If you want to stand out in the market andrun a successful business, you’ll need to findout who your competitors are. Good competitive research is key to thrivingin this rapidly-changing business world and achieving better sustainable growthfor your brand.

In this thread,we’ll go through the exact roadmap you need to follow to accurately identify who your competitors are. We will alsohave a quick breakthrough of some state-of-the-art tools to help you conduct apractical competitive analysis.

Who are Your Competitors?

You’ve decided to conduct a competitiveanalysis for your business, but you are like, “how to find my competitors.” First, you need to understand who yourcompetitors are to answer that question. Competitors can be of different types:

●    Direct competitors are your maincompetitors who target the same audience and market similar products/servicesto yours, e.g., Coke and Pepsi.

●    Indirect competitors: this kind ofcompetition may not offer the same kind of service but may address the sametarget market. E.g., Coke and Water, water isn’t a direct competitor to Coke,but thirsty people may decide between these two.

●    New Entrants are businesses that arenewly entering the market offering the same products as you.

Although allthese competitors are essential to keep in mind, the direct competitors willgive you the most formidable competition as they are already well-established.So, beating them should be your main priority.

Why Identify and Monitor Your Competitors?

When starting a business, it’s crucial to find out who your competitors are.Since competition is higher than ever, you need to distinguish yourself fromother businesses in the market. By identifying and monitoring your competitors,you can find out opportunities and market gaps and address customer needsbetter, gaining a competitive edge over your competition.

With efficient,competitive analysis, you’ll know your competitor’s weaknesses which you canuse to counter them by making better products that serve customers’ needs andstand out in the market.

Know Your Competitors and Win Their Customers

When you have ananswer to “how to find my competitors,” you can start driving customers toyour business. Businesses constantly compete for a larger market share, butcustomers will choose the one that best suits their needs.

It’s essential toknow your competitors to win their customers. It is because you and yourcompetition share the same interests, target the same audience, and try to gainan advantage over the other.

Being aware ofyour competitors will help you win customers by

●    Identifying the needs of yourtarget audience so you can cater your products to them

●    Understanding your competitor'sbusiness strategy, so you know what works and what doesn’t.

●    Knowing what terms they rankfor or how much they charge so you can counter them by targeting the exactkeywords or charging lower prices to quote a better offer in the market.

How to Find Out Who YourCompetitors Are?

When unmaskingand dominating your competitors, youshould first focus on your direct competitors. Having a good idea of theproduct or service you offer will already expose a lot of competitors for you.For example, if you are running a coffee shop, then all other local coffeeshops will be in direct competition with you.

But, if it werethat easy, businesses wouldn’t spend thousands of dollars on research. To find out who your competitors are, you’llneed to have a clear idea of your industry. Taking our coffee shop example, letit be known that the other local coffee shops are not your ONLY competitors.

There will alsobe other indirect competitors, such as companies selling energy drinks. Both ofthese may address the exact needs of the customers. They both energize a personand make them more alert, so energy drinks, in certain situations, may alsocompete with coffee.

Here are someother ways you can find out who yourcompetitors are:

●    Conduct solid market research - Otherthan blindly guessing who your competition may be, it’s better to conductdetailed market research. You can do this by investing in an experiencedmarketing team that could give you details on your industry, or if you plan ongoing solo, you can use some tools that we’ll discuss later below. You canconduct market research on various levels to better understand your audience,their pain points, and the most effective solutions they would be eager toinvest in.

●    Gather customer feedback - First-hand,original data will always be more beneficial to you. If you have existing customersto your business, you can ask them directly why they choose you, and if thereare any other substitutes. Asking questions or carrying out surveys can helpyou identify competitors you may have never heard of. Always consider taking itfrom the customer’s point of view!

●    Check out online forums and communities- No matter which industry you operate in, there’s a high chance your potentialcustomers will be hanging out online. Exploring online communities such asQuora or Reddit will give you a glimpse into the mind of your target market.You can look at their conversations, products, or businesses they recommend forpeople to buy. The companies getting recommended are your competitors.

