Project Girl 2 Woman, Author at ProjectGirl2Woman

How to conduct a Competitor Analysis

/Social Media and Blogging Advice

Competition is everywhere – but what else are you expecting with 7.8billion humans living on this planet. Yet, when you have your own online business, or you start your own Social Media account (or Blog), competition is a crucial factor for your success.

Hostingtribunal stated that 70million new WordPress posts are published every month.

So if you want a piece of the cake, or better a higher traffic rate to your site, you have to figure out how your competition sneaks more cake off the plate and impresses their readers by their content, layout, and interactions.

A long-term competitor analysis helps you to:

Better understand your market or niche
Estimate your market position
Better target your customers
Define opportunities and threats
See your competitions pricing and product tracking

So how do you conduct a competitor analysis?

1. 1. 1. 1. Identify your competition
        Check their content strategy and user interaction
        Check their products and customer interaction
        Define their Strengths and Weaknesses
        What can you learn from your research?

1. Identify your competition:

First, you have to find out who your competition is. If you are a blog owner, you can simply lookup blogs with similar content or keywords used. You can use Google as your search engine or if you are mainly interested in WordPress competition, scroll through your wordpress search bar to find similar blogs. I’d also recommend to check out Pinterest.

If you try to build a Social Media account you can also lookup similar keywords or check out recommended accounts by the provider. For both, bloggers and social media accounts hashtags exist to build communities.

Like if you are a blogger but also built your social media account you can follow hashtag groups that people are solely using to connect with other blog keepers. (eg:#bloggersofinstagram). Those hashtags can be also used to find your competition. The key is to find similar blogs with a different experience curve. Thereby you can see their actions based on their progress and see where you are at. Eg: You look for blogs that are close to your end goal and blogs that are close to your current progress.

Next, you have to diverse between direct and indirect competition:

Direct competition is in the same sector and offers the same product. Like if you are creating an online course on how to build your social media content strategy and your competition offers a course with the same title. In this case, you compete with him in either offering a better value to the customer or a better price.

Indirect competition is if your competition is in the same sector but offers a different product. Indirect competition might not have the same product but it fulfills the same needs of the customers that you want to fill with your products. Thereby it is important to gain the interest of your users. Checking your competition can give you an overview of how they attract readers and how well your own blog/account does in comparison.

2. Check your competitions content strategy and user interaction

Next, it’s time to scan their blog design or social media account. The first impression counts! How does it look like? What do you find nice to look at and what would you change? Scan how they chose and built up their pages and posts, how they designed the homepage and how they built their brand image. Anything that looks out of place? You can also check if they have an email list and how creative their newsletters are.

Then analyze their content strategy: How often do they upload, how limited is their content? how is their writing style and images? How is their color scheme? Is their content unique?

Third, it’s time you see how they interact with their users and other creators. You can check underneath posts how they reacted to comments, if they follow similar communities and groups and if they are actively involved with readers and other content creators. Having close relationships with other content creators can form strong collaborations and push you to the next level.

3. Check out your competitors products and customer relationships

Once you have analyzed the content strategy of your competition it is time to check out their product. What are they selling? What is the product’s quality? What is their pricing? How do they market their product? How is the buying process for the customer? How is the customer service?

Thanks to the modern world you don’t even have to invest in their product. You can just look for reviews online and check how well a similar blog is doing. But please be aware that not all reviews are 100% valid. The best is to check it twice or thrice to avoid fake reviews!

Once you see how satisfied their customers are with the product, you can compare their effort with yours. How is your product doing? What are you doing differently? What needs do their product cover? How is their customer loyalty?

Let’s go to the last point and take a look at the bigger picture:

4. Strengths and Weaknesses

Once you take a thorough look at your competition’s business it’s time to figure out what their strengths and weaknesses are. The best way is to make a table already while scanning through their content and relationships.

Why should you set up a table?

As described at the beginning of the post, a competitor analysis helps you see where your competition is at and how you are competing in the market.

But this is not all, with this analysis you gain important knowledge about how you can improve your own blog, content, and relationships by the doings of your competition.

