Benchmarking - Comparing different websites

[Whity349]

Hi,

I'm looking to benchmark our company website with a bunch of our competitors' sites.

I plane to compare things like: Usability (Ease of use, navigation,...)
Look and feel
Content Analysis (Compare and contrast the content modules)
Search engine positioning
Number of inbound links
Download speedsHas anyone done a benchmark like this before? Any suggestions you could make?

What I'm really looking for is a company that has experience in benchmarks like this, as we would prefer to outsource this job.

Thanks.

[Blue Cat Buxton]

I have looked at this in the past for companies I have worked for.

The question that you need to get straight before drawing up your comparison criteria is what do you hope to achieve.

The danger is that you do a lot of research (or pay for it) only to be told something that you know already, particularly as many of the criteria will be subjective.

If the outcome is that you want a new design for the website, I would reccomend that your outsourcing company have some ongoing incentive to achive positive results from your current base starting point (and that they possibly back end some of the fee for the initial research)

[Chris]

Its easy to do links/search engine rankings/and download speeds.

Alexa.com records download speeds.

You can check ranks just by using search engines, or with a tool like digitalpoint.com's free keyword rank checker.

Inbound links can be checked the same was as keyword ranks.

The other fields are all subjective so the best way to check them would be to pay an expert for their opinion -- keep in mind though that even an expert's opinion is still an opinion.

[Whity349]

Hi Blue Cat Buxton and Chris,

Thanks for the speedy and useful replies.

Blue Cat Buxton, you are right. Although it seems trivial to clearly state what you want to achieve from the benchmarking, I haven't actually don't that yet. Thanks for pointing that out.

Should anyone have any more suggestions, please let us know.

Thanks again.