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How
to Analyze Your Web Site Competition Analyze your Competitors’ Web Sites:
Accurate and timely information is essential for any business to remain competitive.
Read their financial information, compare companies on several different types
of investment data. It's much easier to obtain information on companies that
are publicly held because they must report financial information to the Securities
& Exchange Commission. Therefore, the first step in researching a company is determining
whether it is traded on the stock exchange. Following are some sources for
a variety of information that your competitors don't want you to know:
1.
Check at http://www.hoovers.com for just about any information you would want
about a company; a corporate description, financial information, key officers,
competitors, and more.
2. Corporate Information provides U.S. and
international Company’s information including research reports, company profiles,
earnings information and analyst reports.
3. Business.com reveals
news, research and contacts for 10,000 public and 44,000 private companies.
4. You can research public opinion of a company and its competitors by
using Google's Usenet Service, at http://groups. google.com. Silicon Investor's
Stock Talk, at http://www.silicon investor.com/index.gsp and Raging Bull at http://ragingbull.
lycos.com/cgi-bin/static.cgi/a=index.txt&d=mainpages. CEO's Express, a business
research service is a wonderful site for gleaning information on a company. Opportunities
to profit from competitors' mistakes: Read competitors' information and prices
at more than 2000 online shops; collect information from any online store. Most
services are free. You can learn what good Web site design is by looking
at bad Web design. If your prospective customer is bedazzled and confused by your
Web site home page, he/she will instantly leave. Your storefront [index page,
or home page] should have a graphic, or logo, which acts as a sign over your storefront.
The site must be easy to navigate, and well organized. The background color or
texture must be truly a background pattern, and should not interfere with the
text, making it difficult to read. Too many graphics draw attention away
from the text because they are distracting. With Web graphics there has to be
a fine balance; just enough to dazzle and entertain but not so much as to annoy.
Graphics don't have to be animated for the most effect, they can be static---
i.e. the straight line, either horizontal or vertical--- and still have a strong
dynamic power. Line serves as a guideline for the eye...but this depends
on what audience you are targeting. Sometimes more graphics are more effective.
The customer must be able to easily contact you. Sign your page, make the E-mail
address prominent. Sometimes a customer may wish to contact a live person so you
need to connect with your customer by having a place for name, address, phone
number, fax, and check-boxes for requesting information on products or services.
Privacy: Does the competitor's site have an effective privacy policy?
Will the sensitive data you enter during a purchase by encrypted? A 'layered'
security model, where internal assets are secured, partitioned, and monitored
is of the utmost importance. For credit card numbers security, you need to
use the secure hashing algorithm (SHA-1) in order to make a unique surrogate value
that can be referenced, but not used to charge against the account. Advanced encryption
should be used for credit card numbers; at the least, a Triple-DES algorithm with
a 168-bit key and the use of a hardware device or secure key storage system to
store the keys. It's important to frequently rotate the keys and to provide physical
control over who can acess them. Then when the data is no longer needed, the disks
must be physically destroyed or destroyed by using a wipe algorithm. If it doesn't
need to be recovered, the key should be destroyed. Importance of finding
other areas for improvement: In order to succeed in E-marketing it is an absolute
must that a business have a reliable Web site. This must be addressed first because
choosing a Web site host is one of the most important decisions an E-marketer
will ever make for her business. Without it, your business will fail. The Web
site must be reliable, without frequent technical difficulties, one that offers
personal contact and available and prompt service. The Web host will have to be
able to solve problems and answer questions, with 24-hour staffing for maximum
reliability. It's important for the site to provide industrial strength hosting
if the E-marketer expects to have a very high traffic site - it's important to
have a host with a large pipeline, mail, access to the site's log files, and to
have system programs. Businesses need to reference programs in a cgi-bin directory.
Most Web hosts allow FTP access to a cgi-bin directory but not Telnet access.
So this can slow down site programming. Without Telnet acess the E-marketer cannot
compile programs in C or C++, and technical support to do it. Therefore it is
imperative that the host allow Telnet access to a cgi-bin directory. Avoid
being locked into a contract where the E-marketer can't choose another Web hosting
ISP in case the first one that's chosen doesn't work out. If the Web developer
is listed as the Administrative Contact, it may be difficult to change to a new
developer if need be. This can be checked out with http://rs.internic.net/cgi-bin/whois.
An Internet business must have mailing list management programs available
for newsletters, as well as autoresponders for automatic responses to e-mail messages.
