Competitive Analysis Purpose

Conducting a competitive analysis is an important part of the job if you're a usability engineer or information architect. A good competitive analysis not only produces usability metrics but also aids decision makers in their strategic goal-setting and planning. Done right, a good competitive analysis can steer a Web development project in the right direction.

Who is the competition?

It's very likely that you'll be given a list of competitors. Every company that has a handle on their market space knows who the competition is. And just about every company has a list of companies on their target list -- that special subset of companies that they want to beat soundly in the marketplace.

Regardless, the list you get will likely be incomplete. You will want to check the search engines (Google, Yahoo, and MSN) for product keywords and make of list of the top 10 companies. Include both Pay Per Click (AdSense - PPC) and Organic Search results.

Along with a list of competitors, you will get a list of items that the company will want you to focus on, or at least, a list of items they want to do better than the competition. You should also consider usability standards and content.

If the company you're doing the analysis for doesn't know who the competition is, then you'll need to do some sleuthing. Find out the company's Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) code and then look up other companies in that same category. Try to find out what the company is striving to achieve with their own Web offering and match targets appropriately. Some relevant criteria for determining worthy adversaries are geographic location, total revenues, total profits, and strong branding.

If you're the one drawing up the list, always check with someone at the company who is in-the-know (usually someone in marketing or business development). This can save you lots of pain and heartache later, and could also save your credibility when you deliver the results of your work.