How to Perform a Competitive Analysis in Five Steps

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Do you want to know more about the competitors who are offering a similar product/service? A competitive analysis can show you what your competitors are doing differently and areas where you can improve. Here is how you can do a competitor analysis in 5 steps.

There are other companies offering the same service or product as your enterprise. How do you gain an edge over your competitors? Simply knowing what your competitors are offering is not enough. To stay one step ahead of the crowd, you will need to conduct a thorough competitive analysis on a regular basis.

Here is a simple 5 step process to help you complete a detailed competitive analysis

  1. Identify your competitors

    Start by identifying your top ten competitors. Do you know them? As a company at the national level, you are competing with possibly hundreds or even thousands of companies trying to catch the same group of qualified leads. You have no idea who most of your competitors are. You might know one or two companies you are competing with, but outside them you are confused and lost. Apart from using Google, another great way to find out your top competitors is to use market research. With the aid of competitor analysis, you can look at what other companies are ranking for a particular keyword and how your enterprise stacks up against them.

  2. Evaluate and compare competitor content

    Once you have identified your top competitors and the keywords they are using, you can push start your competitive analysis by trying to get a better understanding of what type of content they are publishing. Evaluating the content of your competitors can help you determine what opportunities you can use to outperform your competitors. What are the types of content creation that your top competitors focus on? Is it premium content, a blog or case studies? Is your content on par with them? Asking such questions can help you come up with better content.

    How does the quality of their content compare with yours? Also find out how frequently are they updating, adding or blogging new content. Are they doing anything that you are not doing? Once you know the quality of content and the type of content that your competitors are publishing, it will give you a better idea of where to put in more resources or effort.

  3. Assess their SEO structure

    You have discovered that your competitors have the same type of content, update it just as frequently as you do and have awesome content quality. So what are they really doing differently from you? It could be the structure of their SEO. While doing a comparative analysis of the content of your competitors, make sure to also check out the SEO structure of the content. How are your competitors using keywords? Are they using keywords in the content, internal links, page title, URL architecture, images or H1 Tags? You will not only have to check the SEO structure of the content, but also the types of keywords that your competitors are using. By evaluating the keywords of your competitors, you can create a list of additional keywords that you can start to target.

  4. Have a look at their social media integration

    Social media networks are a great way for companies to interact with users and fans. A company’s presence on social media is becoming increasingly important every day and each company is using social media differently. The next step is to evaluate how your competitors are using social media and integrating it into their marketing. Not only is it important to find out if your competitors can be found on social media, but also how effectively they are using their profiles. What type of information are they posting? How often do they post? Are people following them? Are there things you can utilize or take ideas from that can help you establish your online presence?

  5. Identify areas for improvement

    After developing a competitive analysis, you will have a better idea and understanding of what your competitors are doing? Take all the information that you have collected about each competitor and try to spot particular areas that require improvement. You would have found out a few things that you will need to improve on. Not only will you be able to spot key areas that you can use to improve your search engine optimization, social media engagement or content creation, you will also be able to go a step ahead of your competitors.

Get a competitor analysis right away! Read more about competitor analysis services.

Did you like reading this post? What is the one thing that you do stay one step ahead of your competitors? Let us know in the comments box below. We, at Outsource2india love to hear from you!

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