●    Take a look at your competitor’s PPC campaigns - Google Adwords has a great feature that allows you to see whichbusinesses are paying to rank for keywords similar to yours. Identifying thesecompanies can help you know who your competitors are. Some of these companiesmight be the ones you don’t know. So, this method helps you identify newentrants in the market and counter them before they outgrow you. Soundsexciting, right?

●    Carry out extensive keyword research -If you plan on running an Amazon FBA business or eCommerce store, your onlinereputation matters a lot. The key to standing out online is to target keywordsyour competitors are ranked at. In this way, you can run PPC campaigns oroptimize your site to drive more organic traffic to your business and remaincompetitive by outranking your online competition.

Although all theabove-mentioned points give you a fair idea of finding your competitors, it canget tedious to do all this manually. A better way to find out who yourcompetitors are is to use market research tools and tricks, to easily identifyyour competitors, understand their strategies, and leverage them to skyrocketyour business growth.

Tactics & Tools toIdentify Your Competitors.

You know how to assess the competition inyour industry, but you still may ask, “howto find my competitors.” Beloware some tactics and tools you can use to identify your competitors:

Google Search

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The first and most obvious way to find yourcompetitors is to search your product or service on Google. Sounds mainstream?Never underestimate the 0.3 watt-hours power of One straightforward Googlesearch. It gives you a list of businesses targeting the same market, makingsimilar products, and offering matching benefits.

Google SERPs arealso filled with valuable business info such as online reviews, images, FAQs,and the location of the business. It helps you identify customer needs, competitors’weaknesses, and opportunities for your business.

Semrush

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Semrush is one of the best SEO tools todiscover keywords, carry out competitive analysis, and outrank yourcompetitors. Use Semrush to identify which result-oriented keywords yourcompetitors employ, which keywords you can easily rank at, and find out keywordgaps that can help you pounce on your competition.

Spyfu

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Spyfu is an excellent tool to spy on yourcompetitors. Just insert your competitor's name, and you’ll find out everyplace they have been mentioned in Google, from PPC campaigns to organicpositioning. You can then use this info to monitor your competition’sfootprints and plan accordingly to position your business better.

Similar Web

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With the Similar web,you can effortlessly analyze an industry's competitiveness. It achieves it byscanning top competitors and providing valuable insights like traffic level,SERP rankings, and user metrics.

By opting forSimilar web, you can access all the details you need to create a fool-proofbusiness strategy against your competitors.

STAT

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STAT is a rank tracking tool made by Moz. Youcan use it to track and monitor your website performance to see where you standon the search engine result pages, how well you’re performing against yourcompetitors, and how to improve your business strategy.

You can evenimplement it on a large scale for multiple businesses. All you have to do ischoose the list of targeted keywords and let STAT scan your site. After that,the tool will constantly monitor your movement on the SERPs and send youregular updates.

Utilizing thesetools, you can conduct a better competitive analysis by finding out yourcompetitors, monitoring them, and ultimately outperforming them. You can useInsights from these tools in multiple ways to benefit your business. Itincludes helping you carry out effective A/B testing, experiment with differentbusiness strategies, and adjust your marketing to better target your audience.

How Can Hide Imports Save You FromYour Competitors?

By the end of this write-up, you know howto find your competitors, but you should also be aware of your competitorstaking advantage of this information AGAINST YOU.

Your competitors are constantly scanningfor other businesses in the industry so they can dominate them. And you are oneof them too!

To keep your businesssecure, you need to hide your business details, especially your import/exportinfo, as this valuable piece of info can easily give your competitors anadvantage.

With Hide Import, you can effortlessly hideyour import/export data and keep your business thriving.

Are you ready to secureyour business against notorious sites keeping an eye on your progress? ConsiderHide Imports!