If your competition is successful, they already tried many different ways to perfect their business. This gap, especially big if you just started, can be reduced by learning what they are doing. It gives you a hint on how to improve your weaknesses and how to make more out of your strengths. That’s why the last important question is: What can I learn to improve my own business and get a better market position?

Before I am closing this post I’d like to mention that: Just because you are competitors doesn’t mean you are enemies! The best way to grow fast is to help each other out, try new things, and to grow as a team. Please don’t copy any content. Implement the newly learned information in your own unique way. (bigcommerce)

If you want to get informed about the latest updates, please subscribe to our newsletter. Last but not least we update every Wednesday and every Saturday. So, it would be great to see you again. Also, for updates follow us on:

Love from Germany,

Carina and Julia

How to conduct a Competitor Analysis Read More »

15 Simple Life Lessons We Learned In Our Early 20s

Project Girl 2 Woman

Our 20s are a whirlwind of decisions, emotions, and events. We struggle with grades, try to find a job and have some fun. We move. We drift apart from old friends and make new ones.

Some of our friends are getting married early, some get really focused on their career, yet others travel the world or seem to change their major so often you lose track. Some of your friends move in with their partner and some never seem to keep a job.

Amongst all this mess your parents are lovingly nagging: “At your age I’ve already built a house and started our family.” No pressure at all mum.

It is the time we struggle with finding out what we want for ourselves, while feeling the pressure of meeting and/or disappointing expectations set by family, friends, and society.

The 20s are a-mazing! And many lessons can be learned. My sister and I sat down and wrote out our Top 15 Life Lessons we learned in our early 20s.

Lesson Nr. 1

Do not underestimate the water quality in Egypt. Our sensible European stomachs might not be able to handle the tap water. This might lead to extremely uncomfortable situations without any toilet in sight. Not that that ever happened to me mind you . Ps.: What I didn’t know, they of course use tap water to clean the salad and they often make soft drinks with tap water .

Lesson Nr. 2

Do not party too much during your first semester at college even though everyone else does. It seems that during your first semester there is an endless string of parties going on. I am not saying have no fun. But I know you want to do great, so just don’t overdo it. Get some friends, who like to study. Tip.: You will most likely meet them at the library! And once the second semester starts, you’ll see how many students had to drop out. Most often they are also the ones you saw partying all the time.

Lesson Nr. 3

Take extracurriculars. These days many people study. It’s pretty difficult to get a well-paid job these days. If you want to work in marketing for example – you compete with all the marketing, business, and design students. If you join a marketing club and design homepages for small companies in your spare time, you will have an advantage over your competition. Therefore, try to do some extracurriculars and internships, while you are a student.

Lesson Nr. 4

Work and study smart. I know you want to do your best. In order to do so you have to work smart. Regardless of whether we talk about work or university.

Most students study the material from top to bottom. This is fine if you start early enough and manage to finish all the material. But how likely is it that you studied absolutely everything?

The star in the following pics stands for the material that will be tested. Let’s say you study from top to bottom and manage to finish 80%. This means you didn’t study everything that will be tested in the exam.

Top to Bottom: Important First:

Rather than that focus on the material you think might be examined. Usually your prof will make comments, you’ll get some test exams, or you’ll just have to think like the one who designs the test. Also check out the 80/20 Rule.

The same goes for work there are only so many hours. First and foremost, focus on the important. What’s important for your boss? Which deadlines have to be met?

Lesson Nr. 5

Don’t try to find your purpose. I think trying to find your purpose is rubbish. There is not one thing you are meant to do all your life. How are you going to find it anyway? What you do with your life and what you focus on is a decision. In order to make that decision you need to try a lot of things. How else will you know what you might like or dislike. It doesn’t matter which work you’ll do there are always fun tasks and tasks that just need to get done. Explore while you are still young and have few responsibilities.

Lesson Nr. 6

Don’t live other people’s dreams. Your father always wanted to be a doctor and now you are studying to become just that. Does it really make you happy? Or might it be that you study medicine for your father’s approval?

