How will you know how many points you’ll need to win if you don’t know the score? Competitor analysis is priceless for understanding where you stand in a competitive market. It shows you how your competitors attract new customers, engage with them, and make sales, allowing you to outperform them.
In this post, we’ll look at competitor analysis in more detail!
What Is Competitor Analysis?
Competitive analysis allows you to understand your major competitors' products, sales, and marketing tactics. So, when doing a competitor analysis, you'll learn everything about how your competition works.
This means, on the one hand, you'll learn what your competitors are doing right. As a result, you'll know what you need to do to stand out from the crowd. Conversely, you'll also learn where your competitors are falling short.
In other words, you'll learn where you're performing better, identify opportunities you can take advantage of, and understand how to meet your shared audience's demands better.
Ultimately, when you perform competitor analysis, you'll gather valuable insights that'll allow you to improve your own business. For instance, a competitor analysis can help you improve your strategies, stay ahead of your competitors, and grab a bigger market share.
Doing Competitive Market Analysis Right
Now that we’ve recapped what competitor analysis is, let’s look at how you would analyze your competitors in the modern way.
Choose the Right Competitors for Your Competitive Analysis
Let's face it; you can't compare yourself to every single business that sells similar products or offers similar services as you. This means that you'll need to choose your competitors carefully to get the most value from competitor analysis.
If you don't, you risk comparing yourself to businesses you shouldn't, which can be frustrating.
The best approach is to divide your competitors into two categories – direct and indirect. Direct competitors are businesses that offer a product or service similar to yours, while indirect competitors provide different products that could also solve customers' problems.
Once you've divided your competitors like this, start by focusing more on direct competitors.
Decide What You Want to Compare
Once you've made a list of your competitors, you'll need to decide what you'd like to compare. This is simply because there are too many aspects for you to compare them effectively.
So, for your efforts to make the most sense, you'll need to decide on the metrics you'll compare. These metrics can be anything from your competitor's rankings in search engine results, the content they create, their engagement on social media, and more, depending on your specific circumstances.
Similarly, decide if you’ll undergo the competitive analysis to understand products, pricing, operations, or other aspects of your competitors’ functioning.
Look at Their Website
Before you analyze any of the metrics you've chosen, you should look at your competitors' websites. Their websites form the foundation of their online presence and how they attract customers, after all.
So, look at the design of their websites, consider how easy and engaging their websites are to use, the content they host on their websites, and the copy they use on their sales pages. Keep in mind, though, doing this isn't a once-off exercise. You'll want to do this consistently to see how your competitors change their websites and how these changes impact the other metrics you're tracking.
Now, you don’t have to do it manually every single time. Simply use ScreenshotAPI to grab programmatic screenshots and know when your competitors change their websites, products, or pricing.
Consider Your Competition’s Pricing in Your Competitive Analysis
Unfortunately, in a market filled with similar products that have comparable pricing and features, the reality is that customers may often choose products based on price.
Thus, to ensure that you're able to compete as effectively as possible, your pricing needs to be competitive. You'll need to figure out the following:
- How your competitors' products or services differ from yours
- What their value proposition is
- What they charge for their products or services
Generally, to be competitive, you'll want your pricing to be the same or lower than your competitors' pricing. Keep in mind, though, if your product or service is demonstrably better than your competitors' offerings, you could charge more.
Ultimately, with the insights you get from the competitor analysis, you'll learn where you can improve your pricing strategy.
Identify Where You Can Improve
Once you've performed the steps above and analyzed the metrics, you'll have a deeper understanding of what’s working for your competitors, what's not, and how they attract their customers.
However, all these insights won't amount to much if you don't use them to identify where you can improve.
So, after reviewing the information you've got about every competitor, you'll need to identify areas where you can improve your business. When you do, you'll improve your website, messaging, and positioning, attracting more customers and increasing your revenue.
The Top 5+ Tools for Competitor Website Analysis
Finally, when doing competitor analysis, you’ll need to use the right competitor tracking tools.
For example, when you want to know what keywords your competitors use to rank their websites in search results, you’ll probably need an SEO tool. Likewise, you'll need a website profiler to have a deeper understanding of what frameworks and technologies your competitors use on their websites.
These tools will allow you to gather the information you need to seamlessly improve your efforts.
1. ScreenshotAPI for Simple Competitor Tracking
And speaking of tools, you should include ScreenshotAPI in your competitor analysis toolkit. Our platform allows you to take programmatic screenshots of websites in seconds.
Once taken, you can save these screenshots in any format you'd like. You can even take timed screenshots at certain times of the day and extract the text from screenshots.
Ultimately, with our tool, you'll always know what your competitors are doing to reach their customers and how they price their products. All you have to do then is make improvements to attract more customers!
As Tjommi, one of our customers say:
“ScreenshotAPI.net helped us quickly solve a problem where we needed to document price changes for products by taking a screenshot of the product page. Our biggest reason for picking ScreenshotAPI instead of making our own solution, was their out-of-the-box banner and popup blocker. [Typically, banners and popups] would obscure the price on the product page[s].”
ScreenshotAPI pricing starts from $9/month for up to 1,000 screenshots.
To learn more about our platform and how it can provide the competitor insights you need, get started for free today!
2. SEMrush: The Most Comprehensive Competitor SEO Tool
SEMrush is an awesome SEO tool that's widely used by professionals for competitor website analysis. It's packed with powerful features that give you valuable insights to supercharge your campaigns.
