How to Use Your Competitor's Blog to Improve Your Content (Without Copying)
What steps can you take to ensure that prospects land on (and want to read) your content, rather than your competitors, when they are looking for a product or service?
Actually, you can look no further than your competitor’s content. No, we’re not suggesting that you copy it. After all, that’s plagiarism, and it can get you into a lot of trouble! What we are suggesting is conducting a competitive content analysis to see what’s resonating with your competition’s content and use that analysis to more strategically align with what your buyers are looking at to make an informed decision.
How a Competitive Analysis Can Inform Your Content
A competitive analysis involves looking at your competitors’ content to determine the strategy they are using to attract potential customers. This analysis helps you to determine what they are saying to influence and win clients in your same target audience. It’s especially helpful when you’re losing business to the same competitors to help you refine your content to produce better results.
Looking at your competitors’ websites to see the story they are telling is important in developing your own content strategy. Conducting a competitive analysis offers your organization the following benefits:
Differentiating your products and services from your competitors
Meeting customer expectations and solving their problems better than your competitors
Improving your marketing efforts to generate more revenue
Looking at competitor websites and content is a good place to start when conducting a competitive content analysis to help with generating ideas.
How to Conduct a Competitive Analysis
When conducting a competitive analysis, here are some tips you can use to get the best insights into your competitors’ content.
Identify your competitors
While you may know who your competitors are, talk to your salespeople to find out the competitors your prospects may be looking at. You also can learn which competitor a prospect ultimately chose to go with.
Identify competitor keywords
There are a number of ways to identify the keywords that your competitors are ranking highly for, including:
Using your primary keywords in a Google search to see how your competitors are ranking (i.e., are they appearing on the first page in the Google search results)
Using a keyword research tool, such as Semrush or Moz, to help you identify competitor keywords. These types of tools can also tell you how easy or difficult it is to rank for particular keywords.
Check out competitor websites
There is a wealth of information that you can gather from looking at a competitor’s website, particularly their blog and other content resources. For example, you can easily answer questions such as:
How often do they blog?
What topics are they blogging about?
What types of content are they producing to help differentiate their product and services?
What formats are they following when they blog – are they using listicles or infographics to help a prospect visually with the benefits of their product or service?
Are they using empathy to address their prospects’ pain points?
How are they bringing leads through the funnel using content?
Tune into competitors’ social media
Checking out what your competitors are saying on their social media sites can be fuel for your own content. How are they driving traffic to their sites? Perhaps they are offering an attractive piece of downloadable content. Maybe they are conducting a webinar on a trending industry topic. Using their social media content can provide ideas that you can use to attract viewers to your website content.
You’ve Performed a Competitive Analysis. Now What?
Use the insights you gather from your competitive analysis to increase awareness of your organization’s products and services. For example, you might use this analysis to:
Determine additional features that will make your product more highly coveted in the marketplace
Come up with a unique value proposition that can help your product stand out
Improve your buyer journey to help prospects with their decision to choose you
Look to see where you may have content gaps or need to expand on content offerings
Grow your presence on different channels or on ones your competitors aren’t yet using
Reach out to niche markets or new industries that could benefit from your product(s) or service(s)
Best Practices for Finding Content Ideas
It’s helpful to look at a variety of competitor content to get ideas for your own company. While blogs are a popular medium for companies, and 56% of marketers who blog believe it is successful, there are other avenues to explore as well, including:
Podcasts
Webinars
Videos
eBooks and white papers
Email/Newsletters
Case studies
Videos, in particular, are gaining in popularity because they are an effortless way to get information about a company in the shortest amount of time possible. Many companies have YouTube channels that you can subscribe to so you can stay up to date with their latest video content.
These are just a few ideas to assist you in generating your own content ideas by looking at your competition’s content. According to Search Engine Journal, it helps to be an information sponge and look to the following sources for additional content ideas:
Collaboration and brainstorming with other organization departments that have their finger on the pulse of what prospects need or the information they are looking for
Industry-focused information that you can subscribe to and read to keep your eye on what’s trending
Your own audience – use them to get feedback and ideas for content. You can do this by participating in sales calls (in muted mode), through calls with clients, and by using surveys to gather information.
For more ideas, check out our recent article, 25 Great Blog Post Ideas for Any Industry (Go Ahead, Steal Them!).
Need help with generating ideas for your content? Take your strategy to even deeper levels with the help of Comma Copywriters. Schedule a quick and complimentary discovery session with us today to learn more about how our team of copywriters can help you create more compelling marketing content.