Go really deep and think why you do what you do. Have you been influenced? Maybe? Despite that you love your job? Great! If not make a hard decision. It’s your life after all.

Lesson Nr. 7

Live alone for a while. You will learn a lot by being independent and on your own. Who would have guessed I can repair broken toilets and fix broken cabinets? When you are by yourself, you’ll be forced to do things outside of your comfort zone. You’ll make many new experiences. From paperwork to making new friends and fixing things. I can only recommend everyone to live on their own for a while.

Lesson Nr. 8

Start a side hustle while you still have the time. A side hustle will not only give you the comfort of security when you can’t find a job immediately: it also gives you the chance to learn about finances. I regret not having done anything on the side while I was still a student. When you have a 9 to 5 it is still possible, but your available time is a lot more restricted. Add in a family and it will be really tough. A side hustle can become your future job or help you in getting a job.

Lesson Nr. 9

Relationships trump grades. Once I had an interview at a company and they told me I got the job. A few days later they called and told me they had changed their mind. Someone else got the job. Later on, through the grapevine I learned that the job was given to the son of one of the managers.

Being able to build relationships is one of the most important skills in society. The more connected you are the easier you will have it.

Lesson Nr. 10

Be grateful for what you have. I am not saying don’t strive for more. I am saying each moment only comes once. Appreciate what you have at each step of your life. Your family, nature, the smell of freshly mown lawn, a calm morning before your family wakes, a hot cup of coffee after work. Enjoy the little moments and appreciate them. Aren’t those little moments the ones that make our life worth living for?

Lesson Nr. 11

Make international friends. They will give you a new perspective. Your community has a standard of beliefs and norms. If you meet people from abroad your beliefs get challenged. Maybe some of the things your culture has taught you weren’t as true as you believe? With international friends you’ll learn new things and grow.

Lesson Nr. 12

Don’t strive for perfect before you even start, or you might as well never start at all. Truth is you can always improve something. My high expectations and perfectionism have often held me back from starting something. Accept that in the beginning it might suck, it will definitely not be perfect, and it might fail. Do it anyways and improve on the way. Everyone sucks when they start.

Lesson Nr. 13

Don’t wait for something to happen. Be proactive. No one will knock on your door and ask if you want to go on a sponsored world travel. Well at least the chances are fairly low. Are you most of the time proactive or reactive?

Make a list of all your tasks and categorize them according to proactive and reactive.

The first hour of your day try to do something proactive. Take the initiative. E.g. approach clients.

Lesson Nr. 14

Make time for the important people in your life. You never know how long you will have them. Don’t postpone visiting your grandparents. Don’t skip your family parties. Don’t miss out on your kids achievements for work. Life happens. You think you have so much time and suddenly that person is gone forever.

Lesson Nr. 15

Set a good foundation. What we mean with that is: start early eliminating bad habits and establish productive and healthy routines. Someone who brushed their teeth starting at 3 will have better teeth than someone who started at 40. The sooner you start the better. Again, be proactive. And remember it is never too late to start a new habit or routine.

So, to sum it up our top 15 Life lessons are:

Do not underestimate the water quality in Egypt
Do not party too much during your first semester
Take extra curriculars
Work and study smart
Don’t try to find your purpose
Live your own life.
Live alone for a while
Start a side hustle while you still have the time
Relationships trump grades
Be grateful for what you have
Make international friends
Don’t strive for perfect before you even start
Don’t wait for something to happen.
Make time for the important people in your life
Set a good foundation

What are the life lessons you have learned so far? Let us know down in the comments?

Love from Germany,

Julia and Carina

15 Simple Life Lessons We Learned In Our Early 20s Read More »

The Top 5 Android Productivity Apps for 2022

Project Girl 2 Woman

Today I’d like to give some extra tools for staying productive. It would be amazing if you share down below what your favorite productivity apps are – for both android and ios. There are a ton of apps out there and I also would love to test one of your favorite productivity apps! Now let’s get started 🙂

#1 Notion

Our absolute favorite this year is Notion. You can download it on your phone, desktop, or use it online.