Here are some of the highlight SEMrush features:
- Keyword Research: SEMrush hooks you up with real-time data on SERPs and keywords. Use them to create killer content and ads that hit the bullseye with your audience.
- Competitor Research: Dig deep into your competitors' backlink profiles and keep tabs on their rankings.
- Site Audit: Scan your site for issues that could be holding you back. Broken links, duplicate content, and technical hiccups are no match for this tool.
- Backlink Analysis: Uncover your competitors' backlink strategies and traffic sources.
SEMrush is the go-to choice for SEO pros because it's jam-packed with competitor analysis features. It lets you sneak a peek at your competitors' backlinks, keep a watchful eye on their rankings, and discover the keywords they're competing for. Armed with this knowledge, you can supercharge your content strategy and leave your rivals in the dust.
Including SEMrush in your competitor analysis toolkit is like having a secret weapon for uncovering website insights, optimizing your SEO campaigns, and staying ahead of the game.
3. Skuuudle: The Best Competitor Pricing Tracking Tool
If you’re an online retailer that constantly thinks, “How can I compare my website to competitors?”, Skuuudle keeps a watchful eye on your competitors' pricing and inventory, empowering you to make strategic pricing decisions.
Here's why Skuuudle stands out:
- Dynamic Repricing: Skuuudle lets you set dynamic repricing rules based on your competitors' prices so that it automatically adjusts your prices to stay competitive in real time. No more manual price checking or falling behind the competition.
- Daily Price and Product Insights: Get a treasure trove of daily price and product insights. Stay one step ahead by keeping tabs on market trends and adjusting your pricing accordingly.
- AI-Supported Quality Team: Skuuudle understands that navigating through a sea of analysis and information can be overwhelming. That's why they offer an AI-supported quality team to guide you through the process. They provide expert assistance, ensuring you make the most of Skuuudle's powerful features.
- Online Support: The dedicated Skuuudle team is there to help you navigate the software and handle any issues that might pop up.
Skuuudle is your ultimate companion for effective competitor analysis. It gives you the insights and tools you need to make strategic pricing decisions, so you stay competitive and maximize your profits.
4. Mailcharts: The Best for Competitor Email Marketing Analysis
When it comes to analyzing your competition in the realm of email marketing, it can be a tedious task. Luckily, Mailcharts is here to simplify the process and provide you with valuable insights.
Key Features:
- Aggregated Competitor Emails: Mailcharts takes the hassle out of gathering competitor emails by aggregating campaigns from your rivals. By analyzing their subject lines, send frequency, and other key data, Mailcharts helps you understand how your own email campaigns stack up against the competition.
- Benchmarking Best Practices: To ensure you're on top of your email marketing game, Mailcharts compares your campaigns to their vast library of marketing emails. This helps you align with industry best practices, from timing and frequency to subject line length and beyond. Stay in sync with what works and maximize the impact of your email campaigns.
- Inspiration from Top Performers: Not only does Mailcharts offer powerful competitor analysis, but their website also provides a treasure trove of email examples for inspiration. By showcasing emails from some of the biggest campaigns out there, Mailcharts gives you a firsthand look at what makes today's top-performing emails stand out.
Mailcharts is the ultimate tool for analyzing your competition in the realm of email marketing.
5. iSpionage: The Best Competitor Analysis Tool for Ads
If you’re going to analyze competitors, then you need to also look into their paid advertising strategies. iSpoinage is a powerful tool designed to provide comprehensive insights into various aspects of PPC campaigns.
Here's why iSpionage is a must-have when you analyze competition:
- Target PPC Keywords: With iSpionage, you gain visibility into the keywords your competitors are targeting in their PPC campaigns. Since you understand the keywords they prioritize, you can refine your own strategy and stay competitive in the paid advertising landscape.
- Competitor Analysis: iSpionage goes beyond individual brands and allows you to explore who else is vying for PPC ads in a specific topic or industry. By identifying your competitors in the PPC space, you can gain a clearer understanding of the competitive landscape and adjust your approach accordingly.
- Projected Monthly Budgets: Another valuable feature of iSpionage is the ability to uncover the estimated monthly budgets of your competitors' PPC campaigns. This insight helps you set realistic expectations for your own ad spend and ensures you make informed decisions about budget allocation.
With iSpionage, you can unlock the secrets of your competitors' PPC strategies and use that knowledge to refine your own campaigns.
6. Similarweb: The Best Competitor Traffic Analysis Tool
Similarweb is a comprehensive competitor analysis for content and SEO. It provides deep insights into your competitors' content and traffic sources.
Here are some key features and benefits of Similarweb:
- Uncover Traffic Sources: Similarweb allows you to delve into the referral traffic of a site and understand where its visitors come from.
- Accurate Traffic Estimations: Guessing the number of unique visitors your competitors generate per month is a daunting task. But with Similarweb, you can obtain accurate estimations of their website traffic.
- Compare Competitors: Similarweb lets you compare traffic statistics between two or more competitors effortlessly.
- Identify Competing Sites: Similarweb goes beyond analyzing individual competitors and helps you discover other sites you may be competing with.
With Similarweb’s robust capabilities, you’ll be able to delve deep into your competitors’ website traffic to see why they’re succeeding and any missed opportunities you can hone in on.
Use the Right Tools to Analyze Your Competitors
At the end of the day, the best way to create something unique is to know what your competitors are planning. Our rundown of competitor analysis methods and tools will help you take the next step without worrying if you're doing the right thing.
The only question is: are you ready to become the best?
You've got this!