Competitor Profiling

---
name: Competitor Profiling
description: Use when given competitor URLs and asked to produce structured, comparable competitor profiles covering positioning, product, pricing, customers, and market strength.
category: Sales & GTM
version: 2.0.0
tools: []
---

# Competitor Profiling

Turn a list of competitor URLs into structured, comparable competitor profiles by combining web research with whatever SEO/market-strength signals are discoverable — delivered as chat markdown, one profile per competitor plus a cross-competitor summary.

## Before starting

Check the knowledge base for existing product-marketing context (your own product's positioning) before asking questions — only ask what isn't already covered. Confirm: competitor URLs, your own product's summary (if not already known), depth (quick scan vs. deep profile), and any focus areas (pricing, positioning, SEO strength, content strategy).

## Core principles

1. **Facts over opinions** — every claim should be traceable to something found (a page, a review, a search result); label inferences clearly as inferences.
2. **Structured and comparable** — every profile follows the same template so profiles can be compared side by side; consistency beats completeness on any single profile.
3. **Current data, dated** — profiles are snapshots; always include the date generated, and flag anything that looks stale (e.g. a pricing page that reads as years old).
4. **Honest assessment** — don't exaggerate weaknesses or downplay strengths; accurate profiles are useful profiles.

## Research process

### Phase 1: Site research

For each competitor, use web_search to find and review their homepage, pricing page, features/product pages, about/company page, blog, customer/case-study page, integrations page, and changelog. Extract:

| Page | What to extract |
|---|---|
| Homepage | Headline, value proposition, primary CTA, social proof, target-audience signals |
| Pricing | Tiers, prices, feature breakdown per tier, billing options, trial/free-tier details |
| Features | Feature categories, key capabilities, how they describe each one |
| About | Founding story, team size, funding, mission, headquarters |
| Customers | Named customers, industries served, case-study themes |
| Integrations | Integration count, key integrations, categories |
| Changelog | Release velocity, recent focus areas, product direction |

Also search for the competitor's G2, Capterra, Product Hunt, and TrustRadius pages: overall rating, review count, common praise/complaint themes, and a few representative quotes.

### Phase 2: Market-strength signals

Use web_search to gather whatever SEO/market-strength signals are discoverable, covering the same ground a paid SEO tool would surface:

- **Domain authority & backlinks** — apparent domain rank/authority, general backlink volume, notable referring domains, any spam signals.
- **Keyword & traffic intelligence** — the rough scale of organic keywords they rank for, how many land in top-3/top-10/top-100 positions, and an estimated organic traffic range.
- **Competitive positioning data** — their closest organic competitors (this may surface competitors the user hasn't considered), and which of their own pages appear to drive the most organic value.

Where exact figures (domain rating, precise traffic) aren't obtainable through search, say so explicitly rather than inventing a number — qualitative direction ("clearly investing heavily in content," "thin backlink profile") is still useful signal, and it's better to under-claim precision than fabricate it.

### Phase 3: Synthesis

Combine scraped content with the market-strength signals gathered. Cross-reference claims — if a competitor claims "10,000 customers" on their site, sanity-check that against the scale implied by their traffic/review-count signals, and flag any claim that looks inflated relative to their apparent size.

## Profile structure (per competitor)

Return one markdown section per competitor, following the same structure every time so profiles stay comparable:

**At a Glance** — a quick-reference table: tagline, founded year, headquarters, team-size estimate, funding (if known), and whatever market-strength signals were found (domain-rank read, estimated organic traffic, referring-domain count, organic-keyword count).

**Positioning & Messaging** — primary value proposition (headline + subheadline), target audience (who the copy is speaking to), positioning angle (e.g. "simplicity-first," "enterprise-grade," "all-in-one"), and 2–3 key messaging themes each tied to the source page they came from.

**Product & Features** — core capabilities with a brief description of each, notable differentiators they emphasize as unique, integration count and the top 5–10 named integrations, and product-direction signals inferred from the changelog or recent releases.

**Pricing** — a tier table (tier / price / key inclusions), billing cadence and any annual discount, free-trial details, and any pricing quirks (per-seat, usage-based, hidden costs).

**Customers & Social Proof** — named customers/logos, primary industries served, case-study themes, and review ratings (G2, Capterra) with review counts.

**SEO & Content Strategy** — organic-strength signals, a short list of their apparent top-traffic pages, and content-strategy signals (posting cadence, primary content types, topic focus areas).

**Strengths & Weaknesses** — 2–3 of each, every one tied to an evidence source rather than asserted bare.

**Competitive Implications** — where they're strong vs. your product, where you're strong vs. them, opportunities (gaps in their offering or positioning you can exploit), and threats (areas where they're improving or gaining ground).

After all profiles, add a **summary**: one-paragraph competitive-landscape overview, a side-by-side comparison table of the key metrics across all profiled competitors, a positioning map (e.g. simple↔complex, cheap↔premium), 3–5 strategic takeaways, and a note on gaps/opportunities where the market looks underserved.

## Quick scan vs. deep profile

- **Quick scan** (default, and the right choice for 3-or-fewer competitors unless deep is requested): homepage + pricing only; top-line market-strength signals only; skip reviews and detailed content analysis; abbreviated output (At a Glance + Positioning + Pricing + SEO summary).
- **Deep profile**: all key pages + review sites; full market-strength signal gathering; full profile template including content-strategy analysis and review mining.

## Handling multiple competitors

Use the same extraction checklist and the same signal set for every competitor so profiles stay comparable. Build the cross-competitor summary last, after every individual profile is complete. Given 10+ competitors, suggest prioritizing the top 5 first by apparent market overlap or similarity.

## Updating profiles

When refreshing a profile: re-check the pricing page first (most volatile), re-check market-strength signals (these shift over time), scan the changelog for product changes, update the generated date, and note what changed since the last profile in a short change-log line at the bottom.