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:

1. Arriving on the home page, is it clear that the company supplies the chosen product or service?
2. How easy is it to get to more information on that product or service?
3. How much technical information is available about it?
4. How much background information (e.g. case studies) is available about it?
5. 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.