Check your rivals’ trends, take advantage of their good points, and learn from their bad points. This is a basic marketing principle that applies to any business.
Especially if you want to use your website to acquire customers,
web marketing
will not be possible without analyzing your competitors’ sites.
Therefore, this article is aimed at web professionals who are considering analyzing competitive sites.
- Why you need competitor site analysis
- Should I use an analysis tool?
- What points should you pay attention to and analyze on competing sites?
I will explain three points.
Knowing your competition is the basis of marketing
Marketing begins with knowing your customers, competitors, and your company.
- Customer: What are consumers and the market looking for?
- Competitor: What is the reason why your competitors have an advantage (inferiority) over your company?
- Company: What is your company able to provide to customers and what is it not able to provide?
Particularly important in this
“3C analysis”
is “competitive analysis.” By analyzing the market share of competitors, their position in the industry, and especially the characteristics of competitors that should be targeted, we identify what is lacking in your company’s strategy and what your company’s advantages are.
Why is “competitor site analysis” essential?
Analyzing competitor sites is essential in web marketing so that you don’t get lost in the crowd. Let’s think about it while comparing a physical store and a website.
The decisive difference between a physical store and a website is the size of the commercial area. In the case of a physical store, the “area where customers can go” is the commercial area.
There are various means of transportation such as walking, cycling, car, and train, but if you can’t go to a physical store, you can’t become a customer.
Setting a trade area that goes beyond the area where customers live will reduce cost effectiveness, but if you set the trade area correctly and provide products and services that are competitive with competing stores, the probability of failure will be greatly reduced. You can.
On the other hand, the commercial area of a website is “the world.”
You can access it from anywhere in the world as long as you have a device connected to the Internet. The wider your business area, the more competition you will have, so if you just set up a website, you will be lost among the crowd.
In order to avoid being lost in the crowd in the web world, you need to be found by customers by appearing at the top of search results.
The easiest way to rank high in search results is to analyze the characteristics of competing sites that are currently ranked high, and then consider things like, “Incorporate the best features into your own site” or “Incorporate the best features into your own site that your competitors’ sites don’t, but that your customers will appreciate. Take measures such as “introducing content (even if it’s niche) that you can predict that people will be looking for.”
The value of your website is always determined by comparison with your competitors’ websites.
There is a mindset that says, “Competitive analysis is unnecessary. All you need to do is provide unique value.” However, it costs a huge amount of money to develop a website that can provide unique value.
Compared to that, it is still easier to rank high in search results.
Detailed data on competitor sites cannot be analyzed without paid tools.
There are already many tips on the web about what to analyze on your competitor’s sites.
From basic data such as “number of accesses,” “duration of stay,” “inflow route,” and “number of links,” to “how many competitive sites are displayed for specific keywords,” and “main keywords and appearance rates of competing sites,” etc. There is a wide variety of data that represents the characteristics of competing sites, down to the smallest details.
An analysis tool is required to understand these detailed data.
Some analysis tools are free to use, but most require a paid version to be of any use. This is natural.
There is a strong need to collect data on competing sites, and collecting data requires advanced know-how.
If this know-how were to be provided for free, web marketing companies would lose a valuable source of income.
Analyze the “content” of competing sites
Paid analysis tools are essential to collect enough competitor site data.
There is no need to use analysis tools if you just want to focus on “content.”
The reason people access websites is because they find the content they want.
The series of actions such as visiting, staying on, and browsing a specific website via natural search, web advertising, etc. would not be possible without “content.”
It is a well-known fact for web professionals that Google officials have stated that “from now on, content will determine the ranking of search results.”
When analyzing competing sites, you should also pay attention to “what kind of content they post.”
Check the quality and quantity of content
The quality and quantity of content can be considered as follows.
- Quality of content = Is reliable information published?
For example, if the page introduces the ingredients of cosmetics, if the page is explained by a pharmacist or a researcher at a cosmetics manufacturer, the reliability of the posted information will increase, which will increase user satisfaction and improve conversion results.
Users are discerning. Even if you temporarily gain access by copying and pasting text posted on a page, the number of accesses will gradually decrease if people question, “Is this information reliable?” .
- Amount of content = Are users one step ahead of the information they want?
For example, if a user wants to know the ingredients of a hair growth product, most of them will probably want to know what active ingredients are in the product.
However, a certain number of users want to know not only the active ingredients, but also information on additives such as alcohol, which are not very good for the scalp.
By posting not only positive information but also negative information, that is, by increasing the volume of information, if you can satisfy users by saying, “I can understand what I want to know by looking at this site,” the length of time users will stay on the site will increase. This will lead to improved conversion.
The above-mentioned “quality” and “quantity” cannot be checked using analysis tools.
Utilizing the knowledge and experience of the web staff, we asked, “Why is this competing site ranked high?Is it the quality of the content or the quantity?
It is important to actively analyze the product while asking yourself, “Which parts are specifically good?”
If you cannot handle this with your own staff, one option is to outsource the analysis of your competitors’ sites to a web marketing company that is skilled at analyzing content.
summary
◆Analysis of the 3Cs (customers, competitors, and company) is the basis of marketing, and competitor analysis is especially important.
◆Analysis of competing sites is essential in order to avoid being lost among the “other crowd” in the vast world of the web.
◆In order to rank higher in search results, we recommend the following methods: “Adopting the best features of the sites currently ranked high” or “Introducing content that the higher ranking sites do not use.” That is why it is necessary to analyze competitor sites.
◆Check the content of competing sites in terms of both quality and quantity.
◆The quality and quantity of content cannot be analyzed even with paid tools. Mobilize the knowledge, experience, and eyes of web staff