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5 Design Tips You Can Swipe from the Websites of Your Greatest Competitors
Rather, borrow from them!
While it’s never a good idea to blatantly copy what your competition is doing, it’s only smart to study them so you can avoid making the same mistakes. Here are five things to look for on the websites of your rivals:
Is the site up-to-date?
There’s nothing worse than a website with coupons from 2018, a calendar from 2019, and photos from the turn of the century. If an outdated site looks tacky to you, it looks just as bad to potential customers or clients. You don’t want to be that website!
How easy is the site to navigate?
Try using their site as a customer might. Is it hard to find your way around? Are there Calls To Action and helpful reminders to keep you on track to taking action? Check reviews on Facebook and Google My Business for navigation complaints. Then go and do what they neglected to do!
What’s missing from their websites?
It may be hard to anticipate all the possibilities for your own site, but a perusal of your competitors’ websites can get your creative juices flowing. Poke around. Is there anything you wish you could do on those sites? Compare several websites and take notes to keep your site from making the same omissions.
How does your current site compare?
If up until now you’ve been updating your site on your own, it could be time to take it to the next level. Your website may have served you well, but is it still holding its own compared to the competition? Consider taking advantage of professional web designers and management teams.
What did your competition do really well?
I’m not saying to go out and mirror the competition, but you should certainly let yourself be inspired by incredible design, creative graphics, and clever systems. If they are offering tools that customers love or processes that make it super easy to work with them, figure out how your website can do something similar – or even better!
It’s easy to get tunnel vision when you are only focusing on your own business. Instead of struggling to come up with innovations for your website, research your competition and pull out the best ideas. As a bonus, having visuals of what you liked and didn’t like on each site makes it super easy for your web designer to understand what you have in mind, saving you both a lot of time and effort. Once you’ve done some looking around, give us a call to discuss what you’ve found. Our team would love to help you turn all that inspiration into reality for you!
Photo by Andrea Piacquadio from Pexels
This article is an update to “5 Things Your Competitors Can Teach You About Website Design” dated 4/23/2014.
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Breanne Bannon
Breanne is a Content Writer, Social Media Marketeer, and Sales Associate for Sprocket Websites.
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