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0:07Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the factory floor. Today I am joined by guess who? Never seen them before. Zach Stevens and Corey Haynes. They're my compatriots on this podcast and in business and in life because we're friends in real life. Uh today we're talking about something super important which is comparison pages and competitor comparison pages. comparison pages. Uh we build a lot of websites at Convertion Factory, so we're constantly talking about different types of pages, what you should and shouldn't have, and so competitor comparison pages are a big talking point. And um I wanted to talk about this because it feels right now in the world of AI that comparison pages are more important than ever. um you

0:51know people ditching Google for the most part and using chatbt and other AI tools to compare products and all that stuff. So is that the only reason that they're, you know, more important than ever? Why are competitor comparison pages more important than ever? Corey, Zack, whoever, what do you guys think? Well, uh, from my perspective, what I see, uh, particularly with the shift on AI is that your ability to control the narrative around that when people are shopping around because it's a very high intent point in somebody's journey to becoming a customer if they're doing hard comparisons like that. And you can measure that against other ways and other things that we buy. You know, like if you are in the market for a car and I

1:37search what is the difference between a Kia Carnival minivan and a Toyota Sienna, that means that I am I've decided on a minivan and I am looking to buy. I'm just not sure which one yet. So in the case of software, if somebody's searching that, then you want to be the one who is able to influence their decision as ethically and honestly as you can and not let somebody else take that away from you or leave the AI to its own vices to make the opinion. So competitor comparison pages are a way for you to set up that battle in a way where you win. And we do this all the time with um our clients of making the message feel and show why this choice who it becomes the best option for and help them make that

2:28decision more effectively. >> Okay. Right. Yeah, that makes sense. >> I think it's funny that everyone's talking about it now are kind of freaking out trying to scramble to please the AI gods um instead of the the Google gods like they were before. Um because I've been beating that this drum forever. You need competitor comparison pages. If you don't do it, your competitors will. Your customers are looking for this information. You could just be leaving it up to some random review site or blog post by a disgruntled, you know, ex- customer. You want to be in control of the narrative because the reality too is that, you know, let's just say it was just in Google, not with an AI chat. there are going to be hundreds of search

3:14results for you versus a competitor. Um, and on the first page of Google, there's going to be around 10. So, you're just going to be one of them. So, you have to add in your own like there's conversation happening. >> You just want to have like get in a word. You want to add your two cents to that conversation to make sure that you're representing yourself well and that you're providing the facts and you're really the only one who's going to have your best interests in mind. And so to me, leaving it up to competitors and random bloggers on the internet or AI to figure out is like a very risky move. Like you really must need need to have competitor comparison pages. Um, the other way to think about this too,

4:02just from like the narrative perspective, is that especially for AI now that we're talking about it, AI needs structured content and like where does it get that content from? It's going to try to pull it from the primary sources which are going to be you and your competitor. So imagine um you don't have like a uh you don't have any anything to add on why you're better than your competitor. >> AI is just going to talk about what your competitor is saying about you. So >> totally >> you have to be able to provide your side of the story. >> Yeah. It's like and then are we going to like leave it up to chance or you know if there's two products they're like these two are the competitors and one has the comparison pages and one

4:50doesn't. It's like obviously we're going to read what data, what information is out there and available and we're going to go with the one that we can see. >> Totally. Yeah. And I think it creates an opportunity. You can definitely put the bias in your favor with those competitor comparison pages. U because we've seen this with things like I remember uh Framer put on their website that Web Flow's CMS required a manual setup as one of the comparison points that they highlighted and in thinking about that you're like but don't all of them require that so somebody like in web flow shoes if they have a comparison page comparing themselves to framework they could say yeah but they have a manual setup as

5:41well. So, it's a moot point and the AIS are are smart enough to reconcile those two objectives and it will point out and say, well, framework says this, but then web flow also says this, so it's a it doesn't really matter or it's clearly not a point of authority that framework is making this claim or that web flow is. And I think it requires further investigation. It might be a um having that might allow them to traverse your site more thoroughly so that they can get a better picture of all that you have to say rather than just taking the LLM's word for it. But if the LLM right off the bat says, "Yeah, yeah, this product's way better because their competitor um doesn't have a comparison page for me to take a look at and

6:31develop an opinion on." >> Yeah. And I feel like there's, you know, there's other types of pages where you could even just like I'm trying to think of like, okay, you got a feature page, maybe you're just gathering information and you're not necessarily as a potential user that close to buying. In my mind, a competitor comparison page is like, well, you're about to pick one of these two or you're really weighing the options just before a buying decision and so that makes them like extra more important. I did want to ask like there's, you know, there's plenty of markets that are like fairly saturated and there's a lot of tools, you know, >> how many is too many? Do you just pick your top 10? Do you pick your top five?

7:11Like what can you give people maybe like a playbook on like if you don't have anything, at least do this. You should at least have, you know, your top five competitors, comparison pages for those. If not like uh an index page that has like, you know, snapshots of everything and all your competitors, like kind of give, I guess, a best practice maybe. I think that would be really helpful to like kind of kind of get in uh any listener's mind that might be considering doing this. Mhm. I in my point of view, I think that the lowest hanging fruit and the absolutely bare minimum thing you should do is to not even have competitor comparison pages, but have competitor alternative pages because there's usually always someone

7:53searching for your competitor and then alternative or alternative to whatever your competitor's brand name is. And that's really lowhanging fruit because now you don't even need to do a comparison. You don't need to bash them. All you have to do is talk about yourself and why you're a good alternative to that competitor. >> There's a couple of different formats here. We can have alternative to a competitor. We can have alternatives to your competitor. We can have you versus your competitor. and then even competitor verse competitor pages. Um, so there's kind of those are like the four big buckets different formats that we see from these. I think that you versus competitor is also a really solid

8:41format. Um, but the like strictly individual single alternative pages are really really easy starting point because that allows you to talk about your narrative and positioning in a really natural organic way. It can talk about why people in generally are kind of disgruntled with that alternative and then position yourself as a easy to use alternative with a special little offer or guarantee or easy way to get started maybe even migrations. Right? So very very lowhanging fruit. To answer your question about the quantity, do them all. Why not? I mean, you can have a your your alternative alternative pages or comparison pages at least against your top competitor or your most popular biggest competitor. But, um,

9:33there's absolutely no downside to having those pages for every one of your competitors. >> No, especially if you're doing it in a very structured, organized format that doesn't vary a whole lot between the pages. I feel like that makes it a little bit more palatable and easy to digest as far as well, how should I go about doing this? Um, >> yeah, >> you know, it you're you're following a template essentially >> becomes very systematized. >> Yeah. And I think I want to piggy back off of what Corey said a little bit. I think one of the bigger opportunities is it allows you to get really really indepth about some of your features and how they stack up to some of the issues that people are currently facing. Like

10:15what was the Corey when you were doing this for Savvy? One of the main things was the calendar overlay, right? Like on Calendarly, you can't see uh your calendar unless you have it open on a separate uh plane and then you have to like, you know, look back and forth between screens. But with Savvy Cal, I was like, "No, no, it's all right here, one place." So that's a very specific feature that they were able to compare a giant to a giant competitor in a very specific context of like this is how we are better against this competitor for this particular feature that they may have or they might not have at all. >> Mhm. Yeah. I think it's it all goes back to the positioning and jobs to be done switch analysis as well. When we're

11:05getting all those facts on paper in the beginning and we're like, okay, why do people choose you over your competitors? Hey, when they're switching over, what are the common reasons like why they're attracted to you or why they're leaving your competitors? Cool. Those should be the first things that we mention on those pages because those are the facts. those that that's going to resonate so strongly when someone is searching for a Calendarly alternative or a Savvy Cal versus Calendarly and then they go to the page and one of the first things they see is the exact thing that they're frustrated by and the solution that they're excited by. Easy pickings, right? That's the reason why these pages

11:43usually have some of the highest conversion rates of any of the pages on the website because they're so high intent and because you have so many good opportunities to sell them on switching over to you. >> Yeah. It puts the puts the solution in the context of a problem I think a lot more effectively. >> Yeah. Um, can you maybe give some guidance on like not bashing but like when is you know what's too much and like does it all like fit within the like oh well this is kind of your messaging and your brand voice you know you don't want to go against that but like you know there's been times when people have been positioned super hard against their competitors almost in a very vocal and outspoken way that's

12:25really paid off quite largely for them. So, I guess like if I'm if I'm about to build one, I'm like, how bad can I talk about the people that I want to, you know, take absorb their customers. That's what I really want to do, you know? >> Yeah. Well, customers are going to see through that, right? So, I don't think there's any pressure to even bash your competitors, to try to make a bigger deal out of things than they really are. Um, people really see through that and they're kind of sensitive to that. So, in my experience, the best way to go about it is to be objective. to be honest about ways that they're better than you in certain areas or just to even in general talk about your own shortcomings or even just areas where

