The objectives of benchmarking are (1) to determine what and where improvements are called for, (2) to analyze how other organizations achieve their high performance levels, and (3) to use this information to improve performance.”
And now here’s our version of benchmarking:
“Benchmarking is the process of researching your competitors and making a list of all of the things they do better or different than you, and then brainstorming ways that you can improve upon what they’re doing in order to give your business a competitive edge, while providing your customers with the best overall product or service in the market.”
Every time we create a new product or service in our company, we go through this process, not only in terms of the actual product or service but in site design as well. We gather ideas from several of the top companies from the market we are entering. By combining several of the benchmarks we’ve collected along with our own unique ideas, we end up with a product or service that is vastly different and far better than anything else on the market.
Benchmarking can improve many areas of your business. Hopefully you are considering several ways to put this concept into practice. For the purposes of this chapter, however, let’s focus on benchmarking your website design.
One of the main benefits of benchmarking the most successful website designs in your market is that these companies are already successful, which means they’re most likely doing more things right than they are doing wrong. By looking at how these competing websites display information to their customers, it will help spark ideas on ways that you can customize and even improve upon your existing website design that you might not have considered.
One thing I want to stress is that benchmarking is not copying. Do not copy what your competitors are doing. The whole purpose of benchmarking is to find out what’s already working and then internalize it, improve it, and make it your own.
In today’s market you have to be authentic. If you’re not, people will see right through your website, your marketing and even your product. Being real and true to who you are as a person and as a company is key when using benchmarking as a tool.
Bottom line; if you’re going to sell to a market where there are already well-established, multi-million dollar companies, then you need to look like a multi-million dollar company, and you do that by benchmarking. That way, when potential customers visit both your website and your multi-million dollar competitor’s websites, they won’t know the difference. In other words, in their reality, they will perceive both you and your competitors as equals.
Remember - Perception is Reality.
A word of Caution: Always tell the truth.
As tempting as it may be to slightly enhance the benefits, features, or test results of your product or service, or add a fake testimonial or two in order to make things sound more appealing, don’t do it. Online shoppers are always on the defensive, and anything that looks slightly off or too good to be true can quickly throw up red flags.
Your reputation online is essential to your success, so you need to be careful to always keep yourself and your business practices above reproach. If not, it is very easy for an untrusting or disillusioned customer to make a damaging post about your website to a third party complaint site or social network that can permanently harm your reputation.
Another reason why it’s so important for your site to look as credible and trustworthy as possible is because the search engines are continuously improving, and are moving more and more toward visual results, like images and video, instead of text.
Let’s take Google for example. Starting in 2011, whenever you do a search, they display an instant preview next to each result. If you happen to click on any of the instant preview links, an instant snapshot of that website’s homepage will pop up on the screen, like the one on the following page.
Whether you realize it or not, this little feature is a game changer. Suddenly people don’t have to wade through 10 different titles and page descriptions before deciding which site to visit. Suddenly they don’t have to click on all 10 search results to see what each site has to offer. Now they don’t even have to go to the website to see which websites appear to be the most credible, professional, and trustworthy. They can view your website and all of your competitor’s sites side-by-side in seconds, right from the Google search engine.
Now more than ever, having a good, solid website design is vital to your online success.
Fortunately, everything you need to make your website look absolutely amazing is relatively inexpensive and right at your fingertips, thanks to online freelancing.
Online freelancing is a wonderful resource that puts thousands of professionals at your beck and call 24/7. Anything you can imagine or need, you can find a freelancer to do it for you at a very reasonable rate. Just go to one of several freelancing sites online, post your job description, push send, and within a few minutes, freelancers from all over the world will start bidding on your job.
Once you’ve got several bids, you can go through their resumes, portfolios or chat with them directly. Haggle and look at what their previous customers had to say. Because website owners have thousands of freelance workers to choose from, the cost for getting quality work done is very inexpensive. Once you have decided on a particular freelancer, you award him the bid and he will start working on your project.
Here are a few things we’ve learned over the years that will help you have the best freelance experience possible.
1. Make sure they speak English fluently. We tend to hire more people from countries where English is their primary language, even if we have to pay more. There just seems to be a huge disconnect otherwise and it can take a lot longer to get things done.
2. Make sure they agree to unlimited revisions. You want to make sure that they will keep making changes to their work until you are completely satisfied.
3. Don’t pay them all of the money upfront. Hold at least half of it until the job is done and you are satisfied with the results.
4. Don’t choose the cheapest bid for your job unless their resume, portfolio and English are amazing. Often times, these people are freelancers who got bad ratings from a previous job and so they created a new profile. There are obviously exceptions, so just make sure you do your homework.
5. Give them as much direction as you can in your job post. We often refer to specific websites that we like and tell them to “make me a menu like this style,” or “create two columns like this website.” Basically, the more information you can give them upfront, the smoother the project will go.
One final word of advice. While it’s tempting to try and do everything yourself - especially when you’re starting out, one of the best things you can do is to let other people that are experts in their fields do the things that they do best.
Don’t try to learn php.
Don’t try to learn html.
Don’t try to learn graphic design.
Don’t try to learn professional photography.
All of these things can be outsourced online by freelance experts for very reasonable prices. However, the one thing I advise you is
DO become experienced at hiring and managing freelancers.
If you can successfully hire and manage freelancers, then you can do anything you could ever dream of online. Once you know how to effectively leverage online freelancers, you can say to your friends “I’ve got people for that” and actually mean it.