Industry & Competitive Website Review
This is where I look at websites of competitors. I look at sites that my client perceives as the competition and I also research other websites that may also be “invisible” to my client. I also want to look at related sites and industries such as plastic surgeons, optical centers, etc.
I look at the competitors pointed out to me by my client. It’s a small list of only four local competitors. I also decide to do a Google search on “eye surgery doctor” and look at:
- Every site listed in the natural/organic search results in the first 20 Google pages, about 200 sites
- Every site that appears as a sponsored link in the first 3 Google pages
- Every site that appears under “more sponsored links” at the end of page 3
I purposely do not specify the search to my locale or region because I want to see sites from all over the U.S. so I can see a lot of different messaging and creative.
In the sponsored section, I see many of the same regional or local providers I was already aware of but also see some that my client did not mention. This is important because I consider them to be local competitors even though my client does not. A local competitor like this can easily be skimming local leads off the internet, especially if they have a passable website. My client’s website is so bad, it’s almost embarrassing.
I review the websites and categorize them as follows:
- Bad – After I look at about 20 sites, I stop saving the “Bad” ones because they are so awful I can’t imagine why I even want to save them or why they are still up on the internet at all. They look shabby and unprofessional. My thinking is that any eye surgery doctor will be negatively affected by such a site. If the site looks unprofessional, how professional can the doctor be?
- Passable – Most of the websites I look at fall into this area. Along the way, I create the following sub-categories:
- Redundant Templates – These are the sites that look almost exactly the same because the eye center invested in a “template” you can buy online; these are highly affordable which is why so many websites look the same. The problem with these kinds of templates is that after they are on the market for a year or so you end up with a lot of websites that look the same. For businesses, it is hard to distinguish yourself from the competition if your competitor looks the same as you do and says the same things as you do. (By buying templates, businesses actually take part in diluting their own brands.)
- People-centric – These are sites that look like the main focus is people
- Tech-centric – These are sites that look like the main focus is technology
- Sports-centric – These are sites that are going after a specific marketing niche: Eye Surgery for professional athletes or sports enthusiasts.
- Schizophrenic - These are sites that have so many messages, images and/or animations that there is no focal point to the site nor is it clear what the main focus is.
- Price-centric – These are sites in which the most prominent thing on the site is a price/offer
- Dr is the brand – These are sites in which the Dr is the brand instead of the name of the eye center
- Great Sites – Only four sites ended up in my “Great” sites folder which means I have to go back through the “Passable” sites to find some that stand out to make a top 10 list. Also, I didn’t find any one site that I thought did everything “right” from an internet marketing perspective. However, since my goal is to convince my client that his site looks pretty bad, I want to create a top 10 list that is well-rounded and has all different kinds of websites that, together, illuminate all the elements that create Visual Value.
