I understand how many companies want to compare themselves to their competitors. In web marketing, that often means looking at how well they’re doing in search engine rankings, because it’s a nice, observable metric. It’s also not very helpful. We all know how complex it is to get SEO results, and how long it takes. There are all sorts of reasons why a competitor may do better or worse, and it’s unlikely you’re going to learn much by investigating.
However, if you do want a comparison with your competitors, why not simulate what a prospect might do? Specify a product or service which a prospect might investigate, and draw up a table comparing your own site with others. The steps might be:
- Arriving on the home page, is it clear that the company supplies the chosen product or service?
- How easy is it to get to more information on that product or service?
- How much technical information is available about it?
- How much background information (e.g. case studies) is available about it?
- Is it obvious how to progress an enquiry? What options are available?
This, it seems to me, might give you a much more interesting insight into how your web marketing compares to your competitors. It’d be a very interesting project for someone to undertake.