Know Your Competitors

This is something many business owners never even think about but it is a good idea to know your competitors.

One of the reasons is knowing what you are up against. Think about this, do you think a sports team puts their uniforms on and takes the field with no idea who they’re playing against?

The answer is no. They know as much about that team as possible. They look at who their starters are, their averages, how they play at home or on the road. Did they win or lose their last game. They even know the stats for each player on the team.

Did you know many business today start their own business and don’t even look to see if they even have a competitor. Now don’t get discouraged if you do have some competition.  There is some advantages to that.

By having competitors that’s generally a good sign people want your product or service. It is a problem how ever if there is too MUCH competition. That means the market could be flooded and your product really needs to stand out to make a difference.

To find out if you have competitors try Googling your keywords or product description. If you have competition it should show up in the search results. If it doesn’t it could mean they’ve not been online very long or their site is not very search engine friendly.

Here is some things an online business should consider when checking out the competition.

How long has their business been online? You can do this by using a tool like whois.com.

Another site I like to use is: http://www.wmtips.com/tools/info/

This site has a few tools that will help you know a lot about your competitors sites even what keywords they are using.

You will want to know what your competitors product is like. Does it have the same features? What is the price of their product? How is their customer service?

If they have an opt-in box on their website sign up for it, do you get follow up messages?

As you can see there is many things to consider and find out about your competition. In doing so it will only help your success by being able to improve upon what your competitors are offering.

One very important thing NOT to do. Never compare yourself to your competitor in your marketing efforts. This only reminds your customer you have competition and may lead them to check out their product before buying yours.