Understanding what works in today’s online marketplace isn’t always easy. But you can gain insight into creating a successful design for your law firm’s website by looking at your competition.
Knowing how a competitive analysis affects your web design process gives you the resources and tools to get better results from your online marketing efforts.
What is a Competitive Analysis?
A competitive analysis is a critical step in any marketing strategy. In web design, your competitive analysis includes any tasks that evaluate the websites of your competitors.
Taking the time to perform a proper competitive analysis uncovers the strengths of other websites while avoiding the mistakes that will hurt your site’s performance.
Your analysis should include factors such as search rankings, keywords, target market, and the ways in which competitors are optimizing their website to achieve results.
Knowing Where to Look
Your law firm likely many competitors, and knowing where to look for your competitive analysis is a key factor in your web design strategy.
For law firms, local competitors may be the ideal choice to start with. But there are many others to consider as well.
Target keywords help you identify competitors who should be included in your analysis. Search for your law firm or target keywords to identify these competitors and analyze their websites.
Current and prospective clients may be aware of competitors that you have yet to discover.
Find out who else your target audience engages with when they look for legal services and resources similar to yours.
What to Include as Part of Your Competitive Analysis
The key elements to analyze when looking at your competitors’ websites depend on the needs and goals of your law firm.
Knowing the keywords that websites are targeting and for which they’re ranking helps build the foundation of your own web design strategy.
The amount of traffic that sites generate gives you insight into the overall performance of their online marketing strategies.
Look at the use of responsive web designs. How do competitors create a consistent brand experience for users on different devices?
The presence of a blog helps you determine a website’s ability to compete in the marketplace. Are your competitors blogging? If so, are their blogs current?
Blog post frequency, length, and engagement can be analyzed to determine how effective a competitor’s blog is at achieving their marketing goals.
The use of media should be analyzed. What images, videos, and infographics are being used? How can your law firm leverage these tools to provide compelling content that reaches a larger audience and converts prospects into paying clients?
Competitive Analysis Tools
There are tools available for your law firm to implement a comprehensive competitive analysis.
You can analyze a competitor’s PageRank using PR Checker. This gives you an understanding of how many potential prospects your competitors are reaching.
You can research the keywords that competitors are ranking by using Search Metrics and similar tools.
Google’s PageSpeed Insights lets you assess page loading speeds, which contributes to the user experience of a page as well as its ranking performance.
Your competitive analysis is essential to the web design process. The tools and strategies used by competitors affect your website’s design and can give you a competitive edge within your industry.
Let us know what factors you need to consider when analyzing your competition in the comments below. Include any questions you have regarding how to implement a competitive analysis.
Knowing how a competitive analysis affects your web design improves the performance of your website so that it generates more traffic, converts prospects into clients, and gives your law from greater visibility among your target audience.
