How To Do A Competitive Analysis?

What do you think you should do to make your brand or web project stand out in the digital market? Let’s say it right: You have to understand your competitors and find out exactly how they are doing. A good way to do this is to review your competitors’ statistics, strategies, and more. In this context, we held a very detailed meeting with the Screpy experts and we decided to tell you about the steps and advantages of making a strong competitive analysis.

Are you ready? It’s time to proactively organize your strategies by getting to know your competitors better!

A little reminder: Screpy is a platform with multi-tools that you can actively use when determining your website’s SEO, Page Speed ​​, and content strategy. You can easily and quickly perform an SEO audit via Screpy, get a page-based speed score, track your positions on keywords and get related word suggestions. In addition to all of these, did you know that you can find out where your competitors rank in the SERP for the keywords you set? Step by step, you will discover your competitors and find smart ways to dominate the market. It’s that simple!

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What is Competitive Analysis?

You sell a service or product to your target audience in a market. However, there may be many brands in this market that offer the same or similar products as you or produce products that eliminate the need for your products. An accurate competitive analysis allows you to identify the main players in the market after discovering your competitors’ weight and success in the industry. Once you have identified certain visible players, you can see which strategies they have adopted, review their periodic yields, and see how they respond to updates, changes, and differences in needs.

This will mean getting to know the market in depth.

A theory known as the Market-Based View in the economy says that the value of a brand depends mainly on the general structure of the industry and the processes of competition with other brands within the industry. In other words, the brand can only determine its own value or power within the habitat it is in.

When Do I Need to Do Competitive Analysis?

You need to do the competitive analysis before entering a web-based project or branding process. Feasibility analysis and competition analysis should go hand in hand. Remember: You can’t do anything without knowing exactly what the digital world needs and who your competitors are. Still, if you’ve missed analytics in the branding process, it’s time to get started while reading this content. You should start taking your brand to higher levels without waiting too long.

The Importance of Competitor Analysis for E-Commerce Projects

Are you going to create an e-commerce site project in the near future? Or do you need optimization processes for your e-commerce site? With a strong competitor analysis, it is possible to approach the leader of the sector step by step.

Nowadays, it is possible to say that it is the right time for e-commerce site projects. The pandemic has turned their shopping habits in favor of e-commerce sites. It is possible to talk about 60 percent stronger sales compared to last year, even in the summer season of 2020 alone. Summer sales of 2020 on the e-commerce platform exceeded $ 4.8 billion.

So what does this mean for us? Now, in retail sales, profits and income are obtained through online sales platforms at a high rate. Although the growth of 2020 in e-commerce sites is largely related to the pandemic, it is said that 2021 growth will continue at around 14 percent.

So we know this: You are in a growing sector and it can be really hard to survive while the sector goes through various fluctuations. Therefore, it is very important to take the right steps. Competitive marketing will also allow you to take the right steps.

Performing competitive analysis for your e-commerce project will allow you to benefit from the following advantages:

1. Understanding the barriers in the target market or niche and setting specific strategies accordingly
2. See how basic consumer expectations are determined by your competitors and achieve success by taking steps within this framework.
3. Explore the gaps of the market, the details that your competitors cannot perform strongly and create strategic moves accordingly.
4. Identify unnoticed areas that can help you become a leader in the market and try to master these areas.
5. Have objective ideas professionally and get a better understanding of what you are into.
6. Maximize your sales with the support of Screpy – strengthen your ranking, maximize your conversion rates!

How To Do Competitor Analysis?

You are determined to do a detailed analysis by examining your competitors, right? So let’s examine the ways to do it!

Identify Who Your Competitors Are

It can be difficult to determine who your competitors are in an industry. But Screpy’s keyword tracker tool will help you a lot in this regard. You can find the top 100 pages in a keyword you have determined through Screpy. Every page you find is, of course, your most important competitors, as you can imagine. It may be more noteworthy, especially as your top ten opponents managed to get to the first page of the SERP.

Note that a company may have both direct competitors and indirect competitors. What your direct competitors do is directly produce and present products that can replace your products or services. They are also in a position within your target audience reach and can directly steal your target audience from you.

Indirect competitors are brands that offer products that are not the same as your products or services, but that will eliminate your customers’ needs to you they are offered. These become brands with companies that closely follow technology and innovative production processes.

Identifying your opponents using powerful tools such as Screpy and manually working is very valuable at this stage.

Spliting Competitors into Two Groups

You have determined your competitors. Now, divide these competitors into two brands that are your competitors based on your current situation and volume and will become your competitors as you grow in the long term. Aspirational competitors are industry leaders, while current competitors have a similar volume to you and will compete you in the first run. For example, Nike may be the aspiration competitor of a newly established company that sells sports shoes.

