Competitive Web Benchmark

The Competitive Web Benchmark provides pragmatic advice about how to:

1. Understand why your Web site may drive viewers straight to your competitors, and how to serve prospects and customers so they stay on your site.
2. Discover and align with the Web site features used by your competitors.
3. Apply usability and online marketing best practices to differentiate you from your online competitors.

How the Competitive Web Benchmark Works
Effbis analysts use an objective approach to rate site effectiveness, using hundreds of usability best practices and site effectiveness criterions derived from our research, professional standards, and case studies. These principles are categorized into reference sets such as:

• Home Page Effectiveness and Usability: The home page must pull in your prospects and clients and help them discover your services and products.
• Site Effectiveness and Usability: Visitors must be able to achieve their goals once they begin to navigate your site.

These first two principles form the foundation of any successful Web site. Depending on your business focus and site objectives, other Competitive Web Benchmark reference sets can be included, such as:

• Online Marketing and Search-Engine Optimization (SEO) Effectiveness: Measure how well your Web pages are optimized for search engines.
• Company and General Information: Do you provide the information and site features required by job seekers, financial analysts, prospects, clients and partners?
• Online Transactions: Is your pre-sales, online ordering and post-sales transaction process optimized to reduce abandon ratio and maximize cross- and up-selling opportunities?
• Account Management: Do you provide the features your site visitors expect, so they can effectively manage their online accounts?

Effbis applies industry-adapted reference sets to measure site effectiveness for industries such as finance, IT, tourism, e-commerce, health and pharmaceutical, insurance, and many more.

Effbis makes actionable recommendations for site effectiveness based on an analysis of where your site conforms or derivates from standards, and from your business’ competitive online landscape.

Effbis documents the challenges and opportunities your Web site faces in explicit detail. This analysis becomes a tool for gaining consensus and communicating design and development priorities, future spending, and business decisions. It is also a blueprint for change, communicating functional requirements to designers and developers, and as criteria for auditing the implementation against original requirements.

We bring objectivity to your Web site efforts in several ways: As a third party, our analysts provide an impartial approach to gain consensus and common understanding among stakeholders. Unlike other firms, Effbis is free to make recommendations based on your best interests: Because we are not in the implementation business, our judgment is not colored by efforts to build implementation revenue.

Our Competitive Web Benchmark Methodology is a market-proven, fact-based methodology that provides objective analysis and actionable recommendations for measuring, managing and improving the effectiveness of your public site. It leverages our proven practice and research to ensure your company’s site meets the needs of your business.

Competitive Web Benchmark Steps

1. During the Competitive Web Benchmark process, Effbis will:
2. Communicate with you to select categories and Web sites to audit.
3. Conduct category audits of selected sites. A standard configuration requires about four weeks of in-depth analysis.
4. Document conformance and deviations from the category reference sets.
5. Analyze the results and organize examples.
6. Develop short-term, mid-term and long-term recommendations.
7. Prepare deliverables in multiple formats for different needs, which may include:
   1. A one-day onsite engagement to present results, answer questions and discuss solutions
   2. PowerPoint presentation with summary results, recommendations and hundreds of example screenshots
   3. PDF documentation of detailed audit results, including an executive summary. Download Extract Numerical Report