The Web host ISP must provide access to the log files. SSL is needed for credit
card security and an ISP operating system that is compatible with the system that
the E-marketer uses to maintain a database. The ISP's current customers can be
questioned for this information as it may be difficult to get the information
from the ISP host. Success in E-marketing will go to the site that offers
unique services, superior service, enough resources to support your clients to
their satisfaction, i.e. customer interaction and feedback resources. To
evaluate whether it is wise to trade with companies that merge through acquisitions
we must be mindful that their capabilities diminish with a merger. In order for
companies to create and maintain service, it takes time, and the value of these
acquisitions cannot be determined at the outset. These newly merged companies
face many challenges and many of them do not succeed. Read their financial information,
compare information, on several different types of investment data; graphs and
charts, on financial performance, review annual reports. "Promotion Stat"
provides solutions to helpWeb owners evaluate the effectiveness of their advertising
and promotion campaigns. It tracks sites visitors that are referred to your page
from individual links and ads and tracks the visitors' behavior while on your
site. Evaluate the quality of your competitor's sites, their sales promotions
and pricing - look for sales and discounts, and customer feedback facilities.
A simple domain name, easy site navigation and use, working links, a prominent
efficient privacy policy and an easy-to-find E-mail address are important features
to consider. These can make a difference between your site succeeding or failing.
Focus on your niche and the content of your first page will be more credible.
Web sites that focus on a very narrow theme will create visitors of greater interest
who are more willing to buy. People don't have time to search for what they
want. If your site visitors are confronted by too many things, they will do nothing.
Don't overwhelm them. Your business Web site should not take over 30 seconds to
load or your potential customer will not wait and simply surf elsewhere; download
speed has to be a prime consideration as it is of the most benefit. A company
should concentrate on the ability to pay a bill online. This aspect has transformed
home-based, start-up companies to Fortune 100 companies. You can accept checks
over the phone or Internet, handle credit card transactions online, transfer funds,
with http://www.paybyweb.com. This program uses live people; it is not an automated
system. Because they use people to verify your data instead of machines they can
often 'fix' an account where the banking information has been entered incorrectly.
They do credit card processing, check processing, and electronic funds transfers.
You can do all your banking using your computer, phone, notebook computer, cell
phone, or fax. There are no monthly fees, transaction fees, or recurring charges.
Assess the added value resulting from this analysis by: Monitoring
your company's competition in the search engines or directory listings, the number
of links they have pointing back to their Web site or what their business reputation
is in the usenet/newsgroup community, as well as yours, and the number of third
party links pointing back to yourWeb site. You can use tools such as LinkBank
at http://webpronews.com/rd/smithrenaud.html. This enables you to understand how
to maximise your marketing dollars by learning where you need more of an online
presence. The alternative to this program is to do the monitoring by hand, which
is time consuming but worth the effort - if you have lots of time. Do others'
sites trade links with yours? Spy-BOT, a reciprocal link tracker will check those
sites linking to yours. Spy-BOT is affiliated with The DevWeb. Targeting
a niche market: Because you can't be everything to everybody, to be successful
on the Web you normally have to have very specific products or services that target
a niche market. Your site must be as personal as possible, as if you're face-to-face
with a customer. Visitors should get the idea that your site is the premier source
of ideas and information on whatever your web site specialty. What aspects
of a competitor's online activity should a company concentrate in order to gain
the most benefit? One opinion has it that because general presentation is
foremost, you must avoid those ads that mention 'free Web space'; that you'll
give away more business to the advertisers that the hosting company will post
all over your Web page than it would cost you to pay for Web hosting; that these
ads are designed to give your visitor an opportunity to click out of your site
before getting the first words of your presentation, because they are usually
placed at the top of the site. Free hosting services sometimes become over-crowded
so that half the time your Web site won't come up. When this happens, your business
is closed. Bravenet free Web hosting is listed first on the list of top ten free
Web hosts, is reliable, the banner is unobtrusive, and they offer a shortened
URL subdomain. This is all recognized by Google and the other top search engines.
