Website Planning:Part Three: Our competition
Website planning for online success
In this post, we will discuss competition and our competitors. Firstly, we must establish that competition is healthy and it is good for us. When we have competition in a certain industry this motivates us to excel.
Keep in mind that competition is healthy but it can work towards our advantage.
We can see what our competitors are doing, how they are meeting the demands of their target market, but most importantly to see where we can improve upon.
I must strongly emphasise that we are not here to copy or plagiarise other’s work. Stealing other’s work is illegal. We are reviewing our competitors to gain inspiration to see what works and what doesn’t work.
Website planning research your competitors
Go into Google and locate the top five or six websites for that niche. We are going to review the top websites, because if your website is going to be successful we need to know what we are aiming for.
For the following exercise there is a downloadable worksheet to help you.
Download the Website Planning Series Competitor Analysis Workbook
Step One
Go into Google and type your keywords or key phrases for your niche. Review the top five competitors for your niche.
Step Two
Review the competitors, think as a potential customer and review what you like about this website.
Examples may include:
- Easy to navigate
- Fast loading pages
- Simple Interface
- Looks Professional
- Includes a site map
- Contains video, audio and interactive content
Step Three
For each site review what are the competitor’s weaknesses
Examples may include:
- Poor navigation
- Pages don’t load properly
- Difficult to read the text
- Lack of useful content
- The site hasn’t been updated
- The site doesn’t work in Internet Explorer
- Too much Flash Animation
- Difficult to purchase products
Step Four
Any Opportunities for your website later on? As an individual, I always think long term. As we are in the planning stages of our website, think of any opportunities for your own website. When you come to promoting your website, you will need to think how to get traffic to your site.
Do any of your competitor’s websites contain?
- Advertising opportunities
- A link exchange program
The reason I ask this question is because we need to think of methods of gaining traffic to our website once it is online. Develop unique useful content where our target audience can view it is an excellent method of website promotion.
JWRmedia
I just wanted to put a huge I AGREE comment to this article. I’ve long said that one of the most important parts of SEO (or gaining popularity for a niche) is to research your competitors and find a way to improve or stay one step ahead of what they’re doing.
There’s no since in going in to something if you don’t know what you’re up against.
Posted 12-9-2008