MarketMuse: Outrank Competitors & Delight Customers

Mastering MarketMuse: A Step-by-Step Guide for Competitive Analysis and Customer Service in 2026

Are you struggling to understand your competition and provide exceptional customer service in the crowded marketing space? MarketMuse offers a powerful suite of tools to analyze content, identify gaps, and improve your overall marketing strategy. This how-to guide will walk you through using MarketMuse for competitive analysis and content planning, ultimately enabling you to improve your customer service through better, more targeted content. Will you let your competitors outrank you, or will you take control of your content strategy?

Step 1: Setting Up Your MarketMuse Account and Project

Before you can start analyzing your competition, you’ll need to create a MarketMuse account and set up your project. This involves providing MarketMuse with the URL of your website and defining your target audience. I had a client last year who skipped this step, assuming MarketMuse could just “figure it out,” and the resulting analysis was completely off-base. Don’t make the same mistake.

Creating Your Account

1. Visit the MarketMuse website and click on “Start Free Trial.”
2. Enter your name, email address, and desired password.
3. Confirm your email address by clicking the link sent to your inbox.

Pro Tip: Use a company email address instead of a personal one. This will make it easier to collaborate with your team later on.

Setting Up Your Project

1. Once logged in, click on “New Project” on the dashboard.
2. Enter your website URL in the “Website URL” field.
3. Select your target audience demographics. (This helps MarketMuse tailor its analysis.)
4. Specify your industry or niche.
5. Click “Create Project.”

Common Mistake: Forgetting to accurately define your target audience. The more precise you are, the better the results will be. If you’re a local business in Marietta, GA, make sure to specify that. A general “United States” target audience won’t be as helpful as a “Marietta, GA” target audience.

Expected Outcome: You should now have a project set up in MarketMuse, ready for data collection and analysis. This initial setup allows MarketMuse to understand your website and target audience, enabling more accurate and relevant insights.

Step 2: Identifying Content Gaps with the “Inventory” Tool

The “Inventory” tool is your first stop for understanding the current state of your website’s content. It helps you identify topics you’re already covering, topics you’re missing, and areas where your content may be weak. This is crucial for developing a comprehensive content strategy and improving your customer service by providing information your audience is actively searching for.

Running an Inventory Scan

1. Navigate to the “Inventory” tab in your MarketMuse project.
2. Click the “Run Inventory” button.
3. Select the type of inventory you want to run. Options include:
   • Full Inventory: Scans your entire website.
   • Section Inventory: Scans a specific section or category of your website.
4. Click “Start Scan.”

Pro Tip: Start with a “Section Inventory” if you want to focus on a particular area of your business, like “Marketing Automation” or “SEO.” This will give you faster, more targeted results.

Analyzing the Inventory Results

Once the scan is complete, MarketMuse will present you with a list of topics related to your website. This list includes:

• Topic: The keyword or phrase.
• Relevance: How relevant the topic is to your website.
• Authority: Your website’s authority on that topic compared to competitors.
• Coverage: How well your website covers the topic.

Focus on topics with high relevance but low authority and coverage. These are your prime opportunities for improvement. A recent IAB report found that content marketing is still a highly effective strategy, but only if the content is relevant and authoritative.

Common Mistake: Ignoring the “Relevance” score. Just because a topic is popular doesn’t mean it’s relevant to your business. I once saw a company try to rank for “celebrity gossip” because it was trending, and it completely backfired.

Expected Outcome: A clear list of content gaps and opportunities for improvement on your website. This is the foundation for a data-driven content strategy.

Step 3: Competitive Analysis with the “Compete” Application

Now that you know where your content is lacking, it’s time to see what your competitors are doing right. The “Compete” application allows you to analyze the top-ranking pages for a given keyword and identify the strategies they’re using to succeed.

Running a “Compete” Analysis

1. Navigate to the “Compete” application in MarketMuse.
2. Enter your target keyword in the search bar. For example, “Marketing Automation for Small Business.”
3. Select your target location. (This is important for local SEO.)
4. Click “Run Analysis.”

Pro Tip: Use long-tail keywords for more specific and actionable insights. Instead of just “marketing,” try “email marketing automation for e-commerce businesses.”

Analyzing the Competition

MarketMuse will display a list of the top 20 ranking pages for your target keyword. For each page, you’ll see:

• URL: The URL of the page.
• Content Score: MarketMuse’s assessment of the content’s quality and relevance.
• Word Count: The number of words on the page.
• Topic Model: A list of related topics covered on the page.

Pay attention to the “Content Score” and “Topic Model.” These will tell you what your competitors are doing well and what topics they’re covering that you’re not. According to HubSpot research, high-quality content is a key driver of organic traffic.

Common Mistake: Only looking at the top-ranking page. Analyze the top 5-10 pages to get a more comprehensive understanding of the competitive landscape. We ran into this exact issue at my previous firm. We focused solely on the #1 result, and our content ended up being too similar. Diversify your analysis!

Expected Outcome: A detailed understanding of your competitors’ content strategies and a list of topics you need to cover to compete effectively.

Step 4: Exporting and Implementing Your Findings

All this analysis is useless if you don’t put it into action. MarketMuse allows you to export your findings into a CSV file, which you can then use to create a content calendar and assign tasks to your team.

Exporting Data to CSV

1. In either the “Inventory” or “Compete” application, click the “Export” button. (It’s usually located in the top right corner of the screen.)
2. Select “CSV” as the export format.
3. Choose which data fields you want to include in the export.
4. Click “Download.”

Implementing Your Findings

1. Open the CSV file in a spreadsheet program like Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets.
2. Analyze the data and identify specific content opportunities.
3. Create a content calendar outlining the topics you want to cover and the target keywords you want to rank for.
4. Assign tasks to your team members, including writing, editing, and publishing content.
5. Track your progress and make adjustments as needed.

Pro Tip: Use a project management tool like Asana or Trello to manage your content calendar and track your team’s progress. This will help you stay organized and ensure that your content is published on time.

Common Mistake: Creating content without a clear plan. Each piece of content should have a specific goal and target audience. Don’t just write for the sake of writing.

Expected Outcome: A well-defined content strategy, a content calendar, and a team of motivated individuals working towards a common goal. This will lead to improved search engine rankings, increased website traffic, and better customer service through more informative and relevant content.

Consider this case study: A local law firm in downtown Atlanta, specializing in personal injury, used MarketMuse to analyze their website. They discovered they were ranking poorly for “car accident lawyer Atlanta” despite having several pages on car accidents. Using the “Compete” tool, they analyzed the top 10 ranking pages and found that they were missing key information about Georgia’s “comparative negligence” laws (O.C.G.A. Section 51-12-33) and the process of filing a claim with the Fulton County Superior Court. After updating their content to include this information, their rankings improved significantly within 3 months, resulting in a 30% increase in leads. The lesson? Specificity matters, and understanding local nuances is crucial.

To dominate your market, you need to understand not just your overall strategy but also the nuances of your local market, as this example demonstrates.

MarketMuse is a powerful tool for competitive analysis and customer service, but it’s not a magic bullet. It requires time, effort, and a willingness to experiment. By following the steps outlined in this guide, you can use MarketMuse to create a data-driven content strategy that will help you improve your search engine rankings, attract more customers, and ultimately, provide better service. Start with a single, high-impact keyword, and build from there.