Illustration for Strategy & research marketing skills
Strategy & research skill · v0.2.0

Competitor research skill

Profile competitors from their sites and search footprint: positioning, offers, content themes, keywords, links and gaps to exploit.

Free · MIT licence · Copy needs a free sign-in

Category
Strategy & research
Works with
Claude, Codex, Cursor, any agent
Format
SKILL.md · 2,286 words
Version
v0.2.0
Price
Free · MIT

The Competitor research skill file

cmo-competitor-research/SKILL.md2,286 words · MIT
---
name: cmo-competitor-research
description: Profile competitors from their sites and search footprint: positioning, offers, content themes, keywords, links and gaps to exploit.
---

Builds structured, evidence-based profiles of the businesses a customer competes with: how they position, what they sell and for how much, what they publish, which searches they win, and where they are weak. The output is a short list of moves the user can act on, and a clean competitor list in CMO.so so Maggie knows who the business is up against when it plans and writes content.

When to use

  • "Who are we up against?", "competitor analysis", "teardown", "why do they outrank us?".
  • Before positioning work, a comparison page, a pricing change or a content plan.
  • A competitor changed pricing, launched, or started ranking for the user's terms.
  • Not for: turning the findings into your own positioning (use cmo-positioning), building "X vs Y" pages (use cmo-competitor-pages), studying competitor ads (use cmo-ads-competitor-research), or sales battlecards (use cmo-sales-enablement).
Sign in to see, copy and download the whole skillIt's free. Copying also upvotes and saves it, so you'll find it again under Saved.
Preview: the workflow, output, example, quality bar and guardrails unlock when you sign in.

Adapts open work by irinabuht12-oss/marketing-skills (none), zubair-trabzada/ai-marketing-claude (MIT), every-app/open-seo (MIT), every-app/open-seo (MIT), alirezarezvani/claude-skills (MIT), HunterSUNSUN/social-media-research-ops (MIT), instaloader/instaloader (MIT), karust/openserp (MIT), Panniantong/Agent-Reach (MIT), ALwrity/ALwrity (none).

Everyday usage

How people use Competitor research day to day

Ask in plain words. The agent picks this skill, asks for anything it needs and hands back the result. Words in a highlight are yours to change.

Most common · also on the Strategy & research page

Size up your competitors

How each competitor positions itself, what it offers, what it publishes and where it's weak.

Ask your agentProfile my three main competitors and tell me where I can win.
  • One comparable profile per competitor, with evidence and dates
  • A landscape summary: comparison table, positioning map, gaps and threats
  • A prioritised list of moves (content, messaging, offer) and what not to copy
  • Confirmed competitors saved to the CMO.so business profile

More things to ask

  • Who are our competitors?
  • Profile these competitors
  • What are competitors doing in search?
  • Do a competitor teardown of this page
  • Where are the gaps we can exploit?
  • Compare our pricing to competitors
How it works

From input to output

  1. 1You give it
    • Competitor names or URLs (or permission to propose a shortlist for the user to confirm)
    • The business profile from `brand_get`, including competitors already saved
    • Depth: quick scan or deep profile; any focus (pricing, SEO, messaging)
    • Optional SEO data the user can export (keyword rankings, backlinks) from their own tools
  2. 2It works through the method
    • Asks what's missing, one question at a time
    • Follows the workflow step by step
    • Checks the result against its quality bar and guardrails
  3. 3You get
    • One comparable profile per competitor, with evidence and dates
    • A landscape summary: comparison table, positioning map, gaps and threats
    • A prioritised list of moves (content, messaging, offer) and what not to copy
    • Confirmed competitors saved to the CMO.so business profile
Why a skill

The skill against the alternatives

Do it yourselfHire helpCompetitor research skill
CostYour own timeAgency or freelancer feesFree, MIT licence
Time to a first resultHours, every timeDays to weeks, plus revisionsMinutes, in your agent
ConsistencyDepends on remembering every stepAs long as the retainer lastsSame steps and checks every run
The methodIn your headTheir process, often hiddenWritten down: read it, change it
Who does the workYou, from scratchSomeone learning your businessYour agent, following the skill
FAQ

Questions about the Competitor research skill

What it does, what it needs and how to use it with your agent.

