# Competitor content analysis Human Guide

## What This Is For
Use before building or refreshing your content strategy — map the competitive content landscape first. It gives the agent a clearer input/output frame for competitive research: what context to ask for, what decisions to make, and what usable artifact to return.

Use this as a human-readable version of the Competitor content analysis agent skill. It is meant for marketers, operators, founders, and other non-coders who want the workflow without reading agent-specific implementation instructions.

## When To Use This
- Use this when you need a repeatable process for competitor content analysis.
- Use this when the task needs judgment, examples, constraints, or a clear output format rather than a one-off prompt.
- Use this when you want to hand an AI assistant enough context to produce a usable marketing artifact.

## When Not To Use This
- Do not use this when you only need a quick factual answer.
- Do not use this when the work depends on private data you cannot share with the assistant.
- Do not use this as a replacement for legal, compliance, financial, or medical review.

## What You Need Before Starting
- The goal or business outcome you want.
- The audience, customer segment, or market context.
- Any source material the assistant should respect, such as notes, briefs, examples, URLs, or brand guidance.
- Constraints such as tone, length, channel, deadline, region, or approval requirements.
- A clear definition of what a good final answer should look like.

## Step-By-Step Workflow
1. State the job clearly: "Use the Competitor content analysis guide to help me with..."
2. Add context: audience, goal, offer, channel, source material, and constraints.
3. Ask the assistant to identify missing inputs before producing the final output.
4. Have the assistant follow the skill-specific guidance below.
5. Review the result against the final checklist and ask for revisions where needed.

## Skill-Specific Guidance
- **Competitor name** — the company to analyze
- **Competitor URL** — their homepage domain
- **Your product description** — what you sell and who it's for (needed to assess relevance of competitor content)
- **Keyword data** (optional) — if the user has previously run competitor-keyword-analysis, they can provide that data. Otherwise, this skill will attempt to pull it via Keywords Everywhere MCP if connected.
- **Total page count** by section (blog, guides, resources, docs, landing pages, etc.)
- **URL patterns** — how content is organized (`/blog/`, `/resources/`, `/guides/`, `/learn/`, `/glossary/`, `/templates/`, `/vs/`, `/alternatives/`, `/compare/`)
- **Publication dates** — when pages were published (if sitemap includes `<lastmod>`)
- **Publishing velocity** — how many new pages per month (recent 6 months)
- Pages on their site matching `/vs/`, `/compare/`, `/alternatives/` patterns
- WebSearch: `site:{domain} vs` and `site:{domain} alternatives`
- **Who they compare against** — which competitors do they target?
- **How they position themselves** — what dimensions do they claim to win on?

## Decision Points And Nuance
The original skill emphasizes: Usage, Process, Step 1: Gather Inputs, Step 2: Content Inventory via Sitemap, Step 3: Content Categorization, Step 4: Comparison & Alternative Pages, Step 5: SEO Content Plays, Step 6: Gated Content & Lead Gen, Step 7: Social Content & Distribution, Step 8: Content Gap Analysis.

Use these questions to steer the work:
- What is the intended audience or buyer?
- What source material must be preserved?
- What should the assistant optimize for: clarity, persuasion, accuracy, speed, creativity, or conversion?
- What examples represent the desired quality bar?
- What should the assistant avoid?

## Common Mistakes
- Count pages per category. Note which categories exist and which don't — absent categories are potential opportunities.
- Keywords they rank for that you don't — content they've written that you haven't
- Keywords you rank for that they don't — your existing advantages
- Content types they have that you don't (comparison pages, glossary, templates)
- Never invent traffic numbers — all data must come from Keywords Everywhere or be clearly marked as estimates.
- Never recommend content ideas that don't align with the user's product and audience.
- Always cluster and prioritize — never present raw keyword dumps.

## Copy-And-Paste Prompt
```text
Use the Competitor content analysis human guide.

My goal:
[Describe the business outcome]

Audience:
[Describe who this is for]

Context and source material:
[Paste notes, examples, links, or existing copy]

Constraints:
[Tone, length, channel, timeline, must-include items, must-avoid items]

Before producing the final output, ask me for any missing information that would materially improve the result.
```

## Final Checklist
- [ ] The output matches the original goal.
- [ ] The audience and context are reflected in the answer.
- [ ] Important constraints and source material were preserved.
- [ ] The assistant made the relevant decisions explicit.
- [ ] The final artifact is ready to use, review, or hand to the next person.

## Source
This guide was generated from the superamped/ai-marketing-skills skill entry for `competitor-content-analysis`.

## Source Skill Notes
These notes preserve the nuance from the original skill. Use them as supporting reference when the workflow above feels too generic.

