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| Who are your competitors and what can you learn from them? |
Who are your competitors and what can you learn from them?
No proposition development is complete without an honest assessment of what your competitors are up to. If you are in a locally based clicksand- mortar business like Brad’s, your assessment should take into account both your local and your global competition. Do a search on both your local Google and Google.com. Cross-reference this with data from Alexa .
No proposition development is complete without an honest assessment of what your competitors are up to. If you are in a locally based clicksand- mortar business like Brad’s, your assessment should take into account both your local and your global competition. Do a search on both your local Google and Google.com. Cross-reference this with data from Alexa .
Focus on
competitors that enjoy both good rankings and high traffic levels.
competitors that enjoy both good rankings and high traffic levels.
Ignore the SEO aspects for now and focus on the business ideas contained in your competitors’ sites and how these are presented. A useful tool to use is so-called SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis, where you draw four boxes in a 232 table for each competitor. In the first box you note the strengths of the competitor, in the second their weaknesses, in the third their opportunities, and in the fourth their threats. Strengths and weaknesses are things inherent to their business as it operates today (and are generally internal).
Opportunities and threats are things external to the business and are normally forward looking.
Look at each competitor website objectively and put yourself in the minds of your customers. Do you like the look of the website? Can you use it? Does it address each customer group separately, focus on one segment, or try to be all things at once? Is it easy to get information and do business? Before you become too obsessed with the SEO aspects, it is good to take some time out and get ideas from those who are already succeeding online.
Opportunities and threats are things external to the business and are normally forward looking.
Look at each competitor website objectively and put yourself in the minds of your customers. Do you like the look of the website? Can you use it? Does it address each customer group separately, focus on one segment, or try to be all things at once? Is it easy to get information and do business? Before you become too obsessed with the SEO aspects, it is good to take some time out and get ideas from those who are already succeeding online.
