Inside Knowledge On Your Competitors - June 25th, 2008
Any marketing manager or enthusiast will understand the importance of researching your market and competitors and with recent additions to Google Trends this task has become a little easier. Google trends have just introduced the capability to search for particular trends on individual websites. It is essentially a case of typing in a website url and the system then provides you with a wealth of information including visitor numbers, search data and visitors geographical location data.
At Just Search we particularly like the inclusion of site visitor numbers as this is something that our clients occasionally ask. Previously we were unable to give much information of this type but now we can use Google trends to give estimates. Our clients can then compare their visitor numbers against their competition. People can then see if they are achieving the relevant levels of traffic.
The other important feature which really interlinks with traffic levels is the visitor’s geographical location data. We can now look at competitors sites and see where there visitors are coming from. It maybe that a competitors site is gaining large levels of traffic from a location that has previously been overlooked. This could suggest that there is potential to expand into an emerging market.
The search data provided is also very useful as it gives you an insight into competitor keywords and the popularity of certain search terms. The update also allows users to compare several sites at once. So you could compare your site against three of your main competitors. The updates have really improved the trends service but there is one main drawback of the tool. That is that it relies on opt in services for some of its data. Like most tools we come across it should only be used as a guideline and the data should not be taken as gospel.
Mark
SEO Programmer
