How Does my Website Compare On the WWW?

Blog JAN11, Issue 2
Part 2 of 4

Learning About the Other Shops in the Neighborhood.
"Earth - Ground yourself in finding the true way" (Miyamoto Musashi)

One thing I have always done growing up in any sport or activity I was involved with was size up the competition. Although in my adolescence, it was more of a survival tactic; as an entrepreneur it has helped me maintain relevancy as a web designer and a lead over many of the competing services I was involved in. As a kid it was what I needed to push or sway me from trying out, but today it’s become an essential part of how I run my business.

Now, to be real – not everything looked at is how it seems, and I understand that some things are just out of my league. For example, I don’t have the time or talent to rival Eric Clapton on guitar and I have never believed in an unmovable business giant that can never be toppled or replaced. However I have played and done well in a band and my business has been alive for almost two decades.

Sometimes though, when I peek at the genius of Eric Clapton, I do try to emulate or create my own music from what I’ve learned and similarly, I’ve paid close attention to my competitors making sure that what I offer and portray is relevant to the would be customers seeking out the services I offer. And I admit, there have been more than a few times I looked and said, “Wow! I need to do that too!” and adopted my own version as quickly as possible.

I have found that my successes or failures were not contingent on whether my ideas or inventions were unique and creative, it was dependent upon what my customer wants and needs and checking the competition will give you a roadmap for that. In fact, it’s a sure sign when a majority of your competition adopts a niche’ or service all of a sudden that you should probably look into it immediately. Just ask all the diehards holding onto cassette tapes when CD’s came in or all the web designers missing SEO opportunities because they just want to design. We all find that customers do not want to shop at 5 stores for 5 services when they can get it all at one.

There are always tools that will help when trying to keep track of things and even paper and pen are far better than not at all. I have found a handful of other websites and software that keep my comparative analysis on track which keeps me informed of everything from my rankings to who’s ranking around me; keywords I’m using and what they are using; screenshots comparing my website to theirs and believe it or not I actually visit their sites and fill out their forms to see what they do. Although this seems odd, we do it every day when we try out cars before we buy them or sample ice-cream even though we know what we want anyway.

As we gather information there’s one more place to look to see how we’re doing that has been used since the dawn of commerce but made easier and easier through social websites and that’s feedback. You want a real-time opinion of you website or services put it out there on blogs and ask. People are all too eager now-a-days to tell you. If you want to be more subtle, there’s the FaceBook “Like”, the customer ratings stars, etc… Even employ a web designer to give you a free evaluation. Whatever works for you - get it out there.

At the end of the day, what’s most important is are people buying from you. If they are not – you have to find out why to survive. If it’s “out of sight out of mind” – that’s easily fixed with PPC or SEO, but if it’s because you are out of date, irrelevant or in a dying market – the more you know the quicker things will turn around for you. It’s this information that will tell you to jump ship or keep rowing and it’s this information that will make you actually enjoy success again.