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Looking to improve your business’s web design? Sometimes, you don’t have to look much further than your neighbours for good ideas. Business is a competition, and at times it can be a healthy push to see what your competitors are doing to stay ahead.
We’re not implying that you should copy your competitor’s actions, but it’s important to know what’s fresh in the industry to know how you should act accordingly. Decisions “made in a vacuum” are often punished if other factors aren’t taken into consideration.
Let’s take a look at five ways your competitors can help you improve your own website:
1. Which Keywords Are They Optimizing For?
If you’ve heard of Search Engine Optimization (SEO), it’s likely that so have your competitors.
You can easily find your competitor’s optimized keywords by looking at the way they structure their website. What is the title of their Home Page? What’s the wording that they use in their first header? When you find their website on Google, what’s written in their description?
Keeping your competitor’s keywords in mind helps you understand how competitive your industry is, and how you should react accordingly.
2. How Are They Generating Leads?
Google your product or service, and see what pops up first. Is it a Google Ad?
Take the time to review your competitor’s landing pages, and see how they’re generating leads. Are they offering free consultation? A 20% discount on your first purchase? Or perhaps – a downloadable white paper?
Use your competitors as a springboard to kick off your own brainstorming session on how to generate leads and sell your product/service. It’s important not to straight up copy your competitors, because you’ll be playing second fiddle to their strategy. Use their ideas to generate your own brilliant campaign – and execute it better.
3. Where Is Their Social Emphasis?
Take a look at where your competitors show up online, and how many fans they have on each platform. Do they showcase their Instagram posts on their website? Do they integrate their Twitter posts in a chat section? Do they feature their articles from LinkedIn as white papers?
Most businesses maintain 1-2 primary social accounts as their primary platform for social emphasis. Identifying your competitor’s focus on social integration can help you decide where you’d like to focus (or avoid) your attention in building a social following, which you’ll then reflect on your website.
4. What’s The Call To Action?
Most websites can only afford 1-2 call-to-actions on their primary pages. Carefully analyze your competitor’s Home page and landing pages – where are they emphasizing their call-to-action? Are they pushing for newsletter sign-ups? White paper downloads? Follows on Facebook? Online purchases?
You might be comparing apples to oranges if you’re simply comparing your website to those of your competitors. If the call-to-action of your closest competitor is to generate new sales, whereas your website’s call-to-action is focused on newsletter sign-ups, you’ll inherently generate fewer sales than that competitor unless you have a huge loyal following.
5. How Are They Using Their Website?
We often say that the measure of a good website goes well beyond how it looks, but how it functions.
Do your competitors use their website as a sales tool? As a community hub? Does their website include tools that they likely use to woo potential clients?
Taking a look at what’s available on a competitor’s website can often reveal the ways in which they use their owned resources. For example, a Lifetime Value calculator on their website can not only be a lead generation tool, but a resource they can showcase in order to help close deals.
Does your competitor have an active “Community” section on their website? They may be placing a lot more emphasis on brand reach and engagement than you may think. It’s much more difficult to sway loyal fans away from their brand of choice.
In Conclusion
Everything on a website should have a place and fulfill a specific purpose. Share on XBy reviewing your competitor’s website, not only are you gaining new ideas to improve your website user journey, but you’re also critiquing your own website at the same time. “Why aren’t we doing this?” or “this sort of form actually looks tacky on their site – does it look tacky on ours?” are some thoughts that usually come up when researching other websites.
It’s often much easier to critique others rather than critiquing yourself, which is why it can be a helpful session to review your competitor’s work. Or – you can hire our marketing agency in Vancouver to do this for you, in order to have an unbiased, professional set of eyes to review your brand assets.