# Competitor Content Analysis

## Usage

Use before building or refreshing your content strategy — map the competitive content landscape first. Also useful for identifying content gaps and opportunities vs. a specific competitor, or understanding what's earning a competitor organic traffic and why.

## Process

### Step 1: Gather Inputs

Ask the user for:
1. **Competitor name** — the company to analyze
2. **Competitor URL** — their homepage domain
3. **Your product description** — what you sell and who it's for (needed to assess relevance of competitor content)
4. **Keyword data** (optional) — if the user has previously run competitor-keyword-analysis, they can provide that data. Otherwise, this skill will attempt to pull it via Keywords Everywhere MCP if connected.

### Step 2: Content Inventory via Sitemap

Fetch `{url}/sitemap.xml` (and `{url}/sitemap_index.xml` if it's an index). Extract:

- **Total page count** by section (blog, guides, resources, docs, landing pages, etc.)
- **URL patterns** — how content is organized (`/blog/`, `/resources/`, `/guides/`, `/learn/`, `/glossary/`, `/templates/`, `/vs/`, `/alternatives/`, `/compare/`)
- **Publication dates** — when pages were published (if sitemap includes `<lastmod>`)
- **Publishing velocity** — how many new pages per month (recent 6 months)

If sitemap is unavailable, fall back to fetching the blog index and resource pages, then use keyword data to infer content scope from ranking URLs.

### Step 3: Content Categorization

From the sitemap URLs and page fetches, categorize content into types:

| Content Type | URL Patterns to Look For | What It Signals |
|---|---|---|
| Blog posts | `/blog/`, `/posts/` | Core content engine — topics, frequency, depth |
| Guides / pillar pages | `/guides/`, `/learn/`, `/resources/`, `/academy/` | Hub-and-spoke SEO strategy, authority building |
| Comparison pages | `/vs/`, `/compare/`, `/alternatives/`, `*-vs-*`, `*-alternative*` | Commercial intent capture, direct competitor targeting |
| "Best of" / listicle pages | `best-*`, `top-*` | Category keyword capture |
| Glossary / definitions | `/glossary/`, `/dictionary/`, `what-is-*` | Programmatic SEO, awareness-stage traffic |
| Templates / tools | `/templates/`, `/tools/`, `/calculator/`, `/generator/` | Product-led content, high-intent capture |
| Case studies | `/case-studies/`, `/customers/`, `/success-stories/` | Social proof content, bottom-of-funnel |
| Webinars / video | `/webinars/`, `/events/`, `/videos/` | Event-driven content, lead capture |
| White papers / ebooks | `/whitepapers/`, `/ebooks/`, `/reports/` | Gated content for lead gen |
| Landing pages | `/solutions/`, `/for/`, `/use-cases/` | Segment-specific or use-case-specific targeting |
| Changelog / updates | `/changelog/`, `/updates/`, `/whats-new/` | Product velocity signaling |

Count pages per category. Note which categories exist and which don't — absent categories are potential opportunities.

### Step 4: Comparison & Alternative Pages

This gets its own step because it's high-value commercial intent content that directly affects competitive positioning.

Search for and fetch:
- Pages on their site matching `/vs/`, `/compare/`, `/alternatives/` patterns
- WebSearch: `site:{domain} vs` and `site:{domain} alternatives`

For each comparison page found:
- **Who they compare against** — which competitors do they target?
- **How they position themselves** — what dimensions do they claim to win on?
- **Are they targeting YOUR product?** — flag immediately if yes
- **Search ranking** — do these pages actually rank? (check via Keywords Everywhere if connected)

**If they have no comparison pages**, that's a gap you can exploit — especially for "[their name] alternatives" and "[their name] vs [your name]" keywords.

### Step 5: SEO Content Plays

Using keyword data (provided by user or pulled via Keywords Everywhere MCP), identify:

- **Dedicated keyword pages** — pages clearly built to rank for a specific term (exact-match URL slugs, optimized titles)
- **Programmatic content** — patterns that suggest templated/scaled content (e.g., 50 glossary pages, "[tool] integration" pages for every integration)
- **Hub-and-spoke structure** — pillar pages with clusters of supporting content
- **High-traffic content** — their top 10 pages by estimated traffic. What topics? What format?
- **Content themes** — cluster their ranking keywords into 3-5 themes. These are their content pillars.
- **Commercial vs. informational split** — what percentage of their traffic comes from commercial intent keywords (vs, best, pricing, alternative, review) vs. informational (how to, what is, guide)?

If no keyword data is available, assess these qualitatively from sitemap and page content.

### Step 6: Gated Content & Lead Gen

Assess their content-based lead generation: