8 Essential metrics for your competitor research
As a business owner, it is important to keep track of your competition. What are they doing to drive traffic to their website and boost sales? What keywords are they targeting? What marketing strategies are working best for them? In order to answer these questions, you need to perform a competitive analysis.
But it can be difficult to know where to start when it comes to competitor analysis. What metrics should you be tracking?
Without the right information, it can be tough to make decisions that will help your business grow. You need to understand what your competitors are doing to stay ahead of the curve.
Fret not!
Here I have come up with some essential metrics that you should track when performing competitor analysis. By monitoring these metrics, you’ll get a better understanding of what strategies are working for your competition and how you can adapt them for your own business.
Let’s get started….
Table of Contents
Website Traffic:
The first metric you should track is website traffic.
This includes the number of unique visitors and page views that a competitor’s website receives. You can use tools such as Google Analytics to track this data. Additionally, you should also track the source of this traffic.
This will give you an idea of where your competitor’s audience is coming from and how they are finding their website.
Keyword Rankings:
Another important metric to track is keyword rankings.
This refers to the position that a competitor’s website ranks for certain keywords in search engines such as Google.
You can use tools such as Google AdWords Keyword Planner and SEMrush to track this data. Additionally, you should also look at the keywords that your competitor is targeting.
This will give you an idea of what their marketing strategy is and how they are trying to reach their audience.
Selling Prices:
Analyzing the prices of your competitors will let you make sure that you will continuously optimize your prices correctly and stay updated on what keeps you achieving your goals.
A big benefit of using a competitive pricing strategy is that your business is not missing out on potential profit, or even worse, losing profit just because you haven’t studied the market well.
Through precise and comprehensive competition analysis, you can determine the positions of your products within the marketplace and strategically price to sell while increasing your profit.
Performing the Selling Prices of your Competitor will Let You Determine:
- The market segments targeted by your competitors
- The pricing strategy of your competitors
- The frequency of changes in the prices
However, make sure to choose a pricing strategy that aligns with your brand and value. You may want your selling prices to be comparatively close to your competition, as too high or low can impact sales.
By setting your prices too low, you will minimize your profit, and customers might think your products are low quality.
Market Share:
Tracking their market share can help you see how your business is performing in comparison.
If you notice that your competitor’s market share is increasing while yours is stagnating or declining, this could be a sign that you need to change up your strategy.
Revenue and expenses are also important to track, as they can give you an idea of your competitor’s profitability. If they are consistently making more money than they are spending, this could be a sign that they are doing something right that you could learn from.
Employee Count:
Employee count is another metric that can be important. If your competitor is consistently hiring new employees, this could be a sign that their business is growing and they are expanding their operations.
On the other hand, if their employee count is shrinking, this could be a sign of trouble.
Reviews and Ratings:
Customer satisfaction ratings and product reviews/ratings can give you an idea of the quality of your competitor’s products or services. If their customers are consistently happy and leaving positive reviews, this could be a sign that you need to raise the bar in terms of the quality of your own offerings.
Aim to achieve at least the same amount of ratings or reviews as your competitor’s products.
Conversion Rate:
Finally, you should also track the conversion rate of your competitor’s website.
This refers to the percentage of visitors who take the desired action on a website, such as making a purchase or signing up for a newsletter.
You can use tools such as Google Analytics to track this data. By tracking these key metrics, you will be able to see where you stand in comparison to your competitors and identify areas in which you need to improve.
Engagement on Social Media:
Tracking your competitor’s social media engagement and the number of followers will let you determine how well they are connected with their audience using the platform.
But it is not sufficient to monitor the count of their social media followers. To see the clear picture, you are really required to figure out the engagement metric.
This ratio will let you know how much people interact with a certain post based on the factors such as likes, comments, and shares. In fact, engagement is a proven way to assess content performance, analyze which keywords deliver a result, etc.
The point is here that you need to go beyond tracking the followers your competitors have. Check how many people are reacting to, sharing, and commenting on their social media posts.
The Bottom Line:
By tracking these key metrics, you can get a well-rounded view of your competition and how they are performing.
Besides, by tracking these metrics, you will be able to see where you stand in comparison to your competitors and identify areas in which you need to improve.
This data can then be used to create your own strategies and ensure that you are staying ahead of the game.
What other metrics do you think are important to track when doing competitor analysis?
Let me know in the comments below! Thanks for reading!
Author’s Bio – Ray M is a social media marketer at Social Prawn. He writes about current digital marketing trends and offers business consulting services. Ray M has consulted for several businesses in the past, helping them to improve their online presence and reach new customers through social media platforms.