Identifying your top competitors is an important part of building a successful business. In this article, we’ll cover the four steps you need to take to identify your top competitors online.
Step #1 Check organic search
To identify your primary competitors, start by examining the organic search results. Begin by searching for keywords that are relevant to your business using a search engine such as Google or Bing.
Use a search keyword that best describes your business. For example, for Spycrow, the keyword is “competitive analysis software”.
Next, analyze the websites that appear on the first page of search results. These websites are likely targeting your audience and can be categorized into one of three types:
- Listing your competitors
- Serving as your direct competitors
- Presenting information to your competitors (media websites)
Once you have identified your top competitors from the organic search results, create a list and move on to step #2.
Step #2 Check paid search
Record the companies featured in the search engine ads using the query from step #1. These businesses are typically your direct competitors, as media and listing websites seldom utilize PPC traffic.
Be certain to view the results for your target market country. If you’re seeking competitors in the United States, ensure that your IP address is from that country. Otherwise, you may come across competitors from other unrelated markets.
Step#3 Discard indirect competitors
After compiling a sizable list, it’s necessary to eliminate indirect and insignificant competitors. We can achieve this by examining their websites and determining whether they offer comparable products or services. If they do not, then they are considered indirect competitors (or perhaps not competitors at all), and we can remove them from the list.
To determine the most noteworthy competitors, we must gather additional information regarding their traffic and market share. This data can be obtained using a competitor intelligence platform such as Spycrow. In fact, with Spycrow, you can bypass this entire process and request a competitor list based on all the steps mentioned above. It’s entirely free and only necessitates a quick signup on the platform.
Now what?
Congratulations! You now have a comprehensive list of your competitors. The subsequent step is to conduct a competitive analysis to shed light on their strengths and weaknesses.
To learn more about conducting a thorough analysis, refer to the Competitor Analysis Guide for SaaS [2023]