Learning what these paths are can be discovered through a deep dive into your competitor’s online content through a competitor analysis. By understanding your competition you will orient yourself to your market and see the opportunities you have to outperform them.

Scout Out the Website:

When starting a competitor analysis, I recommend that you start with the website.  Your competitor’s website is essentially the digital version of their ‘brick-and-mortar’ business, and just like visiting an establishment, their website will tell you a lot about their point of view, their strengths and their weaknesses.

Start your investigation by clicking through the website and evaluating it in the same terms that you would while visiting a business.  We are influenced by the physical appearance of our surroundings. Put on the hat of your buyer persona and think of how they would feel looking through the website.

• Are the font choices appropriate?
• Is the website clean or cluttered?
• Do the color schemes seem inviting?
• Is the verbiage customer-centric?  
• Can you navigate the website easily?
• Does the website build credibility with you?

Although the answers to these questions are subjective, how the website makes you feel is extremely important.  Take note of the distinct impression that your competitor’s website leaves.  What you notice can be used in your own website strategy.   

Tip: Don’t forget to write down the best practices that you see.  When you begin putting your strategy together this will give you a list of best-practices to choose from.

Inspect Their Content

The second part of a website audit is time-consuming, but it plays a large role in forming your marketing strategy. Put on your explorer hat and grab your shovel – it’s time to go digging for information.  You’ll need to examine all of their content offerings such as blog posts, white papers, ebooks, videos, webinars, press releases, FAQ’s, case studies, etc.

As you research each of these content types on your competitor’s website look for the following information:

1. How many of each type of content have they published?
2. How frequently do they publish each type of content?
3. What topics are discussed?

Your aim here is to determine which topics are discussed in their content so you can find opportunities they aren’t capitalizing on, and determine which topics they are trying to establish a strong thought leadership (and search engine) position for.

Evaluate Their Content Quality

After you’ve seen the various types of content on your competitor’s website, it’s time to evaluate the quality of that content.  Don’t worry about going through all of the content.  Select some samples that your competitor publishes and evaluate that.  Here are some suggested questions from HubSpot to ask yourself when evaluating content quality:

• How in-depth does the content go?
• What tone do they adopt in their content?
• Is their content structured in a readable way?
• Who writes their content? Do they have multiple contributors?
• Are their rampant spelling and grammatical errors?
• Are their content topics relevant to their audience?

Tip: You’ll come across lots of ideas for ‘do’s’ and ‘don’ts.’ Record these findings on a separate document using screenshots and record what you do or do not like about specific parts.

Social Media Sleuthing

You can’t have an effective content marketing strategy without using social media. It is crucial that you understand your competitor’s social media strategy on various platforms.  To determine the level of your competitors social media presence visit social media sites such as:

• Facebook
• Twitter
• LinkedIn
• YouTube
• Google+
• Pinterest

Investigate all of the platforms regardless of relevance to your industry.  You may find that a competitor has found a way to use one of these platforms that had yet to cross your marketing team’s mind.

Make note of how many fans or followers they have, how frequently they post, what kinds of content do they post, if the content leads to other sources or their website, whether it’s customer-centric or self-promotional and the average amount of engagement their content receives.

Finding Their SEO Focus

How effective your competitor is at reaching your target audience also depends on how well they have optimized their content for online searches. You can evaluate your competitor’s SEO effectiveness and how they use keywords by looking at content samples.  Make note of the keywords used in the page title, URL, title, H1 tags and the image alt-text.  You will also need to assess how they use inbound and outbound links in their content.

Conclusion: Diving Into Your Results

By this point you have a sizeable amount of information gathered on your competitor. What should you do with it?  Begin by looking at your information as a whole. Each part of marketing is strategically integrated.  They are not siloed into their own sections and independent of one another. Each piece directly or indirectly affects another moving part of your inbound machine.  The competitive intelligence you have gathered will help you know how you are positioned amongst your competitors.  You will be able to clearly see what they are doing better, or worse, than you.

As you have been gathering information, you have been putting together your own list of ‘do’s’ and ‘don’ts.’ Now is the time to start putting those best practices into your marketing and content strategy.  When you know not only which competitors are ahead of you or behind you, but why, you can take steps to address the issues in your marketing strategy.  

Keep in mind you have something great to offer your customers! Use every obstacle as an opportunity to help better their lives and grow your business.