Are you about to write your new e-book or start a research project? Do you intend? white paper release your own?
Starting a new content project can be overwhelming with all the research, writing, and design involved.
But aside from creating your product, you have other tasks to complete – competition and advertising research. This guide covers three key steps to take before publishing your asset-based project.
1. Identify your future competitors
You know the type of project or maybe you even started working on it. Do similar or related projects already exist? What can you learn from that and how will your way stand out?
Knowing your competition is key to a successful launch. You need to know what already exists and how to make your content product better. You can also research your competitors' promotional tactics and pick up some effective marketing ideas.
Find out how your #content product will be better than an existing product, @SEOSmarty said via @CMIContent. Click to Tweet BuzzSumo is always my first tool to check when it comes to any competitive research, especially for content-based projects. Go to the Content Analyzer tab and go through the existing content. I usually change the timeframe to research published within five years for a better overview:
You can filter the results by level of interaction , which is especially useful for new content. If you go back a few years, take note backlinks . Now that you know some of your future content competitors, you should do these two things.
Make friends with their promoters
Checking for backlinks is the best way to find who finds that content useful enough to link to it. They may also be interested in linking to your content. BuzzSumo allows you to check backlinks for any URL, so you can use the same tool.
Another idea is to check the Top Sharers option in BuzzSumo to show the most influential Twitter users who have shared your competitor's projects:
Create a separate Twitter list to reach those people with your project later. Interact with these people before launch to build some helpful connections.
Use @BuzzSumo to find the top #content sharers related to your topic. Interact with them before launching your project, @SEOSmarty said via @CMIContent. Click To Tweet
Check your competitors' marketing channels
Is your competitor using a separate site to promote content? What is their method of conversion or engagement? Are they using video on their landing page? Do they sell projects based on their content on Amazon or elsewhere? All these details can give you some interesting ideas about where to market your product.
Set up tracking to track your competitors' landing pages. You'll get a notification when your competitor receives a new customer review or changes anything on their site.
Visualping is the tool I use for all kinds of on-page tracking. It allows me to select an area of the page to monitor. For example, instead of following the entire Amazon site, I could just keep an eye on the reviews section:
Use @visualping to track your competitor's landing pages, say @SEOSmarty via @CMIContent. Click to Tweet 
TIP: Competitors for content are not 'not always the same as your product or service's competitors.
2. Find content gaps
For this step, look for direct competitors who have published a similar project or have targeted the same. key word . To do this, search for your main keyword on Google, here's where you want your content to rank when it comes online:
Run three to five URLs through Ahrefs The Content Gap tool, which identifies keywords for which two or more of your direct competitors are ranking. This information will help you optimize your landing pages and create content:
Bonus tip
When searching for your main keyword on Google, keep in mind other interesting tactics, including:
Another way to find keywords and concepts your competitors target is to run their URLs in Text Optimizer which extracts semantics from any web document and identifies the topics it is targeting:
3. Name your new content project
If your new content is a large or long-term project, consider creating a unique identity that is related to but not quite the same as your brand. Researching your competition should give you some idea of what might work well.
Some creators set up branded hashtags. Many marketers aggregate all of the relevant content for a project on a single page. Others will register handles or profiles on Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, etc.
Namify allows you to choose a name that is available on important social media sites so that it is consistent across channels:
Do your homework
Knowing your niche is key to a successful launch but turning that niche and competition research into a viable plan is even more important. Track your competitors or related projects, build friendships and partnerships, and plan your SEO in time for a successful content launch.
Please Note: All tools included in our blog posts are recommended by the author, not the CMI editorial team. No single post can provide all the relevant tools in the space. Please include additional tools in the comments (from your company or the company you used).
Cover photo by Joseph Kalinowski / Content Marketing Institute
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