How competitor research can outperform your rivals.

Competitors are your motivators in the real sense. They keep you active and dynamic. But they are hungry for your customers. You need to be active to keep your business on the top by devoting the time and energy. The most important point generally people ignore their competitor research and thus incur loss in business.  

In simple words, we can say competition is a great strategy for the growth of your business. However, you can save your money and resources by doing competitor research. There are several techniques for competitor research and are available free of cost.

If you’ve surprised to see why your competitors are outranking you, or getting more social media traffic, this article is for you.

The best way to utilize Competitor research :

• Look beyond Google search :

Of course! Google is the most popular solution of each and every query these days. First of all, you need to visit the competitor’s website. Here you see a variety of tools supplied by the Google or that relate to the Google’s search results. PPC campaigns that are an interesting insight into your competition.

SpyFu is the great resource to competitor research which keywords and AdWords your competitors are buying. You need to download those valuable keywords.

Google Trends is helpful when you want to stay on the top as compared to your competitor research.

Google Alerts keeps alerts for us as well as our competitors. Remember don’t forget to set up an alert on your own company to check what anyone else says about you.

• Design a report

It is a great and inexpensive way to utilize competitor research. The companies are doing research to evaluate the competitor’s strategy. It also helps you where the industry is trending. Furthermore helps what the unmet market needs that you can fulfill.

Tip: You can utilize competitor research by using tools such as Alexa, ahref, Semrush, Hoovers, Keyword research tool (Keyword Spy) and other web analysis tools.

• Speak to your customers

Looking for the sources of information about your competitor research, interaction with your existing customers on social media platforms to know about them. When you win a new customer, check what they used in the past and why they switched to your product. Do the same exercise with a customer who discontinued your product. If you check these properly you’ll get a clear idea on what your competitors are offering. It is the best way to utilize competitor research.

• Attend industry trade shows

Joining industry associations and conferences is a great method utilizes competitor research. Through it, you will learn what they are offering and observe their interaction with their customers. Get more information of your competitors and also check the quality of their product. This way you can do the competitor research easily.

• Check to product review sites

Check reviews on e-commerce sites like Amazon, eBay, flipkart etc. and check for the customer reviews. It will provide you the feedback of the products and what customer needs from you. Using this technique you not only improve your product’s quality but also utilize competitor research. Utilize competitor research by checking such review sites.

• Visit Ahref .com

It is imperative for any business in order to improve the quality of product and services to survive in the competition. Ahref helps to understand how your competitors are obtaining customers online. This technique is helpful to utilize competitor research.

• Purchase from your competitors

Visit the website of your competitors, go beyond what’s the publicity available there. Check the entire sales process, it is the best way you get the information. You can compare usability studies of your top competitors and compare your brand with them. It is the simple method to utilize competitor research.

• Hire the Employees of your competitors

Hire the staff from you competing companies especially sales people. In fact, they are the internal source of that organization no one better knew than them. Which techniques they are using how they are taking customers, cutting cost and methods of advanced productivity. You can also check negative points of your competitors to utilize competitor research.

• Do a some analysis on social media

Analysis on social media platforms is one of the best way to do competitor research for your business. You need to do a mini social media analysis to check in terms of followers, quality of content and fans. You need to measure the level of engagement with their fans and your own fans base in order to compare the competition.

• Use Sizeup

To utilize competitor research use SizeUp. It’s a free business intelligence tool that rocks. It quickly develops interactive charts your business stand to competitors, suggest the best places to advertise and maps competitors, suppliers and customers. It works as a great tool for investment pitches, overall business development tactics and business plan enhancements.

• Use Moz Open Site Explorer

To utilize competitor research use MOZ’s tool for SEO analysis that allows seeing backlinks which are linking to your competitor website. Using this you will get a better idea how they are able to market their brand. Which platform they are using for advertisement and how much effort required in overtaking them.

After going through the above points you need to identify the areas of improvement in you research. Take all the points seriously and work on the areas which need improvement. Lastly apply ideas on the basis of your experience. Ensure you should never neglect an opportunity for improvement over your competitors so that you outrank them every time.