"I’ve always been interested in invisible worlds, and I like to visit digital worlds, you know, any world that’s imposed on us."
What would be the basis of any business in the field of digital marketing? You're right, that would definitely represent market research and analysis of the competition itself, as well as its presence.
But what do we need to explore these things? Different types of SEO and other tools, in the first place. Did you know that using them is available to everyone? But do we all know how to use them properly? And from where to start? What to look for? You'll learn right here...
Understanding market research and competitive analysis and the ability to use certain tools will determine the path and the future of your own online business results.
It is clear to us that your end result is probably to rank better on the Internet, increase sales of services or products, as well as to develop your online business in the desired direction.
Let's see what exactly online market research means. What are the important phrases and words (keywords) for your business? It is clear to you that this is how users find you online, right? When we analyze these items, we come to the conclusion what is its average monthly demand. Of course, in such an analysis, it is necessary to look back too and take a look at how many searches were related to certain keywords in the past 12 months. Were there any major oscillations? In what time period did that happen?
If your business is directed towards a narrower marketing niche, it is possible to see all the key phrases and words in this very first phase of research, and thus direct the business in the desired direction. But, if your business is bigger, and you offer more products and services, we first do a more extensive or rougher analysis. In a broader analysis, the most important goal is to make submissions, that is, to determine business priorities by size and importance, as well as by their direction.
What are your business goals? This is important because it prioritizes key phrases and words. What is their convertibility? Convertibility is the strength or ability of a particular keyword to "convert" a user into your customer of a product or service. Therefore, this is the next task that is performed after defining the key terms.
We came to the third task, and that would be to look at the competition and their strength. This is the part where we have to decide on our online business priorities...
Even the best product in the world cannot be successfully presented and sold if we don't know the laws of online marketing, but also the struggles on the Internet market itself. For this reason, it is most important to analyze the competition in the right way.
"Keep your friends close and your enemies even closer" sounds good for this task. Of course, don't think of your competition as enemies, but definitely "keep an eye on them."
It is clear to us that online competition differs in many ways from market competition in the physical world. Why? Think about the niche of your business. Do you already know who is first on Google in that niche? You probably know, but what you don't know is that you are not only competing here with those who place a similar product or service, but also with various blogs, portals, and even forums based on your area. Sounds like a lot of competition, right?
But you are competing with them for only one reason - the same keywords that users use to search online! We come to the same thing we were talking about at the beginning of this article - SEO position.
Our idea is to look at the mentioned portals, blogs, and even forums through a different prism - use their existence to advertise on them! You can also create an online collaboration, and thus be more visible to new users.
Once we have gone through all that, the next step is to think about the competition that is able to spend a certain amount of money on online advertising and presence. How do we know how they do it? What is their plan? As mentioned earlier, different tools come into play here. With the help of these tools, it is possible to analyze such competitors in a certain way.
All right, now that we've learned all this, we want to single out the keywords and make the online business strategy in the right direction. Most important of all is to be realistic with yourself - what do you really want to achieve? Being the first on Google might not be your greatest success, or it would not bring you what you want to grow. How is that possible? Because you may lose too much money to achieve that, or too much energy, which would literally ''kill'' your business before you even win.
But let's simplify everything - think about the budget that you want to spend on online business. What is your orientation? Are you oriented exclusively toward fast results? These can be achieved through paid advertising.
Or have you decided to build your brand in a slower but safer way? In this case, you will use SEO techniques and strive for higher search engine rankings.
Know that none of these ways is better or worse by itself, but depends on your needs and capabilities.
Please don't think of the market and competitive analysis as another task that must be completed, but rather as something that will broaden your horizons, and improve and direct your business in a new, better direction.