Identify the Products Your Competitors Offer

Understanding your competitors and putting their strategies on the ground first requires understanding their products and services they provide. Take a close look at these products and services and understand what kind of competitor your competitor is. To do this, ask the following questions:

1. In what price scale does my competitor offer the products? Cheap? Very expensive? Or in a way that appeals to the average audience?
2. What is your competitor’s market share?
3. What is your competitor’s rank in keywords? What about the SEO visibility rates? How much of the digital market is controlled by your competitor?
4. What are the main points that differentiate the company in question from its competitors?
5. What kind of website, sales policy, and the process has your competitor adopted? Which features and advantages do it build its advertisements and marketing processes?
6. How are pricing strategies progressing?
7. What path does the company follow in the process of delivering products and services to the target audience? Remember that there may be a number of factors that put them forward in the digital market in terms of logistics.

Each of the above questions are useful questions to get to know your competitors better and discover their working processes. Remember that you can take advantage of them when trying to understand your competitors and analyze the way they market themselves. Moreover, not all of them are limited to this. In the next stages, you will also have a better understanding of their market success.

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Discover Your Competitors’ Tactics

There is a lot you can do to increase your power in the digital world and to succeed in getting ahead of people. First of all, you need to examine the sales process, the customer service options offered, and the platforms where your competitor carries out marketing processes.

• For example; which keywords are your competitors focusing on and has been shaping their SEO strategy lately? To find the answer to this question, you can examine your competitor’s backward graphs for certain keywords. You can use the Screpy keyword tool for this.
• What social media platforms do your competitors use? Remember, social media platforms are a great way to both communicate directly with your target audience and provide an organic backlink to your site!
• What are the prominent campaigns on your competitor’s e-commerce site? For example, personalized discount coupons or promotions? Free shipping promotions or extra discounts on bulk purchases? These campaigns give you important information about the marketing tactics your competitor applies.

So what else might make sense to ask? Here are a few different ideas:

1. Do you have a competitor whose keyword graphic has gotten stronger lately? Log into Screpy now and add your competitor’s website as a new project to your dashboard. Then see what scores your competitor has in different categories such as SEO, Best Practices, Page Speed. Which score offers the highest difference with your site? Start comparing this category and find out what your opponent did right.
2. What is your competitor’s total revenue? Compare the values ​​announced annually with each other.
3. For which products are discount offers more common?
4. Is your brand in the growth process?
5. What are the languages ​​and methods used in social media platforms? (Influencer market, CPC advertising, sponsorship posts, etc.)
6. You can also explore the strategies of your competitors by trying to find answers to these questions.

FUN FACTS:

• Did you know that: studies say that about 43 percent of e-commerce site users find faster shipping or low-hassle delivery very convincing. Users seem ready to even pay more for the product for these benefits.
• Full product traceability can also make your brand a “preferred brand” in the e-commerce world. Research has revealed that 71 percent of users agree to pay more for this feature alone.

So marketing strategies are not just about price. You need to know how to appeal to the market with the right offers.

Website Inspection and UX Analysis

Especially when it comes to E-commerce sites, UX becomes extra important. We have already given you the basic tips of eCommerce UX based design for this.

Research shows that: 59 percent of individuals who prefer to shop from e-commerce sites bounce from the site due to negative UX. This reduces the conversion rate to zero on the site. 17 percent of users can tolerate a bug that drops the UX, but after an error it still causes a bounce.

So if a competitor is stepping up in keywords and has managed to improve his ranking, it means he’s doing something right with UX. Remember, if UX is negative on a website, the conversion will be low, the time spent on the page is short. Bounce will be maximized. All of these may cause the ranking to drop. Then keyword position tells you important things about something going right or wrong on the website.

Examine the websites of your prominent competitors in detail. If you wish, add those sites as new projects to Screpy and analyze them. Notice the points where your scores differ and make your optimization according to taxis.

Research shows that the tip of creating an e-commerce site with a good UX is to follow the steps below:

1. First, set the goals. For example, the purpose of a checkout page is to enable the user to pay and build trust. The purpose of a category page is to make navigation more enjoyable with an easy and understandable listing. By setting these types of goals, you can ensure that your pages are goal-oriented.
2. Check out your competitor’s related pages and check out what they’re doing right. For example do they use breadcrumbs on the category page? High number of images? Is there an option to directly purchase and add to cart on the category page? Do additional details about the products stand out when you bring the mouse closer to the related products? The answers to all these questions may reveal a detail that you should follow.
3. Moreover, by browsing the pages of the websites that have been on the rise recently, you may notice a service they have recently activated (for example, live chat, easy return button, cargo tracking plugin and similar services often negate the customer ux rate). These are great details!

Find the Brand’s Place in the Market (Perceptual Mapping)

The brand’s prices, product scale, or sales rates may be very different from yours. But that doesn’t mean you should always aim to be like this brand. Each brand meets a certain part of the market’s needs. For example, high-quality, low-quality, expensive, and cheap versions of lipstick appeal to different sub-segments, and marketing processes are managed accordingly. Putting the brand in a certain place in perceptual mapping according to these features can help you evaluate it better.

