How to conduct a Web site competitive analysis
Whether you are redesigning your website, or designing a new website, it is important to understand who you are going to be competing against. When the search engine returns the top results, you will need to differentiate your website from the competition. The best way to do this to conduct web competition analysis.
What to look for
There are number of ways of identifying your online competition. Depending on who carries out the analysis (or research) will influence what is looked at. It is important to get a rounded view on your competition so that all areas are looked at. This can include;
* Marketing
What messages are your competitors sending? What graphics and imagery are your competitors using? How are the pages presented to the user?
* Search engine optimisation
How many links do your competitors have? Where are the links coming from? How many pages of content are there?
* Website accessibility
How are the pages developed? What techniques have been used to make the web pages accessible? What colours are used on the page and are there any possible issues?
* Functionality
What features do your competitors websites have which are useful? How could these features be improved or refined?
* Content
How are the web pages put together? How is the navigation structured and labelled? Is it clear to the user how to navigate around the pages?
First things first
The first thing to realize is that a Web site competitive analysis is usually performed for a team of business specialists who know nothing about design, usability, or information architecture. They don’t have a clue about labeling systems, search ergonomics, or affordance. All they want to know is what the competition is doing and how they can do it better. Obviously, your expertise is in usability and user experience design, so you’ll be evaluating sites along the lines of your domain expertise, but the data you gather must always point toward making a smart business decision.
Next we’ll discuss who and what you’ll be analyzing.
Who’s the competition?
It’s very likely that you’ll be given a list of competitors. Every company that has a handle on their market space knows who the competition is.
What to analyze
Now that you have a list of competitors, you need to draw up a list of items to analyze when you visit their sites. I’ve developed a categorized list of items over the years, which are included below:
* Home page. How informative is the home page? Does it set the proper context for visitors? Is it just an annoying splash page with multimedia? How fast does it load?
* Navigation. Is the global navigation consistent from page to page? Do major sections have local navigation? Is it consistent?
* Site organization. Is the site organization intuitive and easy to understand?
* Links and labels. Are labels on section headers and content groupings easy to understand? Are links easy to distinguish from each other? Or are they ambiguous and uninformative (“click here” or “white paper”)? Are links spread out in documents, or gathered conveniently in sidebars or other groupings?
* Search and search results. Is the search engine easy to use? Are there basic and advanced search functions? What about search results? Are they organized and easy to understand? Do they give relevance weightings or provide context? Do the search results remind you what you searched for?
* Readability. Is the font easy to read? Are line lengths acceptable? Is the site easy to scan, with chunked information, or is it just solid blocks of text?
* Performance. Overall, do pages load slowly or quickly? Are graphics and applications like search and multimedia presentations optimized for easy Web viewing?
* Content. Is their sufficient depth and breadth of content offerings? Does the content seem to match the mission of the organization and the needs of the audience? Is the site developing its own content or syndicating other sources? Is there a good mix of in-depth material (detailed case studies, articles, and white papers) versus superficial content (press releases, marketing copy)?
A good competitive analysis not only produces usability metrics but also aids decision makers in their strategic goal-setting and planning.
