It’s 10am. Your boss just asked you to present a report to stakeholders on your major competitors and their performance in the online space….

…this afternoon. Now what?

Assuming you already have a baseline idea of what your competition is up to, here are some techniques for a quick and dirty analysis.

First, make your list.
Consider the longstanding players but don’t be afraid to throw in a small or up-and-comer for bonus points. Often these guys are the ones doing original or quirky things you could learn from.

Second, browse the sites.
This is a quick visual evaluation – look through their websites, while asking these questions to compare to your own site:

1. What is the overall tone and image?
2. What functionality and content/products are highlighted on the home page and in the menus?
3. What wording or industry terminology are they using in the copy and navigation?

This will give you a peek into your competitors’ online strategy. Where you differ are opportunities for consideration, to ask whether different approaches might bring an advantage (it helps to pretend you are a customer, and be truthful in your scrutiny).

Third, use the sites.
Once you’ve browsed the sites, use them. Fill out forms, try the shopping cart, join the community, test widgets and other functionality. Evaluate their messaging, responses (and response time), read some content, navigate deep into the menus and try to get back out. This is invaluable research into what works – and what doesn’t – both of which you can use to your advantage.

Other things you should look for include slow download times and poor browser compatibility, as both could be turning away potential customers.

(On the latter, you can download different browsers – say IE 7, Firefox, Safari and Chrome, on PC and Mac if at all possible – and then view the sites, or use a service such as Browsershots.org (though this will only provide rough guide screenshots).

Fourth, rank the sites.
Look how visible their websites are in the search rankings and on social media. Do their websites rank higher than your own on high-value keywords? Are more people liking, sharing, and talking about your brand or theirs?

These questions reveal a lot but could take hours to research, so here are some tools to use:

1. Google Rankings – to compare visibility on keywords and search terms
2. Link:http://www.yourcompetition.com – type this into a search engine and you’ll get a list of backlinks (all the web pages linking to it)
3. Compete.com – competitive metrics powered by a large pool of online consumer behavior data

(Note: What can you do with the backlink information? Contact the websites if appropriate and see if they might link to you instead of your competition!)

Fifth, prepare your report.
By now your analysis should be relatively simple to compile as it answers these questions:

–      How easy (or difficult) your competitors’ websites are to find online
–      How easy their sites are to use, and what functionally or content they have that is useful
–      What they are trying to communicate
–      What they might be doing to turn potential customers away

Sixth, impress your boss!
Regular competitive analysis should be an ongoing, budgeted part of any marketing strategy. For more on SEO’s effect on competitive rankings, read this FAQ from Single Entry Point.