As business owners and marketers, we tend to think and act as if our websites exist in a vacuum, even though we know customers tend to compare us to other companies in our market or industry. That’s especially true in Internet marketing, where competitors are just a click away, and the people we need to appeal to most are the ones who haven’t bought from us yet and have no loyalty to our company.
With that in mind, it’s helpful to study up on the competition from time to time. When you do, you don’t just want to look at another business’ pages to see whether you like them or not, but also how they measure up to our own before being subjective.
Here are a few ways you can compare your own web pages to the ones you see on other business websites:
Are they relevant to the search terms or marketing that get customers there?
Whether you’re getting customers to your pages via search engines, online ads, or social media, it’s important that buyers find what they expect to find on your website. In other words, a certain kind of person is going to end up on your pages, by virtue of the search terms they’ve used for the offer they’ve clicked on. Is what they’ll find on your pages more relevant than what they’ll discover when they make the next click?
Are the major differentiators between businesses spelled out?
If you are the only business operating in your market or industry, then almost anyone might be the perfect fit for what you have to sell. In reality, though, there’s probably a certain type of buyer who is drawn to your company and its products or services. For that reason, it’s crucial to your website spell out the differences between you and the other companies you’re competing against. Let prospects know why they should work with you instead of someone else. And, study your competitors to see how they’re doing the same.
Is there a clear call to action?
Your website is a part of your business, which means you should have business goals associated with it. Help your visitors to become leads or customers by offering them a clear call to action on every page. Invite them to do what you’d like them to do. Additionally, you should study your competitors’ sites to see what kinds of offers and invitations they are making to prospects, and then evaluate how they stack up against your own.
As nice as it might be to imagine otherwise, your web pages don’t exist all on their own, and they aren’t the only ones your potential customers are going to see. Invest the time in studying your competitors now and then, because it can make or break the profitability of your Internet marketing.
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