Competitor Content Analysis Template
Systematically analyze what your competitors publish, what ranks, and where the gaps are. Turn competitor intelligence into your content advantage.
Best for: Marketing teams entering competitive markets or refreshing strategy
Competitor Selection
200-300 wordsIdentify 3-5 direct competitors and 2-3 indirect competitors (companies targeting your audience with different solutions). Include at least one competitor that's winning at content — even if they're not your closest product competitor, they're your content competitor.
Content Inventory Audit
400-500 wordsFor each competitor, catalog: total number of blog posts, publishing frequency, content types (blog, guides, case studies, tools), and average word count. Use tools like Ahrefs or SEMrush, or manually audit their blog. Note what they publish most — that's what they believe works.
Top-Performing Content Analysis
400-500 wordsIdentify each competitor's top 10 pages by organic traffic. Analyze: target keywords, content structure, word count, backlink profile, and freshness. Note patterns — do their top pages follow a specific format? Are they long-form guides or short tactical posts?
Keyword Overlap & Gaps
300-400 wordsMap keyword overlap: which terms do multiple competitors rank for? These are table-stakes keywords you must cover. Then find gaps: terms with volume where no competitor ranks well. These are your highest-opportunity targets.
Content Quality Assessment
300-400 wordsGrade each competitor's content on: depth of coverage, originality of insights, use of data and sources, visual quality, and E-E-A-T signals. Identify where they're lazy — thin content, outdated stats, or generic AI output. That's where you differentiate.
Strategic Takeaways & Action Plan
300-400 wordsSynthesize findings into 5-7 actionable recommendations. Prioritize by impact: which competitor weaknesses can you exploit first? Which gaps have the highest search volume? Build these directly into your content calendar.
Pro Tips
Don't just analyze what competitors publish — analyze what they don't. The topics they avoid often represent the highest-opportunity content gaps.
Check competitors' content freshness. If their top-ranking guides haven't been updated in 12+ months, you can outrank them with a comprehensive, current alternative.
Monitor competitor publishing cadence monthly. A sudden increase often signals a new content investment — get ahead by publishing on their target topics first.
Frequently Asked Questions
How often should I run a competitor content analysis?+
Full analysis quarterly, quick checks monthly. Set up alerts for competitor blog RSS feeds and new keyword rankings. Averi's competitor monitoring tracks this automatically and surfaces opportunities in your content queue.
What tools do I need for competitor analysis?+
Ahrefs or SEMrush for keyword and traffic data, plus manual review for quality assessment. If you're using Averi, competitor analysis is built into the strategy phase — it monitors competitor content and recommends counter-angles automatically.
Should I copy what competitors do well?+
Never copy, always improve. If a competitor has a strong guide, create one that's more comprehensive, more current, and better structured. The goal is to understand what works in your market, then do it better and differently.
Templates are a starting point. Averi is the engine.
Averi turns this framework into a living content engine — strategy, creation, SEO, publishing, and analytics in one workflow.
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