How to Research Competitors – In a business there are always competitors, either directly or indirectly. There are competitors who are close to our location, some are in different cities.
Each competitor has their own characteristics, especially their branding and type of service. We as business owners certainly want to outperform competitors in any way, but without knowing how to research competitors, we will have difficulty finding the data.
For that in this article we will discuss how to research competitors, what we should know when researching and using what tools we research.
But before that we must know what competitors are and what types of competitors are dealing with your business. Read this article to the end and feel the benefits.
Definition of Competitor
Competitors are other business units that have business services similar to ours. Similar does not mean the same, between one and the other certainly have advantages and disadvantages of each.
Based on that, consumers can sort and choose which services and services are good for them. Meanwhile, as business owners, we can improve our own business by researching competitors, studying their strengths and leaving their weaknesses behind.
In addition, we as business owners also benefit from the presence of competitors. We can easily read what consumers want, we can easily imitate what makes consumers come to them.
Without competitors, it’s the same as opening a new market, which doesn’t mean that people around us understand and need our products/services. That requires huge promotional costs.
With competitors we can open a business close to their area that can take offline traffic. While our online traffic can imitate their steps in the online world.
Types of Business Competitors
Direct Competitor
Direct competitors are companies that have the same services as you and have the same customers as your customers. They can go head to head with you in terms of products and services.
Sometimes they are located close to your store, but sometimes they are located far from your store but have the same target market. For example, you both sell skin care products. Of course, your market is everyone who needs skin care, both near and far.
Indirect competitors
Indirect competitors are other companies that provide different products / services to the same customers as your customers. This company tends to have a new breakthrough in terms of promotion.
An example of an indirect competitor is a laptop company against a desktop company. Then companies with analog systems with digital companies. In essence they can take customers with different products.
How to Reset Competitors Offline
Access To Store
See how the access to the competitor’s store is, whether it has advantages in terms of vehicle traffic, whether the access road to get there consists of bad or good road contours.
Geographically, try to pay attention to whether it is located far from the city center. If they are far from the city center and still crowded with visitors, surely they have optimal service.
Examine in depth how they are seen by visitors who are located far from the store. Maybe they are very active on the internet or use their store’s support community.
Front Store
When we look at the store front, we often pay attention to the appearance and design of the building, actually that’s not wrong. What’s more important for us to pay attention to is the writing that can be read from a distance, and how quickly people realize that it’s the local store they’re looking for.
Furthermore, how do people pay attention to the colors, lights to the cleanliness of the front store. The main factor when people buy comes from feeling comfortable with an attractive store front display that doesn’t seem scary.
In Store
When entering a store, try to be a natural buyer, what they say and how they treat you. Also pay attention to the SOP they apply, because it is the first minute that determines customer satisfaction.
In addition, pay attention to the design of the room and the air in the room. Convenience of consumers will be seen from the cool room and aesthetic disan even though it only consists of a simple place. Finally try to compare their prices and the results of their products.
How to Research Competitors Online
Keywords Research
The way search engines work always requires keywords as a formula so that we can find other people’s posts. For example, when you search for this article, I write down keywords that match what you are looking for, namely how to research business competitors.
What if I write certain content without including keywords? No matter how good I make it, you won’t be able to find this article in a search engine.
For that, try to pay attention to each of your business competitors in writing keywords in their content. Look at using keyword tracking applications such as ahrefs or semrush. Potential keywords you can imitate to steal their traffic.
Hashtags Research
Hashtags are quite important in the way search engines work, especially on social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Pay attention to competitor posts, look at the bottom of the hashtag inclusion, try to imitate the hashtag.
If you want to find potential hashtags, you can use keywords marked with a hash (#). Or you can search for potential hashtags in the hashtag generator application or hashtag finder. The function of this hashtag is the same as keywords embedded in search engines on social media.
Backlinks Research
Backlinks are external links that go to our website. In the Google search engine, backlinks are one of the quality factors of a website. Because logically Google will assume a website that is widely promoted by other websites is a trusted website.
But be careful, irrelevant backlinks or backlinks from bad sites will make our website also considered bad by search engines. For that be careful using this backlink.
Our competitors certainly have backlinks on their websites, it is good news if the types of links that enter their website are good links, such as business listings or map listings. Try to imitate the listing.
Content Research
Content is a must for a business. Without content, others will not understand what we have to offer. With content we can reach visitors by means of funneling. Namely with AIDA, Awareness / Attractiveness, Interest, Desire, and Action.
The content that gets the most likes, comments and visitors is the interesting content that many customers like. You can create similar content to color your profile and create fun to bring in traffic.
Content can be in the form of posting descriptions, photos, videos or website articles. A company should actively update the content in their profile. So that search engine algorithms keep bringing new visitors to your business profile.
Competitor Review Research
The next way to research competitors is your competitor’s review page. You can find the review in the Google Maps review section, comments on social media such as Facebook and Instagram. Sort from the worst review, to make it look natural, although sometimes there are also spam.
See what their customers are saying, what they like and what they don’t like. From there you can make a managerial plan. How to treat consumers so that they are satisfied and avoid complaints.
From your side, try to get the people closest to you to review a good rating for your business. Increase the good reviews so that when a bad review comes, your profile presentation remains good.
Competitor Research Tools
Supporting tools for competitor research consist of many platforms. Depends on what you want to research from competitors. Below are some tools to track social media, websites to income
For Instagram you can use the Instatrack and Sprout Social applications. There are several points that we must track from competitors. Namely, their engagement rating, likes and account growth over time.
Website
While our website can use many applications and websites. Like Ahrefs to track keywords, backlinks and top pages. In addition, you can use Moz to track the authority of a website. And archive org as a tracker when the web was created.
Youtube
Youtube is a site that provides entertainment services in the form of video streaming and video content. You can track competitors using the Social Black or TubeBuddy sites. What you should pay attention to is how actively they create content and the number of viewers of their videos.
That’s how to research competitors, offline and online as well as tools for competitor research. If you are interested please read our other articles.
Read Also :
