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Seven Questions | Who Are Your Competitors

Added by David Coleman on 17 February 2011

When people are deciding whether to buy from you, who else’s website do they have open? 

This is the third article in our "Seven Questions to Ask Yourself Before Getting a New Website" series. This time we're focussing on your competitors.

There is nothing wrong with taking inspiration from your competitors.  You should obviously however keep in mind the legal issues of blatantly copying them.

Your competition will fall into a number of different categories. Firstly, there will obviously be the ‘big boys’ who are constantly spending thousands of pounds on their website and Internet marketing. These people will be showing up for very generic searches, for example PC World (UK) coming top for the phrase, 'buy computers'. Because they spend so much money on their websites, you will be able to get some good ideas from them, such as:

• Which products or services they’re focussing on?
• Which features and benefits of these products or services are they pushing?
• How are they convincing people to buy?
• How are they advertising their website?
• How is their website laid out and organised?

As inspiring as the ‘big boys’ are, your website will unfortunately not compete with these types head-to-head, so you may need to think a little more geographically.

Try searching on Google for what you sell or offer and add the name of the town you’re operating in, for example, removals in Stafford. After the top paid-for adverts, at the time of writing this, alternating between position one and two we see www.goodwinsremovals.co.uk , one of OffSight’s clients.

Looking further down the page, the other removal companies that are showing up are Goodwins Removals’ immediate competition in and around Stafford. These are the companies that Goodwins wanted to beat for the above search.

Because there are less companies vying for first place in local searches when compared to national, generic searches, you have a much better chance at ‘pipping the competition to the post’. Look at your local competitors and see:

• How good their websites look
• What offers they have on that may be taking business from you
• How they are talking to potential customers
• How their website makes you feel

It is important to note that some of your competitors may have spent a great deal of money on their websites, with impressive features such as mortgage calculators, T-shirt designers and fancy animations taking a long time for developers to build, test and refine. It’s important to remain realistic in what you hope to achieve within your budget but never be afraid to ask about possibilities.

In Conclusion
Local searches are becoming more and more popular. Your potential customers will not just look at your website, but will consider it amongst your competitors. You need to outdo them else they will take the business.

Read part 4 here: What should your website look like?