Posted on July 8th, 2010As you evaluate a few competitor sites, look carefully at the content shown and discuss with the client to ensure that your site includes all the necessary contents. If you’re building Web site for an Italian restaurant, you might need to include some unique sections, for example Restaurant Information, Map to the Restaurant, Awards and Press Releases, Visitor Comments, Specialties, and maybe Dine-In Coupons offers. Here are a few questions you might need to ask yourself when examining competitors’ sites:
1 Can you figure out where the target audience is located: in the city, in the suburbs, in the countryside?
2 What kinds of graphic and photographic images appeal to their market segment?
3 Do competitors’ sites use unique colors to entice to their target audience?
4 What’s their preferred age group: Kids? Teens? Seniors?
5 Does the market segment have any particular group interests or hobbies, like being a musician, sports fan, avid reader, gamer, or artist?
6 Can you determine what kinds of religious, ethical, and political values the audience could have?
7 Can you recognize any specific needs and wants of the target audience?
Look closer at Web site details, for example photographs, shapes, fonts, colors, and other design objects that are repeatedly used on competitors’ sites. When you understand what everyone else is doing, you may decide whether you should follow suit or make something unique in an interesting way. If you are developing a Web site for a financial company, for example, and you notice that nearly all the competitors use dark blue as the primary color and carnelian as the secondary color, you should consider using different color set for your design, for example cerulean and vermilion.
Also look for marketing messages the site uses to sell its products and services. These messages usually shed revealing light on the visitor’s habits, buying preferences, likes, and dislikes. Even when the client provides you with all kinds of the content before you start the design phase of a web development project, you should still do keyword reviews of the competition to make sure that the client hasn’t forgotten to add anything that could make the Web site more appealing to visitors. This research may also help you to draw conclusions in regard to design and layout so that your site may stand out from the crowd. Other great resources for collecting market research on certain business or topic are the industry-related organizations and associations, and also government agencies. To find Web sites of these groups, you need to enter keyword on search engine terms like “Construction Association of America,” “American Construction Association,” or “Association of Construction of America.”
Also, try searching for long-tail keywords for example if you are trying to search for web design, you must also check out the results for web design company. Also if you need to find a local result try searching with the city name included eg: web design london
When you are done with your research, arrange information into ordered categories and summarize them into some definition-packed words. For instance, if you do keyword searches on a new Web site you will be designing for a construction company based in Oakland, you might find that many other construction Web sites favor using earth tones, blue, white, and black for their site designs; display lots of photographs of their previous construction projects; and direct their services to companies and moneyed individuals. With this important information, you should write out a series of words that should influence the site development “Black, white, earth tones, and blue; clean, linear layouts; and; companies and wealthy individuals that should be wowed with photographs of sturdy and beautiful buildings”
You may then use this summary to help you in both identifying the concept of an ideal site and coming up with simple designs that will appeal emotionally and visually for your visitors. After you complete this phase, you can quickly create a visual mock up for the site.