Competition from SERP to SERP – Are You Tracking Them?

I like those old commercials where they ask you “It’s 3pm.  Do you know where your kids are?”

I often remind clients of those commercials and ask them to take the same stance with their competition.  So, do you know what your competition is doing at this moment?

The most common response is that they either don’t know or don’t care.  Many are often so busy worrying about their own business and making money that they just feel like there’s not enough time in the day to be looking at what their competition is doing.

While it’s true you need to focus on your business, and you shouldn’t base all of your marketing off of what your competition is doing, it’s still important to know what position your competition is in.  Now matter how good you think you are, or how great your products and services are, your target audience is also looking at your competition.

When those people land on your site, they’re weighing it against the other sites they’ve seen that offer similar products and services.  If you’re not sure what your competition is doing, then how can you do better?

Back in the day, competitive research meant contacting your competition directly in order to get information on their business – including asking for brochures and other informational materials.  You could expect to spend a lot of time at the library as well, looking over trade journals and articles, newspapers, etc.

All that information is now available on the web within minutes through the search engines.  You don’t even have to make contact with a company anymore, you can just look through their website.  Competitive research that once took several days (or even weeks) now takes just a few hours.

Here are some things to look for so you can weigh the position of your competition:

• What do you think about their writing?  Do you like it or don’t you and why do you feel that way?
• Would you buy from the company?  Either way, why?
• Can you discern their target market from the copy?  How similar is it to your own market?
• What are they offering that you’re not?  What do you offer that they don’t?
• Does the site make you feel like the competitor is an authority on the subject?
• Does their site contain additional information pieces like blogs and articles?
• Does the site/business have any reviews online through Google or Yelp?  What are people saying about them?

You should take the time about every 6 months to review competition in the SERPs.  If you’re in a building and fast-moving industry then it’s probably a good idea to do it a little more often.  The more you know about your competition and how they market themselves the more you’ll be able to position yourself properly for success over their efforts.

To Your Success,
Joerg Weishaupt

P.s. Get more information on social media and marketing in my free primer "Building A Successful Marketing Strategy". Sign up for your free copy today.

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