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How To Analyze A Competitor’s Website
by: James Mahony
Do you ever feel like you know just enough about SEO to be dangerous? Let's
see if we can fill in some of the gaps with the latest info from SEO experts.
When you analyze a competitors website, you need to make sure you’re
prepared to do the job correctly. Competitors’ websites, if analyzed
properly, can give you all sorts of information that you can use to increase
the traffic and the popularity of your site. You can use these sites to analyze
your own market. If a site gets a lot of hits it has to be doing something
right. Check out where it is ranked, what key words it uses, how it is formatted,
and what you can do to exemplify the good and filter out the bad. Also be
sure to keep copyright laws in mind as a copyright infringement suit is never
good for you, your site, or your blood pressure.
Identifying the Leaders.
You need to start off by identifying the major players – a good place
to do this is Yahoo’s directory. It’s not as comprehensive as it
once was, but it’s good if you’re looking for the major players.
You may want to print out the directory to take a closer look. Look for large
companies, as well as innovative approaches and new products. Also use this
examination as an attempt to identify the niche markets that the major players
have not identified and exploited. If you can find new niches you’re
basically set as far as traffic goes.
Also consider that since Yahoo!’s directory is the place that you look
to find the big players, it may be a good place to get listed in order to
become a big player. These little associations are important if you want
to start to attain more and more traffic and conquer a niche or category.
Try to identify all places that the big dogs hang out and start hanging out
there. It’s all about who you know in this business so bigger is better.
You might not be ready to play with the big dogs, but the only way to get
there is to sit down and give it a shot.
Sites like Media Metrix 500 can tell you which companies get the most traffic,
and you can learn about the relative traffic by using Alexa. Alexa is a free
add-on to your browser that ranks the traffic to each sire you visit, telling
you whether it’s in the top 100, the top 1000, the top 10,000, and so
on. This gives you a rough idea of where your competitors are in the pecking
order.
Scrutinize the Leaders.
The next step is to study the top 5 or 10 competitors very closely. There
is a lot that can be learned by looking at competitors website and analyzing
them. These are the things that you should look for.
1. Make sure you check to see what products or services they offer, and note
anything that’s different from your own offerings. Look for gaps that
you could fill.
So far, we've uncovered some interesting facts about SEO. You may decide
that the following information is even more interesting.
2. Think about the look, feel and functionality of their website.
3. See what advertising campaigns and offers they’re running.
4. Look at their strengths and weaknesses, from the customer’s point
of view.
5. See if you can figure out their strategy.
When you’re dealing with publicly traded companies, you can often get
detailed information from their SEC filings. Write down the names of their
key players and then look for any interviews and speeches they might have
made about their website.
Look for Strengths, Vulnerabilities, and Gaps.
Now, summarize the information you’ve found into a few sentences for
each competitor, highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of each one. Note
strategies that are going to be necessary to counter their offering –
these will depend on your own website’s strengths. If you’re small,
then you’ll need to be resourceful to exploit their weaknesses.
With this research, you can create a marketing plan. Be sure to include how
you intend to deal with competition, and what steps you think you’ll
need to take for you site to come out on top. Once you’ve finished analyzing
your competitors, you need to consider whether it would be better not to
compete at all, and find a less-saturated market.
Don’t get frightened away prematurely, though – make sure you know
what you’re getting into before you start, and don’t let big companies
intimidate you. Remember that you can move faster than they can! All you
have to do is offer your customers things they can’t find anywhere else.
That's how things stand right now. Keep in mind that any subject can change
over time, so be sure you keep up with the latest news.
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