How to Do Competitor Analysis

Step 1: Pick the right competitors

Two lists: who you think your competitors are, and who actually appears when you search your ten most important keywords. The second list is the real one — those are the sites you need to beat for visibility. Sometimes they overlap; often they don’t.

Step 2: Compare content, not just keywords

• Which topics do they cover that you don’t at all?
• Which of their pieces are thin or outdated — and could be done properly by you?
• What formats do they use (guides, tools, comparisons) and what’s missing?
• What questions do their comment sections and reviews reveal that nobody answers?

Step 3: Check the new frontier — AI search

Ask ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini the questions your buyers ask, and note who gets cited. This is your AI share of voice — increasingly the earliest indicator of who buyers will hear about. Content Craft AI’s Competitor Analyst automates this across all three engines and returns a battle plan with the gaps you should close first.

Step 4: Turn findings into a shortlist

Rank opportunities by your ability to win: topics where their content is weak, where you have a genuinely better angle, or where they’re absent entirely. Ten well-chosen pieces beat a hundred copied ones — the goal is to be a better answer, not a louder echo.

Step 5: Re-run it quarterly

Competitor content changes fast, and AI citations shift even faster. Quarterly check-ins keep your content roadmap aimed at the current openings rather than last year’s.

Frequently Asked Questions