Using competitive insights to guide content briefs
This lesson demonstrates how to use Explorer to analyze your competitors' content strategies for finding new content opportunities. Focus on comparing keyword performance and SEO investments., you can use these insights to create a content brief targeting high-performing keywords where your site currently lacks visibility.
Topics include
- Analyzing competitor domains using Explorer.
- Investigating keyword performance and SEO trends.
- Filtering and identifying valuable keywords you don't currently target.
- Creating content briefs based on competitor insights and keyword analysis.
Step-by-step
Here are the steps we cover in the video, with relevant links to more information. Be sure to watch to get more context and decision support for potential choices you might have to make as you go:
- In Explorer ↗️, enter a competitor's domain to investigate. The At a Glance tab of the Explorer report appears for the domain.
- Add your own domain as a comparison.
- Review the competitor's performance, including:
- In the At a Glance tab, Modeled Traffic trends and Answer box ownership.
- In the Keywords tab, keywords that the domain ranks for. You can filter this data to best identify the topics that might be most valuable to target with new or optimized content. For example, use the Keywords containing filter to exclude branded terms. Focusing on non-branded terms helps you uncover their content strategy because it reveals their approach to targeting broader industry topics and the needs and intentions of their target audience. Or, use one of the following filter combinations to dig deeper:
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Research Content Types
Click the competitor’s Change in rank column twice to see keywords with the biggest rank improvements. Use the Keywords containing to exclude branded terms. These are keywords where your competitor is likely focusing their optimization efforts or creating new content. Look at the keywords to understand what topics they focus on in their content strategy. -
Identify Content Gaps
Click the 1st Domain Exclusive filter to see content gaps. Use the Keywords containing filter to exclude branded terms. Focusing on non-branded terms helps you uncover their content strategy. 1st Domain Exclusive keywords are where your competitor ranks in the top 10 results, and you don’t. It means they have content that you don’t, or their content is outperforming yours. -
Identify Where Your Competition Is Winning
Click the 2nd Domain Exclusive filter to see competitive wins. Use the Keywords containing filter to exclude branded terms. These are keywords where you rank in the top 10 results, and your competitor doesn’t. It means you have content that they don’t, or your content is outperforming theirs. -
Identify Opportunities
Click the Opportunity filter to see competitive opportunities. Use the Keywords containing filter to exclude branded terms. These are keywords where neither you nor your competitor rank in the top 10 results. These are keywords you may want to consider optimizing or creating content for.
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Research Content Types
- Click the Actions icon to create a brief. As you go—and as you find information you want to note—use the Actions icons through the reports to add data to your brief.
- Use the three-dot icon to Get Content Guidance for topics you want to focus on. If you haven't already reviewed Content Guidance, you can learn more about using Content Guidance in this lesson.
- Save, download, or share your brief.