How to run a competitor website comparison

Pick the rivals and the pages before you look

Pick up to three sites a real customer might have open in the next tab while deciding whether to buy from you. Usually that is one direct rival at a similar size and price, one larger name customers measure everyone against, and one smaller or newer business doing something you keep noticing.

Then fix the pages you will review on every site. Your best product page against a rival's weakest tells you nothing. For an online shop, review:

• the homepage, as a first-time visitor sees it
• one main category or collection page
• two comparable product pages at a similar price
• the basket and the checkout, up to the point of payment
• the delivery, returns and contact pages

For a service firm, swap the product and checkout pages for the main service pages, the pricing or fees page if there is one, and the enquiry or booking route. The same pages, in the same order, on every site.

The eight categories and what to look at in each

An Intel loop scores these eight categories, and they work the same by hand. Each asks one question about how a site turns a visitor into a customer.

1. First impression

Can a stranger tell, from the top of the homepage, what you sell, who it is for and why they should choose you? Look at the headline, the hero image and the first call to action. Note whether the value proposition is specific (what, for whom, why you) or could belong to any business in the sector.

2. Navigation and discovery

Look at the menu, category structure, filters and site search. Try a search for a product or service by its common name and by a misspelling. Count how many clicks it takes to reach a product or service page from the homepage.

3. Product pages

Compare imagery, copy depth, whether reviews are shown, pricing clarity and the call to action. Check that delivery cost and returns information are visible before the basket. For services, look at whether the page explains the process, who does the work and what it costs or how it is priced.

4. Cart and checkout

Count the steps from basket to payment. Note whether guest checkout is offered or an account is forced, which payment options appear, and the step where the delivery cost first shows.

5. Trust signals

Reviews and how recent they are, guarantees, the returns policy, secure payment information, accreditations and a real contact address. Note where each appears, not only whether it exists somewhere on the site.

6. Mobile experience

Repeat the homepage, product and checkout steps on a phone. Look at layout, the size of buttons and links, whether pop-ups block the page and whether the checkout is comfortable to complete with a thumb.

7. Speed and basic SEO

Run each key page through PageSpeed Insights, then check page titles, meta descriptions and whether headings describe the content.

8. Promotions and retention

Look for offers, email sign-up and the incentive attached to it, loyalty or referral schemes, subscriptions and anything designed to bring a customer back.

Gathering evidence: screenshots, quotes and a PageSpeed run

Collect the evidence before you score anything. Without it, a score is an opinion.

• Screenshots. Capture each page on desktop and on a phone, full length where you can.
• Quotes. Copy the exact wording of headlines, delivery promises, returns terms and calls to action into a spreadsheet. A quoted line is harder to argue with than a summary.
• A PageSpeed run on each site. Run the same pages for all four sites through PageSpeed Insights. It reports lab data from a simulated test, which is useful for debugging, and field data from real Chrome users where enough exists, for mobile and desktop separately. Record which kind of data you are quoting.
• Notes on the journey. Write down anything you noticed while moving through the site: a pop-up that appeared twice, a delivery charge that only showed at the last step, a search that returned nothing.

Keep the evidence for each category together. When someone later asks why a rival scored higher on trust, you want to open one folder and show them.

Scoring 0 to 10 with the same standard

Score each site from 0 to 10 in each category. The number matters less than the consistency behind it, so write a short standard for each category before you start and apply it to every site, including your own.

A simple standard for checkout, for example:

• 0 to 3: forced account creation, delivery cost hidden until late, few payment options
• 4 to 6: guest checkout available, but extra steps or late surprises remain
• 7 to 8: short, clear, with delivery cost shown early and the common payment options
• 9 to 10: everything above, plus nothing you would change after trying it on a phone

Score your own site last, and be harder on it than on the others. Owners know where everything is, so they forgive things a new visitor would not. If two people can score independently and then compare, do that, and talk through any category where you differ by more than a couple of points.

Next to every score, write the one or two pieces of evidence that justify it. A score without evidence should not survive the review.

Public information only

Use only what any visitor can see.

• Do not log in to a rival's account area, use someone else's credentials or try to reach pages that are not meant to be public.
• Do not complete a purchase or a booking you do not intend to keep. Stop at the payment step.
• Do not click a rival's paid search or social ads to reach their landing pages. Each click costs them money. Use the ad libraries and transparency tools instead.
• If you use any automated tool to fetch pages, respect the site's robots.txt and keep the load light.

You cannot see a rival's conversion rate, traffic or ad performance from the outside. What you find is a set of observations and hypotheses to test, not proof of why one business sells more than another.

From scores to a short list of actions

Once all four sites are scored, put them side by side in one table: categories down the side, sites across the top. Look for the categories where you are furthest behind the best rival, and the ones where you lead.

For each gap, write a finding in one sentence that names the evidence: 'Rival A shows its delivery cost on every product page; we show ours at the last checkout step.' Then rate each finding low, medium or high on effort and on impact. Our guide to reading a comparison scorecard walks through that step in detail.

When to have it done for you

By hand, this is four sites, eight categories and one standard held steady to the last score. Most people drift by the fourth site. An Intel loop runs the same eight categories against up to three rivals you choose, quotes the evidence behind every score, rates each finding on effort and impact, and has a specialist check the findings before they are released. To start with your own site alone, run the free Insight Report.