Welcome to another episode of Silence is Golden where Troy and Simon give away invaluable tips for your business. This week though, Simon is all on his lonesome whilst Troy speaks at a webinar about our Blueprint course which is now open for the next intake.
Today’s main topic is how to do competitor research for WordPress projects and how you can give this as a value-add to your client. Simon also talks about GDPR, Adobe XD and WordPress turns 15! Let's dive in!
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Stuff That Happened
GDP-ARmageddon
Tired of seeing emails in your inbox about privacy policy updates? Simon’s standpoint on this is to wait until everyone has solved it and then figure it out from there! Troy's advice is to get in touch with a lawyer if you are unsure about what to do. There is also a Facebook group you can join run by a lawyer Suzanne Dible – GDPR for Online Entrepreneurs (UK, US, CA and AU.) If you sign up to her lead magnet, there are a lot of free resources which are quite helpful.
Introducing Custom Field Integration For All Divi Email Providers Plus New GDPR Compliance Options
Elegant themes have released some GDPR compliance features including Divi and Bloom which basically combines custom fields with optins. This makes it easy to add GDPR compliance checkboxes, as well as create custom list segmentation and email autoresponders. Find out more in this post.
Adobe XD CC is Now Available for Free
Adobe has announced that XD CC (eXperience Design) is being released to the community as a free application. This article looks at why they are offering it for free and gives us a sneak peek at some of the features. Check it out.
Simon uses Sketch and wants to know if you have tried both and what the comparisons are. Do you think it is going to be the flagship product? Let us know in the comments below.
The First Release of WordPress Turns 15 Years Old
Last Sunday the 27th May was the 15th anniversary of the first release of WordPress. Users are celebrating the occasion across the world with huge cakes, cupcakes, memorable photos, parties, and meetups. Get the highlights from WPTavern.
Blueprint Intake Now Open
We crossed live to the webinar with Troy where is chatting with some people from the WordPress community about our Blueprint program. The program identifies where you want to go and allows you to get super clear on your sweet spot and you come away with a game plan to get you there.
Join us at Agency Mavericks, go through the course and build your business and a recurring revenue so that you can earn the income that you want. One of the best parts of the program is the membership community where you will stay up to date with all the latest, get help when you need it or have the opportunity to help others.
This Pisses Me Off
This week Simon says that he is actually pissing himself off! He has an addiction to learning different apps and trying different tools. He says he needs to find the balance between getting tools to save him time vs getting so distracted by them that they waste his time! Hmm.. this is a hard one because we all love shiny new objects and we love hearing about them from Simon.
Let’s Get Unstuck
We asked the Facebook community what they would like to know about competitor research and one of our WPE coaches Cath said:
You know what would be great, somehow identifying how much some of the services competitors sites cost. For instance being able to reason a certain site is hosted on WP engine as opposed to Bluehost might give them some appreciation as to how much of a disparity there is between what they hope to achieve and the cost of actually achieving it.
Well actually Cath, this leads us to the Gold Nugget.
The Golden Nugget
Why Is Important to Do Competitor Research for Your Clients?
Simon started doing competitor research for his clients 4 or 5 years ago. However, he did this just for his own knowledge. He now does a more in-depth analysis using a variety of tools to get the key information and delivers a document to the client.
Some of the key points that you want your client to know are:
- An indication of how much their competitors are spending
- What tools and software they’re using
- Whether they are spending money on ads
Benefits
- This will then debunk the myth that the client doesn’t need to spend much to get where their competitors are
- It gives them a better strategy and you can potentially sell them other services
The Deliverable
At the end of the process, Simon delivers a document which he goes through with the client.
What to include:
- How the search engine results look for their keywords. Put the keyword in Google and take a screenshot so they can see what their competitors look like
- An investigation of a few competitors and break it down into different components in a table
To see an example of one of Simon's reports, click on this Google document.
Tools to Help You Get Competitor Information
- Simon uses the free version of SEMRush to enter the client’s top keyword and pull up a list of the companies who are ranking best for that.
- Moz to look at open site explorer to look at links and backlinks.
- SEO META in 1 CLICK to find out the site meta title and description which you can copy and paste in.
- To find out what tech they’re using: BuiltWith or WhatRuns Chrome extension.
Note: Don't include all of the tech stuff that the competitor is using as it will bore your client! Give them the key things that will help to advise them on strategy. - Am I Responsive to find out if it is mobile responsive
Tool of the Week
This week, Simon gives away his competitor research template. Take it, duplicate it and run through the process. Delete the parts you’re not comfortable talking about with the client as well. You can use it as a value-add and to take to meetings or you can charge for it. It's a great way to get off on the right foot with a client.
Some other helpful tools you can use to help with competitor research:
- My Web Audit
- Simon's process document for competitor research
Wrap Up
That's it for this week's show. Don't forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel and click on the “Notifications” bell so you will know when our new tutorials and shows get published.
