What You Need to Know About Your Competitors

A company’s success depends largely on knowing as much
as possible about competitors, so that internal
operations can be designed to effectively offer
competitive pricing and provide comparable or superior
customer service.

by Jeffrey Moses NFIB.org

When researching competitors, it should be easy, and
very useful, to find out information on your
competitor’s prices, marketing strategies, customer
policies, suppliers, credit card policy and terms for
financing.

* Knowing these aspects of your competitors’ businesses
can help you maintain competitiveness. To really grasp
a competitive edge, though, try to find out information
on the following:

* How they pay their employees, what benefits they offer,
how much value they place on employee-friendly
workspaces, etc. Knowing this sort of information will
help you stay competitive in terms of attracting and
retaining good employees.

* How your competitors’ Web sites compare to yours — in
regards to content, look, readability and "stickiness"
(tactics used to entice customers back).

* The position of competitors’ Web sites in the search
engine results. One of the main objectives of any Web
site is to come up near the top on Web searches,
primarily on three of the most widely used search
engines, Google, AOL and Yahoo (both AOL and Yahoo now
use Google’s search engine). If your competitors
constantly come up higher on the major search engines
than you, you need to find out why and how you can make
that happen for your business.

Position on Google Web searches depends somewhat on
how many links a site has to other Web sites, including
how many links it has to other Web sites that have many links.

You can find out this information by searching on
Google for a competitor’s URL and then clicking on
"link to." By doing this, you will see a list of all
sites to which your competitor’s Web site is linked. By
examining this list, you can find potential links for
your own Web site. Contact these and set up links to
your own site, and you will quickly find your site
climbing in the search engine results.

Read other Tools and Tips articles for more ideas on
optimzing your Web site for search engines.

* What your competitors say about you. Do they tell
customers your products or services are inferior? Do
they tell customers you run your business poorly?

Don’t worry too much if your competitors badmouth you:
customers can read between the lines. Businesses that
demean competitors are only hurting themselves.
Outright lies, on the other hand, should be addressed.
When you become aware that a competitor is lying about
your product/service quality, you should write a letter
to the owner or president of the company, informing him
or her about the misrepresentation of your company.
Ultimately, such tactics could give you grounds for a
lawsuit — but it’s usually best to address and settle
these issues before they get out of hand.

To read this and other related articles online, visit:
http://www.nfib.com/cgi-bin/NFIB.dll/jsp/toolsAndTips/toolsAndTipsDisplay.jsp?contentId=4063819