At the least, this is very good for starting out. Another good free Web host is
Tripod, as well as GeoCities, and these are given high priority with Google, the
top-rated search engine. It is generally believed that with your own hosting
and domain name, your visitors have more confidence in you and are more willing
to do business with you. This has to be a personal choice. How are companies
already analyzing competition online? By examining sales copy and headlines,
by how quickly pages are displayed with a variety of modems and how they look
in different browsers; by checking the search engines for high placements; the
first impression of a business can make or a business. Ads must not be duplicates
of others but must be different - unique, to make real money; by discerning who
the business' affiliates are, and whether they offer products that meet the needs
of their potential customers; by determining whether the affiliates' products
are of high quality and whether they provide good customer service; by checking
with the Better Business Bureau; by checking a competitors' log files; and noting
who the sponsors are. One way to tell if a site isn't getting any advertisers
is to note how many banners advertise their own site. Either they aren't getting
anyone to buy their banner space, or the rates are so low it is more profitable
to advertise the company's own products. Possibility to find a complementary
service to partner with: Webrings allow Web users to link similar sites and
to form rings of sites on any topic of interest. Link to other sites like yours
to increase traffic to your site by joining a Web ring, such as http://dir.webring.yahoo.com/rw.
It is an alternative to the monopolistic and hierarchical nature of search engines,
providing an avenue for linking common Web-based interests. There are some
large ad networks that bring thousands of Web sites together. These are very attractive
to advertisers and big companies. TheAdStop.com can get you started, they include
how-to advice and a host of reviewed ad networks. ValueClick delivers ads to a
global audience, including over 30% of Internet users in the U.S. Banners range
over 10,200 sites before 14-million people. A large corporation may need
a more extensive campaign designed by an ad agency. Work with fellow marketers
by attending seminars and trade shows. Advertise on radio, TV shows, list with
a directory. Partner with an e-business consultancy such as E-marketing.com that
offers a wide range of strategic, design, technical and marketing skills. They
help you develop an e-business strategy, build digital brands, generate online
revenue and build personalized relationships with customers by e-mail campaigns
and viral marketing online ad campaigns. They help collect data about customers
and prospects related to their buying habits and Web behavior. This enables companies
to begin a dialogue with their customers in order to earn their loyalty and repeat-business.
Resources: "E-Marketing Digital Business Guide to Online Marketing" 93
Newman Street, Soho, London WIT 3EZ UK
info@e-marketing (8 Jul. 2001)
Flanagan, Debbie "Researching Companies on the Internet-A Tutorial"
6/11/01
http://home.sprintmail.com/~debflanagan/financial.html [1 Jul. 2001]
My
Simon "My Simon" http://www.mysimon.com [4 Jul. 2001]
Flanders, Vincent
"Web Pages That Suck" (4 Jul. 2001)
Flanders, Vincent "Fixing Your Web Site"
http://www.fixingyourwebsite.com/ top10/intranet.html [4 Jul. 2001]
Arnold,
Tom "An Electronic Citadel" 5/01 www.siia.net/sharedcontent/divisions/ebus/citadel.pdf
[1 Jul. 2001]
Sterne, Jim "Target Marketing of Santa Barbara" 3d Edition
http://www.targetingcom/book1chap1-3.html [4 Jul. 2001]
Dr. Wilson, Ralph
"Web Marketing Today" Issue 27 http://www.wilsonweb.com 1/6/97 [7/7/2001]
Stamford, CT. Research "The e-business consulting market evolves: Buyer beware"
www.techrepublic.com/articl.jhtml?id=r00720010704ggp01.htm [4 Jul. 2001]
PromotionStat System "General Information" www.promotionstat.com/whati_sinfo.shtml
[4 Jul. 2001]
Weiss, David "Welcome to Paybyweb.com" 01/15/01 http://www.paybyweb.com
[4 Jul. 2001]
http://www.link-spy.com (4 Jul. 2001) The Dev Web http://www.thedevweb.com
[4 Jul. 2001]
http://webpronews.com/rd/smithrenaud.html [4 Jul. 2001] "Image
Cafe" http://imagecafe.com [7 Jul. 2001]
Purdue, Candice "Web Design Weekly"
Online Success Internet Business 115 Chesterfield Hwy Cheraw SC 29520 support@onlinesuccesstips.com
[8 Jul. 2001]
Heywood, Pamela http://www.iboost.com/index.html [8 Jul. 2001]
Elmer, Greg "Web Rings As Computer-Mediated Communication" CMC Magazine [Jan 1999]
http://www.december.com/cmc/mg/1999/jan/e/mer.html [8 Jul. 2001]
Nunley,
Kevin "iBoost Journal" http://www.iboost.com/profit/advertising/getting_started/3007.htm
[8 Jul. 2001]
"eMarketing Association" http://www.emarketingassociations.com/benefits.htm
[7/8/01] By Margot B
mailto:margotb@margotbworldnews.com
Web site: http://margotbworldnews.comBACK
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