#2 Google Calendar

For most of my life, I used Google Calendar – it’s easy to enter events and to share your calendar with all of your devices. Google Calendar also offers you a very pretty layout with all important national holidays noted. As for entering data, you can create criteria with a unique color each, which makes it easy to just blend out (or in) whatever criterion you want to concentrate on.

So, when you click on the “Add” button is it also to mention that you cannot only add events but also a reminder or even a goal. This is just perfect for hitting deadlines, pushing further to your goals, and practicing consistency. One last good point I want to mention is that you do not have to switch accounts if you want to access the calendar of another google account. Google Calendar offers you to see the calendar information of all accounts linked and puts set deadlines in one combined overview. Great right?

#3 Google Drive

The second productivity must-have is the Google Drive app. Usually, the App is preinstalled and free – if not you can find it in your play store. Google Drive is great to share files and literally any material used for teamwork. It is also easy to work with as it has a very simple design and a smooth drop-down window for uploading files. Furthermore, Google Drive also has the advantage that you can immediately create a word document or any Microsoft Office Online document and share it via folder or simply the document itself.

Now, Microsoft Online has the benefit that you can work parallel to your team members on a document. This definitely helps make a group meeting easier, as well as the sharing of tasks and the team atmosphere in general. And if we are honest, working together is a lot more fun than sitting on a project alone.

#4 Zoom and Slack

I name those two in a bundle as I always used it together. Slack is ideal for sharing ideas and feedback. You can create channels based on projects or groups and either make them viewable by all people invited or lock them for specific people only. The good thing is, one can always comment and react to another person’s entry. I’d personally say Google Drive is amazing to share files but Slack is great to be more interactive with the team as it is a lot easier to communicate by chat.

As for meetings, I would recommend you to try out Zoom. I have to say that Zoom barely has bugs or lags and I was able to use it with a horrible internet connection too. But the actual reason why I recommend Zoom is the breakout rooms. Breakout rooms give you the opportunity to split a general team into smaller groups and give them the possibility to switch back and forth between one big group and small groups. Now this is perfect if you have one big team but need to split work in between them (Of course you can just have a normal meeting too!) Also, Zoom is easy to work with as it has a simple design.

#5 Forest or Study Bunny

Now we come to the probably most known productivity app: Forest!

The trick behind the app is, that the user sets a timer and then doesn’t interact with her phone until the time is over. You are rewarded with a healthy tree if you succeed or if not, you will have a dead tree in your garden. While you not only work hard in real life and get your tasks done you also have the opportunity to unlock cool new trees for your garden. Plus did you know that you can grow real trees with credits in-game?

Now, if you say “Trees aren’t really in my interest”, I have a nice alternative for you: StudyBunny. I am using the app for over half a year now and I just can recommend it. Study Bunny has the same principle as the forest but you can use your phone while the time runs. Instead of planting trees, you will get coins that you can exchange for your bunny’s clothes, work equipment, backgrounds, and more. Also, study bunny has an integrated to-do list, a cool work log where you can integrate criteria with unique colors, and also a function to practice vocabulary. And for the animal lovers: You can actually feed your bunny with carrots!

#6 HabitBull

Before you are done with the settings you choose the target days for success which is recommended to be 66 days (as it takes 66 days to change a habit). In the main menu, you can see how your progress is in form of a diagram and statistics. This app is especially good if you put more importance on some habits as you can see how well you did in every habit separately – and it is free!

I have tried a ton of habit trackers and I finally stuck with HabitBull. HabitBull has a very simple design which makes it easy to use but it is also nice to look at. When you choose a habit you can pick between certain criteria and then enter whatever your new habit should be. This gives you the opportunity to see similar challenges and to get even more inspired to pull through. Then you can choose how you want to measure your success, a specific color, and when exactly your day is successful.

So these are the top 5 productivity apps for your android phone – if you have further apps you like to recommend: Feel free to leave a comment and I hope you are productive!

– Pinterest: projectgirl2woman

– Instagram: projectgirl2woman

– Twitter: @girl2_woman

Love from Germany,

Carina and Julia

The Top 5 Android Productivity Apps for 2022 Read More »