For anyone trying to grow a business, one of the first tasks is to map the competitive landscape. With a good understanding of the competition facing your company, you'll be able to spot and exploit opportunities as they develop. Competitive Analysis should help you draw and refine your plan, beginning with your earliest efforts to chart your new venture and continuing for as long as you stay.

Do you know your competition and how their web site ranks? With a competitive web site analysis, find out how to stay ahead and beat the competition. These are some points that are relevant to competitive analysis

• How well designed is your website for your visitors and how does it compare for my competitor?
• How well designed for the search engine crawlers who index the content for keyword ranking purposes?
• Can your search engine visitors find your site easily and how does this compare for my competitors?
• How popular are my competitor websites?
• What are the strengths and weaknesses, opportunities and threats to my website success?

The primary benefits of any competitive analysis are a better understanding of what your competitors are doing, what they are offering to customers, and how to maintain your competitive advantage. The findings from this analysis are likely to factor strongly into your own company’s strategic planning. Another benefit of competitive analysis involves expanding the knowledge base of those working on your website or web application. The analysis offers information about content and functionality that they have probably not considered. Exploring competitor websites offers the opportunity to discover what is working well for them, as well as what is commonly being offered via the Web.

Every industry has its own version of the competitive analysis and its function is to line up your product with other products and show where yours falls short and where yours is superior.