Avoid the Pitfalls of Competitive Content Research

▤ Summary

To prevent turning your brand into a cautionary tale, you need to carefully choose what competitors you research, locate relevant pain points, and determine how effective their marketing strategy is. Given the domain rating of both companies and their expansive resources compared to a small, niche website, if either brand used their influencers to create unbiased review-focused content for the “rock climbing pants” keyword, they’d likely clinch the number one ranking with relative ease. There are plenty of ways to gain this knowledge, including best practice awareness, running the competition’s idea through a user research gauntlet, and comparing the options side-by-side. While it’s easy to skimp on the background research and assume your competitors know what they’re doing, based on search rankings or public opinion, they may not be the skilled marketers you presume and you’ll end up wasting time, resources, and users on a faulty idea. Here’s a quick reminder of what you should do to prepare yourself for competitive research and avoid implementing bad ideas: • None Identify a mix of direct and SERP competitors that have relevant content, are trying to accomplish the same goal, and target the same users.

▦ Linked Companies

Moz, Inc.

$10M to $25M