Competitive analysis: How does your web content measure up?

The main goal of your web content is to provide value to your patients, potential patients and community. But let’s be honest — we’re all a little competitive. You want to outrank your competitors and ensure your web content stands out. But how do you know where you stand?

A competitive analysis can help you understand your web content’s strengths, uncover content gaps and provide clarity on your competitors’ content strategy. Learn how this exploration can refine your approach to SEO and shape future content for better engagement.

How competitive content analysis shapes your content strategy

A competitive content analysis is a structured process to analyze your competitors’ content strategy. It allows you to assess your competitors’ web content, benchmark your efforts and identify new opportunities for your own web content. Ultimately, it helps you identify new ways to differentiate.

Steps to a competitive content analysis

1. Identify your competition

When you think of competition, you likely think of the hospital across the street, across town or across the state. But those aren’t the only ones you should have on your radar.

SEO competitors can include:

• Nationally known healthcare providers
• Nonprofit organizations
• Media groups
• Research institutions
• Health influencers

2. Determine key SEO metrics for comparison

When comparing your web content to others, focus on critical SEO metrics like:

• Organic traffic
• Keyword rankings
• Backlinks
• Bounce rate
• Time on page

3. Dive deep into your competitors’ content

Details you might note on your competitor’s web content include:

• Site structure: Look at overall navigation, the depth of each section, header tags, linking structure and URL structure.
• Service lines: Identify specific services offered and the value propositions.
• Provider bios: Evaluate how your competitors present providers online — how they display personal information, education, credentials and clinical expertise. Do they show patient testimonials or ratings and reviews?
• Blog: Dig deep into their blog and examine their content categories, the length and quality of the articles, and the overall readability and scanability of the content.
• Social media: While not on their website, a competitive analysis often takes a quick look at social media. At a minimum, analyze followers, content formats and posting frequency.
• Holistic content approach: How your competitors approach their content can tell you a lot. For example, do your competitors have a particular tone, grade level or writing style? How easy is it for the intended audience to understand the information presented?
• Conversion points: Identify how and where they offer opportunities for users to take the next step. How easy is it to understand? How much hierarchy and design do conversions have on the site?

3 ways to benchmark your web content against competitors

1. SEO and technical factors

Check how competitors optimize search intent through keywords, metadata and site structure. As you look at each SEO metric mentioned above, identify their strengths and weaknesses. Then, think about your strengths and weaknesses in relation to them.

2. Content formats

Knowing your competitors content formats can give you insights into content opportunities for SEO and generative search.

Look at how your competitors use:

• Videos
• Interactive content like quizzes or health assessments
• Infographics
• Reports
• Patient stories
• Interviews
• Podcasts

During this stage, it helps to turn to your data. Many healthcare systems collect an enormous amount of patient data. But are you using it to analyze patient drop-off points and optimize engagement?

3. Accessibility of content across the site

Review common accessibility pitfalls and see how each of your competitors ranks. While some accessibility factors can be hard to find at scale, look at heading order, missing alternative text for images and relevant technical markup. These accessibility tools are good indicators of broader attention to key elements and make a site easier to understand.

Beyond metrics: What else to consider when comparing your web content

Beyond the numbers, look at subjective information when comparing your site against others.

Messaging and positioning

Review their messaging and look at how competitors:

• Speak to their audience
• Focus messaging
• Make their content persuasive

The About Us page is usually a great place to uncover messaging and positioning content.

User experience

Once patients have moved from interest to action, they may reach out in any number of ways. Consider every initial touchpoint:

• Accessibility: Do any barriers prevent access to content on the site or to find and schedule patient services?
• Readability: What grade level is the site written for? Is the text scannable?
• Calls to action: Is the next step for readers clear and relevant?
• Responsiveness: Is the site design mobile-friendly?

Common pitfalls to avoid

A competitive content analysis can be rich with data. But what common pitfalls can derail the project?

• Tracking too many competitors: The biggest pitfall for your competitive content analysis is investigating too many organizations. When you select 10 competing organizations, for example, each will approach content differently. You can start to find trends with as little as two or three competitors.
• Missing the big picture: It’s easy to get hung up on minor details and miss the big picture. Remembering the big picture will help you find ways your organization’s content can stand out.
• Focusing too much on one data point: It’s great to be curious about your findings. But it’s also easy to get caught in a particular point that intrigues you and end up going down a rabbit hole. Try to balance qualitative and quantitative insights.
• Thinking this is one-and-done: Your strategy is constantly changing, and so are your competitors’ strategies. Be sure to revisit your competitive content analysis every few months to stay on top of changes.

How AI can help with competitive analysis (and where you need a human)

You can use AI to evaluate voice, tone and reading level. Once you’ve used an SEO tool to generate a gap analysis report of keywords, you can use AI tools to get a quick list of data-driven recommendations for your content strategy. Then, you can ask AI to brainstorm ways to integrate missing keywords.

But remember, AI can’t replace a human when it comes to empathy in storytelling. Once you have that list of gaps, ask your internal or agency partner writers to create content that brings experience, expertise, authority and trustworthiness.

WG Content can help with competitive content analysis

Need help conducting a competitive analysis or extracting insights to drive your web content strategy? The content strategists at WG Content help your team strengthen your healthcare organization’s position in online search. Contact us to learn how we can help take your SEO and content strategy to the next level.

More tips for your competitive content analysis:

Abbie Krajewski

Abbie is an experienced marketer who uses her strategic mind…

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