Analyzing The Competition
Competition is inevitable, you are unlikely to find a completely untapped sales market on the internet. Analyzing competing sites is an important part of choosing your product / service. Within reason, don’t be afraid to compete with other internet retailers – you need to learn from your competitors, you have to strive to be better than they are, build a better site than theirs’, copy there ideas being careful to individualize them and make them better.
Competition generally means there is a market for that product or service and you will get your share of sales based on the professional effort and hard work you put in.
An indication of the size of the on-line market for a particular product or service can be established by carrying out internet searches using Google or Yahoo. A fair indication of the amount of competition will be evident by the quantity of PPC / CPC (Pay-Per-Click / Cost-Per-Click) adverts there are for popular keyword expressions within that market.
Analyzing the competition sites prior to choosing your product will give you some idea of the work you will need to put in to create a comparable (but better) internet presence. Going on to create a competitive edge is discussed in detail later on in the publication.