Analysis of competitors site vs your site. Keeping an eye on competition.

Author: Andrew Michaels

This is the ques­tion most busi­nesses ask. What is my com­pe­ti­tion doing online? It is but nat­ural, in fact imper­a­tive, to keep an eye on your com­pe­ti­tion and make note of what they are doing…or not doing.

When view­ing your com­pe­ti­tion and their web­sites, there are sev­eral impor­tant things that you should note.

Be sure to keep an eye on the fol­low­ing and make a men­tal note of the things you can do about it. Design and Nav­i­ga­tion Does the site have a pro­fes­sional appearance?

You would know what pro­fes­sional appear­ance means when you visit sev­eral sites. For instance, check out the sites of var­i­ous online print­ers and see for your­self which look gives the appear­ance of professionalism.

Is the over­all lay­out and nav­i­ga­tions easy to under­stand and use? Try click­ing on sev­eral links and see if it is easy for you to get back to their home­page. This is the test of ‘nav­i­ga­bil­ity.’ If the user can eas­ily find his way back then the web­site is user-friendly.

What type of color schemes was used and how is it affect­ing the vis­i­tors? There is what you call the sci­ence of col­ors. Read about it and learn how to use the dif­fer­ent shades to make your vis­i­tors feel more com­fort­able or bet­ter yet, to make them decide to buy.

A print­ing com­pany would know how to use these col­ors so it would be help­ful if you could ask for tips. What kind of images is used on the web­site and how are they used? Images can make or break the web­site. Too few and it would look bor­ing. Too many and you run the risk of mak­ing it appear clut­tered, or worse, too heavy to load.

Con­tent Setup Is the con­tent clean, easy to read and nav­i­gate? Skim through your competition’s con­tent and see how pol­ished or unpol­ished it is. Bad text i.e. gram­mat­i­cal errors, wrong spelling, do not help sell; they, in fact, alter cus­tomers’ decisions.

Does the con­tent fully describe the website’s intention? An online printer would have every­thing spelled out to help make their cus­tomers have informed deci­sions. Online print­ers would nor­mally give you as much details as you need as to the size, color, lay­out of busi­ness card, cat­a­logue, or poster.

Cus­tomer Ser­vice, Sales and Sup­port What kind of online cus­tomers ser­vice sup­port and help do they offer? Do they offer email or chat sup­port? It is impor­tant to note how your com­pe­ti­tion is offer­ing after sales ser­vice because that can influ­ence a buyer’s choice.

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Tags: advice, Analysis, Competition, small business

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 1st, 2009 at 3:17 pm and is filed under SEO. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.