Competitor & Category Content Analysis

    Stefan Kalpachev

    Stefan Kalpachev

    Founder & CEO, Content RevOps

    •
    April 13, 2026
    •
    3 min read

    No content strategy can exist in isolation, and as a result, we need to understand the ecosystem of ideas and content that exists before we attempt to enter it.

    Work out what the market is already saying, where it works, and where the gaps are.

    We are not just looking at competitors as businesses.
    We are looking at how they use content:

    • what gets attention

    • what gets ignored

    • what is overdone

    • what is missing or unclear

    What we analyse

    We look across four groups:

    • direct competitors

    • adjacent players

    • industry publications

    • alternatives (DIY, status quo, internal workarounds)

    How we do it

    1. Identify top-performing content

    For each competitor:

    • pull their top organic pages

    • focus on traffic, not keyword volume

    • review any active paid ads

    This shows what they are actually pushing and what is already working.

    2. Review content manually

    We go through their strongest pages and look for:

    • topics and angles

    • how they frame the problem

    • level of depth

    • whether it is useful or generic

    • how commercial vs educational it is

    The goal is to understand what the content is really doing, not just what it says.

    3. Look at social output

    We review recent posts and focus on:

    • what gets strong engagement

    • what themes repeat

    • what consistently underperforms

    This helps us separate signal from noise.

    4. Analyse reviews and sentiment

    We look at public feedback to find:

    • repeated complaints

    • repeated praise

    • unmet expectations

    • emotional language

    This often reveals gaps that competitors are not addressing in their content.

    5. Scan broader market content

    We review publications and adjacent players to understand:

    • what topics attract attention

    • what formats are common

    • what the market is actively trying to learn

    This shows where demand already exists.

    6. Use AI to organise patterns

    Once the manual work is done, we use AI to:

    • group recurring themes

    • compare competitors

    • cluster topics and formats

    • surface repeated language

    AI helps organise the inputs, not replace them.

    7. Identify strengths and gaps

    For each competitor, we summarise:

    Where they are strong

    • topics that gain traction

    • formats that work

    • channels they perform well in

    Where they are weak

    • problems they avoid or only cover lightly

    • content that gets low engagement

    • gaps between what customers complain about and what they publish

    We pay more attention to what is missing than what is present.

    What we end up with

    • a clear view of what content already works in the market

    • patterns across competitors, publications, and alternatives

    • common themes, formats, and messages

    • recurring complaints and unmet expectations

    • a shortlist of content gaps

    • a shortlist of narrative opportunities based on those gaps

    This gives us a grounded view of where we can say something better, clearer, or more useful than what already exists.