In business, you need to know who your closest competition is, no matter what. There are so many other companies out there and for maximum success, you need to know who your competition is and the steps that you can take to get ahead of them. Let’s take a look at some of the best tips to help you identify yours.
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Know Your Own Company
Before even thinking about anyone else, you need to take a look at your own company. You need to know it inside and out and be well aware of every aspect that makes it what it is. After all, you cannot hope to even identify a competitor unless you know the way in which they are competing with you.
A key part of this can be to do with your target demographic. Do you know who yours is? It could be a very specific group of people, like those in your local area, or it could be more general – like women aged between 21 and 35. You need to know who you are targeting so that you can work to appeal to them, whilst keeping one eye on your competition of course.
Market Research
Whether you want to check up on direct or indirect competition, some of the best ways to do so will always be through market research. This will help you to identify other companies that might be selling a similar product to you. Such a product might even be competing directly with yours in terms of price.
When you discover such a company, make sure to check out some of their marketing techniques and how they handle certain aspects of business. Whilst you should never copy your competition outright, there is plenty that can be learned from taking a look at what they are up to.
This can even be applied to some of the websites with whom you are not in direct competition. Take a look at some of the top websites online and see if there is anything that they are doing that you are not. There will always be some new technique that you can introduce to your own marketing that could help to push you ahead of the competition. Take a look at what the big dogs are doing; you never know what you might be able to pick up.
Check Online Communities
Nowadays, many people will take recommendations before they try something new. It could be as simple as picking up tips from their closest friends or family, or they could head to an online platform like Facebook or Reddit where they can discuss with other like-minded individuals. Such groups can be highly influential when it comes to spending habits, and their discussions can be of great benefit to you when trying to identify your competition.
Take a look through these forums and see which brands are mentioned most often. They will be your competition, and so you can move on to perform market research to discover how they compete with you. One benefit of going to these forums is also that you might be able to tell, through discussions, why customers like to use these companies.
You can then take steps to improve your own services and offerings. With some hard work, you will hopefully begin to see your own company’s name popping up here and there as more customers use your services.
SEO
You also need to make sure that you are taking steps to ensure that your SEO is the best it can be so you can outrank your competitors on SERPs. How do you do this? One of the best ways will be with keyword research and SEO analysis. This will let you know which businesses are competing with you for those key high rankings on Google. Remember, you are not just competing with your direct competition, but all those businesses who also use the same keywords as you.
Make sure you also take a look at some of the other aspects of SEO that might be of use to you here. For example, you need to make sure that you are looking at your competitor’s anchors and backlinks too. Try to build as complete an understanding of their marketing strategies as you can.
Identify and Outrank
By taking a look at keywords and online forums, you should be able to come up with a list of competitors who you want to outrank. It does not matter whether they are in the same city as you or are based in an office across the world – you need to make sure that you are doing all that you can to outrank them.
Take the time to establish who your competitors are and what they are doing differently. If you wish to be successful in business, you need to make sure that you are always able to take the steps needed to push yourself ahead of any competition. You can only expect to do so if you have a keen understanding of what it is that makes them different to you.