Still not sure?Try it free on your own website and see the first posts before you decide.
Start free
What is the Competitor research skill?

Profile competitors from their sites and search footprint: positioning, offers, content themes, keywords, links and gaps to exploit.

It's one of cmo.so's open Strategy & research skills: a SKILL.md file that tells an AI agent when to use it, what to ask you first, the steps to follow, the checks to pass and what to hand back, so the job is done the same careful way every time.

When should I use it?

Reach for it when you'd otherwise say something like “Who are our competitors?”, “Profile these competitors”, “What are competitors doing in search?”. Your agent reads the skill's description and picks it for requests like these, so you don't need to name it.

If a request is close but not quite right, the skill says so and points to the related skill that fits better, instead of forcing a poor answer.

What do I need to give it?

It works best with competitor names or URLs (or permission to propose a shortlist for the user to confirm); the business profile from `brand_get`, including competitors already saved; depth: quick scan or deep profile; any focus (pricing, SEO, messaging); and optional SEO data the user can export (keyword rankings, backlinks) from their own tools.

You don't have to prepare everything up front. The skill asks for missing pieces one at a time and says plainly when it's working from an assumption instead of your data.

What do I get back?

You get one comparable profile per competitor, with evidence and dates; a landscape summary: comparison table, positioning map, gaps and threats; a prioritised list of moves (content, messaging, offer) and what not to copy; and confirmed competitors saved to the CMO.so business profile.

Every result comes from a written method with a quality bar, so numbers name their source, claims are checked and the output is ready to use or share rather than a rough draft.

Is it free?

Yes. The skill is open source under the MIT licence, so you can use it, change it and share it, including for client work.

Seeing, copying and downloading the whole file on cmo.so needs a free sign-in. Copying also upvotes and saves it, so you can find it again under Saved on the skills page.

Which AI agents can use it?

Claude Code installs it from the cmo.so marketplace. Any agent that reads SKILL.md folders, such as Codex or Cursor, can use it once the folder is in its skills directory.

You can also paste the copied skill into ChatGPT, Claude or any assistant at the start of a conversation and ask it to follow the skill.

How do I install it?

In Claude Code, run /plugin marketplace add AI-Marketing-OS-LTD/cmo-so-skills, then /plugin install cmo-so-strategy@cmo-so. That installs this skill together with the rest of the Strategy & research group.

For other agents, sign in, press Copy or Download above and put the file in your agent's skills folder as SKILL.md inside a folder named after the skill.

Do I need a cmo.so account to use it?

No. The skill works on its own with whatever your agent can already see and do: your files, the pages you share and the data you paste in.

With cmo.so connected it can go further, using tools such as brand_get, competitor_upsert, brand_research_update, gsc_queries_get through the MCP server. Every change is previewed and confirmed before it happens.

Which skills work well with it?

It pairs well with Comparison & alternative pages; and Competitor ad research. The agent can hand over from one to the next in the same conversation, for example research first, then the plan, then the writing.

Each of them has its own page with what it needs and what it returns, linked below.

Can I change it to fit my business?

Yes. It's a plain Markdown file, so you can edit the steps, add your own checks and examples, and keep your version in your own repo. The MIT licence allows it.

If your change would help others too, suggest it on the skills page or open a pull request on GitHub, and it may be folded into the library for everyone.

Where does the method come from?

It's written by cmo.so and adapts open work by others, credited on this page: irinabuht12-oss/marketing-skills (none); zubair-trabzada/ai-marketing-claude (MIT); and every-app/open-seo (MIT).

Only permissively licensed work is adapted; copyleft repos are used for ideas only and repos without a licence aren't used at all.

Is my data sent to cmo.so when the agent uses it?

No. The skill only guides your own agent; your files, documents and data stay wherever your agent and its tools keep them.

cmo.so only sees what you connect to cmo.so. Your votes and saves on this page are stored against your cmo.so sign-in.

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