In the online world, your competitors are sites that are similar to yours in terms of topic, products or services. Online competitive analysis involves finding the strategies your competitors are using to promote their product and/or services on the internet. It involves finding the strengths and weaknesses of your competitors. This information will help you to outsmart your competitors and make you more profit.
Analyzing your competitors is very important to both existing businesses and feasible business ideas. While analyzing your competitors, there are several things you have to consider:
1. Website Content: You have to compare the content of your site with that of your competitor. Your content should be well-written and the most important information above the fold. If you have to learn from your competitors, learn from them.
2. Organic Keywords: These are profitable terms many of your target audience will use while searching for sites like yours in the search engine. You can find the organic keywords your competitors are targeting using a tool like Google Adwords Tool.
Another way to identify keywords a competitor is targeting is by scanning his webpage. A phrase (keywords) that appears more than once on a competitor’s webpage is being targeted by the competitor.
You can also look at their keyword and description metatags and the title of their page to see the keywords they are targeting. If your competitors are targeting certain keywords, then those keywords must be profitable and you can, and should, target them, too.
3. Website Design: Compare the design of your site with that of your competitors. Is your site at least as appealing? Does it load faster? Do your graphics look professional?
4. Website Functionality: This has to do with how user-friendly the forms, cart, and other widgets on your competitors’ sites are. Does your competitors’ sites have a search bar for finding information quickly? Is real-time contact possible? A website with good functionality is more likely to have better conversion.
Understanding the strategies your competitors are using will help you to improve your own business. Competitive analysis is very important if you want to remain and succeed in any business.
