Have you ever looked upon your competitors and wondered where their nice search rankings appeared from? Or have you ever received a piece of mail and wondered if it is paying off for them? Determining your next marketing moves could be hinged on the success of your competitors! Let the competitor guinea pigs do the trial and errors while you only reap the rewards! The best first step to building your marketing plan is to assess your competition!
The First objective is to see the placement of your website against three or four of your competitors. Some small businesses rely heavily on search engines and top placements on pay per click advertising. Other businesses have an online presence but work local listings like yellow pages and Angie’s List to the teeth. Depending on the effort one decides to invest, and the nature of their business, either tactic could prove to be a better fit! Each business is going to put their efforts into different sections and it will be easy to see the main focus of their labors. The major factors to look into are following
- Website rank – Search engines give websites an overall rank after compiling a collection of authority factors. Better page rank means more online authority!
- On page Key words – depending on how your website is worded, the search engines deem your content related to certain topics. Ensuring your website is connected with the right themes is ideal for enhancing natural traffic from search engines. If you’re on page content is sporadic, search engine will not correlate your website in the right search phrases, meaning no one will find you! On page optimization is a must.
- Blog activity – A healthy blog is one that is posted in regularly and had a base of activity and buzz. A Blog for your website is the easiest way to enhance search engines naturally. It gives a medium for which to post new content along with sending a message to search engines that this website is active and regularly being updated.
- Incoming Links – The PR (page rank) of the website who have links incoming to your website carry weight in your overall rankings. The greater quality links that point to your website will carry more weight than just any old website pointing to your website. For instance; if the NY Times posts a link to your website or the Local town municipality posts a link, Which back link would carry more weight?
- Value Proposition – Do the competitors offer any specific value to the market? Do they stand by vision or a unique selling prospective? These influential insights for the buyer are motivational factors helping them buy from you!
- Lead Generation Process – How does your competition collect their leads? Capture email’s? How do they Increase customer retention and loyalty? Some businesses only have a simple email to contact along with a phone number.
Determining what your competition does plays a big role in the future planning of your promotion. If the opposition is not prepared, a simple reorganization of marketing efforts usually does the trick of rebounding search rankings above the challengers. If the competitors have an active marketing plan in place, determining weak spots and special selling points will come into play to increase the value of your posts above the others.
With a 10 minute scan of these factors, every viewer will get a good look at their true standings and the real odds against gaining a top position above the competition.
Ask Creative Benny if things feel confusing.