January 20 2010
Get Paid to Keep an Eye on Your Competition
Tagged Under : Competition, Keeping an Eye on Your Competition, Reaching Out To The Competition, Rich Kid's Campus
Do you know who your competition is? Knowing your competition is a big part of your future successes and failures. I am not a fan of recreating work that has already been done. Maybe you never thought about this before, but your competition actually has a lot of positive influence on your business. You may be asking yourself how that is possible? Well, let’s explore this phenomenon.
Determine Who Your Most Successful Competitor’s Are
This is actually the first step for many people before they venture into a new niche. However, the buck usually stops here. As a general rule of thumb I like to explore my competitor’s website about once a month. Why? You can see what it is they are doing. If they took something down it’s probably because it was not successful so don’t bother trying it. If you see them pushing a certain product a lot, than you know it’s probably profitable for them.
In addition to understanding their revenue streams you can also determine their overall strategy for their website. Are they trying to drive traffic? get people to sign up to their mailing list? are they doing a lot of product reviews? etc. You can get a firm grip on where they are heading.
It’s important to understand that your competition consists of big websites and smaller websites; you should look at both. Why? Well, usually the smaller sites don’t have the kind of budget or resources as the bigger sites. So, they need to differentiate themselves in some way. I challenge you to find out how they are differentiating themselves and find a way to differentiate yourself!
Browse Through Online Marketplaces
I make it a habit to browse through online marketplaces like Digital Point (DP) and Flippa.com. Mostly because I am looking for another site to expand my already time consuming life or find a website to flip (more on this later). When I am looking through the sites for sale I often come across sites for sale that are in my niche. So, I take a look at their listing and get extremely valuable information.
You can get earnings figures, sources of earnings and traffic figures. Those are really the three most important things to take away from your findings. You can then figure out ways to improve your site. Maybe they are using a method you never thought of or a source of traffic you never heard of.
Reaching Out To The Competition
Most of the time competition is looked as a negative influence on your business. It’s actually a positive. A lot of companies in the same niche will often times pool together resources to work on a project together. If they share a common goal then they are usually more than willing to help each other out.
This tactic works especially well if you or your competition offers a product or service that the other does not have. Contact them and see what kind of a deal you can work out.
What do you think about your competition? Do you ever do some research from time to time on what they are up to? Better yet, have you ever worked with your competition?
