You do not need tools to understand your competitors. A person who thinks critically and notices details can do it. You can do a competitor analysis yourself without spending money. It will take some time. When you do it yourself you can find things that automated tools might miss like changes in a competitors message tone pricing changes or gaps in their content that you can fill.
This guide will show you how to do a market and competitor analysis by yourself using methods and tools that you can start using today.
Why Go Manual?
Automated tools are great for looking at a lot of data.. They can’t understand details and nuances like a human can. When you do an analysis you can understand why a competitor made a change not that they made a change. Many experienced marketers still do research to confirm what their tools are telling them. They use automation as a starting point, not the answer. The best results come from using both. You should look at numbers. Use your own judgment.
What to Track
When you do a competitor analysis you should look at four areas:
- . Offers. This includes the plans they offer, discounts, bundles and how they describe the value of their products.
- Content strategy. This includes how often they post on their blog the topics they cover the formats they use and what they want readers to do next.
- SEO signals. This includes the keywords they target the titles of their pages and how their website is organized.
- User experience. This includes how easy it is to navigate their website, how their checkout process works and how their website looks on devices.
You can set up a table to track this information with one row for each competitor and columns for each of these areas. You should check this table regularly such as every month so you can see how things are changing over time.
Manual Keyword Gap Analysis
You can find gaps in your keyword strategy without using a paid tool:
- Make a list of the page titles and headings from your competitors main pages.
- Note the phrases and terms that they use.
- Compare this list to the keywords you are already targeting.
- Identify the gaps that’re relevant to your business goals.
You can use a spreadsheet to keep track of this information and make it a repeatable process.
Benchmarking Content and Pricing
Read your competitors recent content as if you were a customer. What questions are they answering that you are not? What formats are they using? Are they getting a lot of engagement? You can also compare your pricing to your competitors. Make a table that shows the competitor, price point and what they offer. How they describe the value.
A Quick Case Study
One company did not use any intelligence tools for a quarter. Instead one marketer spent two hours a week reviewing five competitors websites, content and pricing pages. They found three content topics changed their pricing page and saw an increase in sign-ups the next quarter.
Common Pitfalls to Avoid
- Do not just look at a snapshot of the data. Track how things are changing over time.
- Do not assume that just because two things are related one causes the other.
- Do not act on findings without validating them
- Do not analyze your competitors without thinking about your strategy and goals.
Quick-Start Checklist
- [ ] Identify 5-7 indirect competitors.
- [ ] Create a table to track your competitors.
- [ ] Do a keyword gap analysis.
- [ ] Compare your pricing to your competitors.
- [ ] Set a time to review your competitors.
- [ ] Write down one thing you can learn from each competitor each time you review them.
When to Bring in Help
You can do an analysis, for a small number of competitors.. If you need to track a lot of competitors or do a deeper analysis you may need to use a market and competitor analysis service. This service can help you collect data and focus on strategy.
