Competition is normal when it comes to business. Competition is there to make customers choose which is a much better place for them to get what they need. And in order to make your business be the one that they need, you have to be better than your competitors.
You might think that the only thing that can empower you are your allies and your loyal customers. However, you might not know that your competitors are also the key to your business’ success.
Here’s how you can uncover your competition’s content marketing techniques.
Tips to uncover Content Marketing Techniques
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Know your competitors
First things first, before you get to know what their content marketing techniques are, you have to know who your competitors are. The internet is filled with business owners who are having the same business as you.
Knowing your competitors doesn’t mean that you have to know your 20 or more competitors on the internet. Just locate your top three competitors.
You can find them by searching for your main keywords on Google search via incognito to remove Google preferences.
Another way for you to find out who the competition is, Ahrefs is an excellent tool for you to use.
For example, in Keywords Explorer, if you are aiming for “types of sushi” as a keyword, the tool will display 10 pages or domains that also rank for the same keyword. Locating your top three competitors is more than enough.
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Find out what they are publishing
Now that you know your competitors, you want to know what type of content they are publishing next. Do they create blogs? Video content? Infographics? One of the ways you can find out is to subscribe to their newsletter.
You can also use Google Alerts to know what your competitors are doing. You can input their company name or product and Google Alerts will do its job by alerting you any brand mentions, published works, social media activities, and more.
Both of these deliver this information straight to your inbox. Google Alerts notifications can also be sent to your favorite RSS feed.
Read Also: Top Social Media Marketing Strategy to follow in 2020
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Discover more link opportunities
Knowing your competitors doesn’t only give you a way to know what they are up to. Keeping an eye out for their activities can give you more than you can think of. Other than giving you ideas for your next content, you can find link opportunities from them too.
Tools such as Ahrefs not only notifies you what keywords they are using and how much web traffic they are getting. It also shows you how many backlinks they have and where they got it.
You can use the tool to find and track link opportunities from your competitors, especially links to their site. Look for their backlinks. What site is it from? How did they get it was it a feature or a guest post from your competitor?
If it was a guest post, you should prepare yourself and get ready to post your own guest there as well. If not and the author just featured your competitor but this site gives quality backlinks, you can try and ask the webmaster to feature you too in return of what you will be able to offer from your business.
Find here free guest posting sites list to submit guest posts.
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Monitor their content performance
There are many ways where you can monitor their content performance. By knowing how their content is faring with the people, you will be able to determine what content is the best of the best to get inspiration from.
You can enter your competitor’s website URL and search for their most popular content. You can also activate the filters in Buzzsumo.
If you want to know the most popular content of your competitor, you can adjust and sort results with the Content-Type filter. If you prefer to know their recent popular content, sort content results via Filter by Date.
With the Buzzsumo Pro plan, you get to see which influencer shares and made an impression on their content. This way, you can reach out to those same influencers and foster a relationship with them, making it easier for you to ask for their help to amplify your own content someday.
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Understand how they create content
After finding out all of their popular content, analyze and understand what makes those contents interesting. By understanding what makes their content linkable, you will be able to get what the people of your niche really wanted from you.
Keep an eye on what they are writing. See if their content really delivers full information or if you think that it is still lacking. Remember these points and see if you can provide what they lack in their content.
You should also note what kind of content they are making. Do they always do blogging? Do they engage in video content? Or do they utilize infographics or case studies in their content marketing strategy?
Knowing what type of content your target market really wants to see from you, you will be able to provide more content that your audience is interested in engaging in.
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Research, brainstorm and create
Don’t just create content based on what your competitors are doing. You have to dig deeper than that. Before starting your own content, recall the points that you found lacking in your competitor’s contents.
You can also do additional research by checking their reviews on online directories such as Yelp and/or TripAdvisor. Check their strengths through positive feedbacks and their weaknesses through negative ones.
Once you’re all settled, you can now create a slightly similar content of your competitor’s. However, your content should have your very own voice, your brand’s unique flair, and delivers complete information competitors haven’t included.
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Competitors are more than just competition
There’s a saying that in order to succeed, you have to keep your allies close and your competition closer. This is to make it easier for you to take a step ahead of them.
Remember, content marketing is not exclusive to just creating blog posts. There are plenty of types of content out there that are just waiting to be made. It just takes one to know how to present it properly in order to get the most of its benefits.
If your competitors are faring well with their content marketing, you should be able to see what it is that they’re doing right. Adapt to it, create content that fills the blanks in your competitor’s contents.
Add a unique flair to your content to make it more unique that reflects you and your brand.
Read Also: Marketing Strategy for Small Businesses
The possibilities are endless. And in content marketing, there is no such thing as running out of ideas. As long as you have a steady stream of creativity in you and vigilance, you will be able to create successful content for yourself, your customers, or from your competitors alike.
Author’s Bio
SEO consultant Al Gomez is the man behind Dlinkers, a company dedicated to complete digital marketing services. With more than ten years of experience, he enjoys supporting smartpreneurs like himself to achieve online success.