1. First of all, determine the primary product series that makes the brand a competitor to you.
2. Then check out the price averages for all products. Determine the cheap-low / end products, mid market and luxury product groups and decide where the brands are in this ranking with their products.

Here is a perceptual mapping that works for you:

The brand that you should follow its strategies for is the brand that is located at a point close to you in this mapping. In this way, you can follow a powerful method in terms of target audience and marketing tactics.

Determine Strengths and Weaknesses (SWOT Analysis)

What could be the potential strengths and weaknesses of a brand? What could turn into a great opportunity in the marketing process? What are the opportunities and threats and how do they affect your place in the market?

You can make a detailed SWOT analysis to distinguish the strengths and weaknesses of your competitors, your company, and brands, and produce new strategies that will tolerate the strong points of your competitor.

The letters in the SWOT analysis have the following meanings:

• S – Strengths: Advantages of the brand thanks to some of its inherent features.
• W – Weaknesses: The situations that the brand has lost due to some of its inherent features
• O- Opportunities: Situations that put the brand forward in marketing with positive external factors
• T – Threats: Situations that lower the brand in marketing due to negative external factors

Rank each in terms of the brand you’re working on. For example, let’s give you a few different pieces of information:

A brand’s good relationships with suppliers may seem unrelated to marketing. However, if these good relationships cause less charges in the shipment or purchase of certain products, the brand will sell these products cheaper than you. In this case, your customers may prefer the other brand, not you, while all other conditions are equal. In exactly this scenario, good relations with the supplier fall into the Opportunities class.

If you are not sure what to rank in which category when doing a swot analysis, you don’t have to worry. We share a detailed sample list with you. You can view the image below:

So when should you use SWOT analysis? This analysis is basically a type of analysis that you will use when you try to understand the features of a competitor who has some strengths or weaknesses compared to you and the reason for its rising / falling position in the market. A small advantage in the marketing process can mean important results for many customers at the end of the business. The details that you cannot see when you look at the general picture will be revealed during the SWOT analysis.

Make The Analysis of Entire Market (Porter’s 5 Factor Analysis)

It’s good to have a specific look at your opponent. But in order to understand what the analysis you have done so far means, you also need to be loyal to the context. Only in this way can you understand the market better. There is a method that is frequently used for this: It is called Porter’s 5 Forces. Basically, the analysis that will provide you with a better understanding of the industry you are in focuses on 5 basic points:

1. new entrants
2. buyers
3. suppliers
4. substitutes
5. competitive rivalry

Analyzing each of these means clarifying the values ​​of forces and better understanding your competitors and yourself through their position in the market.

Important note: Porter’s 5 Factor Analysis can be a great way to find out if this is a good idea, especially when you’re doing feasibility for a project you haven’t started yet. Because this method will mean looking at the whole industry from a bird’s eye view. This method is often preferred in order to strengthen your strategy and discover some tricks in the competitive environment of the industry. We have compiled the questions you should ask while performing this analysis. You can view the image below:  

Make Customer Acquisition Analysis

Your competitors are getting a lot of traffic, keeping their rankings strong, and thus they may have a great hit. But remember, SEO visibility will not always correspond to sales and conversion rates. Understanding what strategies your competitors use to turn a standard visitor into a loyal customer can mean discovering the competitive strength in their hands.

Customer acquisition is exactly the concept that should be used here. Customer acquisition is the process of turning your target audience, which is not defined as your customer, into a purchaser of products or services from you. Customer acquisition power is supported by conversion optimization studies. This is the ultimate goal of all of the metric analysis performed by Google Lighthouse today: To ensure that you give your visitors what you want to maximize conversion and accordingly, to make sure your site offers a better UX.

Hey, did you know that Screpy is integrated with Google Lighthouse and lets you analyze all relevant metrics? You can immediately register with the free trial for 7 days and start analyzing the first projects. Moreover, you do not need to provide credit card information for this.

There are a few questions you need to ask in order to analyze customer acquisition. For example,

1. How does your competitor market its product? -Social media, paid ads, influencer marketing, strong SEO work, conversion-oriented website work, e-mail marketing, a hard and attacking marketing strategy against competitors?
2. Does your competitor offer a free trial or freemium? – Free trial is a very important customer acquisition strategy, especially on platforms that sell digital services. Studies have revealed that if the brands offering free trials request credit card information for this, their free trial usage rates decreased by 87 percent. In other words, if you offer a free trial service, you should not request credit card information.
3. How difficult is it to switch away from your competitor? -Determine what is the factor that succeeded in taking your opponent one or a few steps ahead of you and what are the obstacles in front of you in order to realize this factor. Be sure, everything will look much easier on your eyes.

Ready to discover more?

Remember, understanding your competitors will set you apart in this process and allow you to dominate the market by taking faster growth steps. Let’s take a look at the frequently asked questions.

FAQ

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