People can bring the entire world of information merely to one place by clicking a mouse or the few taps on a screen. If we want to know something or purchase something, we can go through many relevant websites but the catchy thing is finding the right one. In a brick-and-mortar world, all businesses want to expand the customer base Online. This can be done through a website.
Almost all Companies big or small, have a website nowadays for marketing and selling products or services. we can unleash the slick and shiny new website for any business but the tricky thing is to attract new customers. To make the site in the number one spot on the search page we need to know who our competitors are.
Here, we discuss the importance of Identification of the competitors online and how we can move ahead in the competition. To find the online competitors, first, we have to know what kind of competitors are there in the market, their keyword strategies that attract the customers, their strengths and the weaknesses of the business, conversion rates, and higher traffic.
1. Know your competition: with any business, knowing whom we are competing with and how they are doing is very important as it gives an idea of how to run our own business. To get a clear picture of the competition, we have to do market research of all other companies’ tactics – Advertising strategy, Similarities – selling similar products or services, Differences – services that other companies offer differently, their success rate and opportunities – that both the companies are looking forward. As every market differs and the search engines are not always effective, it’s better to research the competition at least 4 – 6 times a year to get up-to-date information. There is no assurance that all the search engines whether it a google, yahoo, Bing, or Safari shows the same indexed page and want to be aware of how much search engine results differ in a day. So the people having an online business with a website has to be vigilant as the competitors come from anywhere around the world.
2. Figure out the real online competition: when it comes to search engine optimization, who is attracting your customers and who is limping along with matters. when we do a quick search on Google for your business keywords, we can see the different types of unrelated businesses in the SERP ( Search Engine Results Page ). Searching for the special keywords list gives a good starting point to find the competitors and their rankings. When we search our actual business name directly, we can observe whether our business is ranking higher or if not, who is in our field. you may have a different competitor in the brick-and-mortar world and the Internet. so, it’s important to figure out the real competitor online.
3. Know your Business Advantages: knowing the strengths and the weaknesses of your business are necessary as part of marketing the business. Emphasizing the strengths in the website about your products or services over the other businesses helps to stand out and attract the customers. Knowing the weakness is also equally important, as it helps to build on to match the competitor’s standard and streamline your website by redesigning again from the scratch. Always research the difference with competitors and make yourself valuable to customers by pointing out your uniqueness, Quality of service, and trustworthiness.
4. Watch for conversion rates: Conversion is the user responses or the actions that a website wants visitors to take. Examples are, shopping site wants sales, Information site needs people to hang out and read the content, Advertising a newsletter needs a visitor sign up, etc. It is one of the Competitive measures and getting the conversions is the goal if we have a website. The Keywords play an important role in conversions as it generates the income to the website owner. To know whether your keywords are effective, you can check if the keywords are bringing traffic, conversions, sustain your position, helps in branding or future investment. Always remember that the goal is to achieve high traffic numbers with a high conversion rate for your website.
5. Recognize the difference between conversion and Traffic: Traffic for a good website can happen with sales and drawing lots of window shoppers. People use broader terms / general keywords for research and Narrow terms / specialized keywords for making a purchase. So it’s the keywords that lead to more traffic to the website but it has to end up in conversions to earn income. The difference between a lot of traffic and the actual conversions needs some optimization so that the company performs well in sales with increased traffic. One best way to record the measures of traffic to your website is by checking the server logs. If it’s not in huge numbers, we need not worry if we make good sales.
6. Determine the true competitors: After doing market research, we need to figure out with whom we are competing. Whether it is with the brick and mortar / local neighborhood business, Online Business, or the big corporate brands. Concentrating on your niche market is important instead of tackling the big brands. Specialized businesses need to rank for the keyword phrases to know their true competitors.
Always Count on the small kinds of stuff whether its a market research, traffic, keywords strategy, or the conversion rate. Many companies are unaware of SEO ( Search Engine Optimization ) prevailing in the online market and if we develop a website for a business that is SE friendly, it stands out among your competitors. some of the tools used to determine the competition online for statistics and competitive advantage are, comScore (www.comscore.com), Compete ( www.compete.com) and Hitwise (http:// www.experian.com/ hitwise).The online advertisers and website owners make use of these tools to rank their sites on Estimated traffic.
