this month?
• Any new keywords they're targeting?
• Notable social or email campaigns?
• Any significant traffic changes?

Quarterly Deep Dive:

• Full competitive matrix update
• New topic gap analysis
• Positioning review

How Averi Helps You Track Competitor Content

Averi's content strategy workflow includes competitive context — when you're building your content pillars and creating briefs, you can see what's already ranking and what's missing in the space. This keeps your content decisions anchored to the competitive reality, not just your internal assumptions.

Analyze your competitive content landscape with Averi →

Further Reading

• Averi competitor analyzer tool
• how to use LLMs to analyze competitor content gaps
• building content authority through pillar pages and topic clusters
• Averi's Strategy Map to turn competitive insights into a strategic content plan

Frequently Asked Questions

How many competitors should I analyze in depth?

Start with 2-3 direct product competitors and 1-2 pure content competitors. A thorough analysis of 4-5 companies is more valuable than a shallow pass at 15. After the initial analysis, run a monthly light-touch review across all of them.

What tools do I need for a competitor content analysis?

You can do a solid analysis with free tools: Google's site: operator (content volume), Google Search (manual SERP checks), SimilarWeb free tier (traffic estimates), and SpyFu free tier (keyword data). Paid tools like Ahrefs ($99/month), Semrush ($120/month), or Moz ($100/month) unlock much deeper data.

Should I try to cover the same keywords as my competitors?

Sometimes yes, sometimes no. If a competitor ranks #1 for a high-volume keyword that's core to your business, you need a plan to compete for it (even if it takes 12+ months). But often the better play is finding adjacent keywords and topics where competition is lower and the searcher is equally valuable.

How often should I update my competitor analysis?

Do a full analysis once per quarter. Run a light monthly check (what did they publish? Any traffic changes?). Subscribe to their newsletter and follow them on LinkedIn — you'll pick up on strategic shifts organically.

What if my main competitor has a massive content team and budget?

Don't try to out-volume them. Out-specialize them. A 10-person startup can't produce as much content as a 50-person marketing team, but you can produce better, more targeted content for a specific audience segment that a large competitor can't serve as well. Find the niche they're ignoring.