13:06you're kind of even. Maybe you're not better, but you're like, "Oh, just, you know, future parody here and we both check the boxes in this area." But, um, the main thing is specifically calling out common reasons why people are frustrated with one of your competitors. And you can even loop back to kind of what we call our voice of customer exact phrases people use in online reviews or testimonials or um even when they're switching over to you and you ask them why did you switch from this competitor, right? You can use and kind of clip those sayings and say, "Hey, these are the common reasons why people switch. We're not saying that they're bad. We're not saying they're a horrible product." So on and so forth. Um, when it comes to

13:49things like customer support and pricing, you can be a little bit more cutthroat and a little bit more blunt in your delivery about, hey, these competitors have known to be a little bit opaque or even aggressive in their pricing, or they're going to want to lock you into an 18-month contract, or they're going to want to x, y, and z. Or a lot of customers say they complain about the level of customer support and the response times, for example. So there are things like that that you can just mention that might not be like low blows, but you're just kind of being honest. >> Yeah, it seems like it all comes back to kind of the original point, which is controlling the narrative, which is, you know, you might have a competitor that,

14:33you know, if you really apples to apples look at it, you're like, they beat us in a lot of things, but we're we're cheaper. So what needs to be mentioned first is like save x amount of dollars switching from X products. It's like that narrative, the the main focus of the page is like, hey, we are an alternative to them and we will save you money by switching to us. And so that is the narrative that we're pushing. And if you're willing to talk about the negative things fairly openly of the of your competitors, you probably need to be fully willing to talk about the positives. Uh like I feel like that is an area where you could get a lot of respect even from a visitor is like hey here's all the stuff they do bad but to

15:16be fair they're topnotch here like they beat everybody in this area you know like I think that is something that is is perfectly fine to do. >> Yeah. I forget what I forget what it's called, but there is a psychological um analysis or psychological term for that where if you address the shortcomings in addition to a lot of the features, it just it makes it far more realistic. It's like if you go and buy a motor home and they say, "Yeah, yeah, it's it's it's really really cool. It's got all these neat features. It's expensive, though." And then people like, "Oh, yeah, it makes sense." >> Yeah. They're being honest. Yeah. The main thing you want to avoid is just having a table that has a bunch of green

15:58check marks for all the things you're awesome at and then a bunch of red X's for all the things that your competitors are not awesome at. >> Yeah. >> In a way that's oversimplified and just feels like everything is a twisted narrative that makes it look >> favorable to you even though it's obviously missing a lot of the story. >> Um there is >> that's where people get frustrated. There is some design voodoo you can do there though on those particularly on those tables and with the sideby-side comparisons like for example you can uh like what we will do is we'll try and keep all the check marks for a client in branded colors that are far more bold and consistent. It's like this is a green check mark that's in a circle for

16:43everything on our client, but then on the competition you might have X's. Um, but I try not to we try not to make those red so much as just like plain, you know, like you almost want to make them the checks and the X's feel similar so that it's hard to even gauge what they do and do not have, but you're still being very transparent and objective. what you're doing is you're visually making it feel less appealing or um muddied to compared to your like, well, this has green checks all the way through and this one is, you know, a little bit more difficult to read. >> Yeah. >> Well, okay. It sounds like the key takeaway here is if somebody's going to do it, it should be you. Like, if someone's going to write a comparison

17:29page and your product's involved, you should be the one writing it if possible. Uh LLMs love that stuff. they're going to eat it up. And these are high intent pages. Like, don't skip over doing these to work on something that isn't going to move the needle and bring in revenue. These are these are pages that can bring in revenue. Am I summarizing well? >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. One other like kind of a parting thought that's more high level is if you have good positioning and if we've done the hard work to figure that out, writing these pages is a piece of cake. And it even really helps to not bash competitors when you when your positioning is so specific and you can say, "Hey, for these use cases, we don't

18:15really focus on this. We're not great at it." Our competitor is, though, so like if that's important to you, go with them because we don't care about those use cases. >> We care about you. >> For these Yeah. For these segments, for these types of customers, for these budgets, >> we're not for you. Go with them, right? Go with the competitor. Sure. You want to spend a million dollars and you care about X, Y, and Z use cases, have at it. If you care about A, B, and C and your budget is this area, go with us. Right? Having good positioning really simplifies this. So, you don't have to twist the narrative. You don't have to bash your competitors. You don't have to try to get super super fancy with your

18:56word choice and your design stuff. It can be straightforward and factual if you've done the hard work of positioning. >> And if you need help with positioning, go to conversionfactory.com. No, I'm just kidding. >> Well, I'm not kidding, but >> conversionfactory.gov. Sorry. >> Okay. Hey, well, I appreciate you guys thoughts. Uh, super interesting. Write some competitor comparison pages, everybody. They're super valuable. And we will see you on the next episode of Factory Floor. Peace out. Peace.