SimilarWeb Extension

One of the most infuriating things about trying to compete with other brands on the Web is not understanding why they are so successful. For the adult entrepreneurs out there who understand the pain of competing for keywords, keyphrases, and trying to improve one’s page rank, you know the annoyance. Trying to figure out their success is enough to drive you crazy.

That does not have to be the case. There are tools out there that provide entrepreneurs just like you with insights and metrics that ultimately shows why a brand is so successful. One of those tools is actually a service called SimilarWeb. While it will not show you every little detail about a brand’s success, what it will provide is some clues as to why the brand’s site has been more successful than yours. It’s a great way to work backwards and fill in some of the missing clues as to how a brand became so popular and competitive in the first place.

The best part about it? The service can actually be integrated into the Chrome browser. This extension makes it so simple to gain insights into how a brand is performing that you will want to use it if you are planning to use SimilarWeb, period. It is that beneficial. Try it out and see what SimilarWeb can do to fill in the missing pieces regarding how brands in your niche are performing better than you!

Get the metrics you want

Let’s jump right into the goddamn fire and start covering the shit you care about. You want to know more about your competition (more on that in a moment). First, let's take a look at what kind of data is actually gathered when you use the SimilarWeb extension.

The great thing about the extension is that it gathers all of the information on the website version of SimilarWeb, but delivers it to you in a bite-sized format. You can learn about all kinds of metrics for any particular website, including the rate of engagement, ranking of traffic and keywords, and the source of traffic. All of this makes it totally easy to figure out how a website is performing and what it’s doing right. It is invaluable information that you can use, but that’s not where the benefits of SimilarWeb stop.

When you use the extension to learn more about a particular website, you can get more insights than that! Learning more about your competition using SimilarWeb allows you to see the website ranking, visits to the site over time, the top five countries visiting that site, and in-depth details about the traffic sources. It’s one thing to see that people are originating from particular URLs to land on the site you are investigating. But it’s totally another thing altogether to learn the nature of the sources.

SimilarWeb digs even deeper and shows you the very nature of the origin of a site’s traffic sources. You will learn if the traffic sources originated from searching on a search engine, e-mail, ads, social media, or if they directly visited the site. This information alone will fill you in on how a website gets its traffic. That is invaluable information. Once you have it, you can work backwards and at least try to crack the code as to how a site gets traffic.

For example, if you notice that the majority of a site’s traffic stems from social media and e-mail, you can assume that they market on social media and via e-mail campaigns. From there, you can check out their social media page and even sign up for e-mail updates, so you can see how they market their website. Keep track of details like how often you receive an e-mail, the social media posting schedule, and so on to figure out how it all comes together.

Get quick statistics without leaving your tab!

What I love about extensions is how fucking simple they make performing certain tasks and gathering types of information. They should simplify the process of whatever it is that you are doing, and thankfully that’s exactly what SimilarWeb achieves. Without ever leaving your tab, you can gain all kinds of statistics from SimilarWeb. Normally, you would have to open SimilarWeb in a new tab to get all of the important information that it delivers. But with the extension, that does not happen!

When you are on a particular website, simply use the SimilarWeb extension to glean the information mentioned above, among other key points of info. For example, if you wanted to see the number of visits to a site over time, as I mentioned earlier, all you have to do is visit the site in question and click the extension. This will show you all of the important information that you are searching for, such as how long a visitor stays on the site, bounce rate, even the number of visits each particular web page gets.

Again, these little increments of data fill in the proverbial dots and help you to understand the big-picture of how a competitor’s site is so successful. No, it won’t paint a picture and show you full-on how and why a competitor is more successful than your brand. But it’s an amazing research tool that allows you to find the answer one dataset at a time. The fact that the extension saves time and effort is all the more reason why it needs to be added to your browser and used regularly.

Only extension available is on Chrome

One of the things that really chaps my ass about SimilarWeb is that the extension is only available for Google Chrome. That also means that Microsoft Edge also supports the extension since Edge now supports Chrome extensions. Even so, what if you use Firefox, Safari, or another browser? Then you are fucking shit out of luck!

Look, I understand that Chrome is the most widely used browser in the world. It’s the most popular, and that is where the majority of extensions are going to end up. But that does not mean that a helpful tool like SimilarWeb should avoid porting their extension to other browsers. They need to maximize the number of browsers that support their amazing extension, as other customers will soon follow.

It isn’t like they are incapable of doing this, either. They have an Enterprise tier that is meant for companies both small, large, and fucking enormous. Why they have failed to port the extension to another browser is beyond me, but it is a huge missed opportunity. They should solve this problem down the road, and ensure that SimilarWeb has an extension for all popular browsers, including Firefox and Safari.

The Free version actually works!

Missed opportunities aside, one thing I have to give SimilarWeb credit for is how well the Free version actually works. A lot of tools like SimilarWeb severely neuter the free version of their service. So much so that it’s more like a teaser than an actual, working product. I am pleased to say that SimilarWeb does not fall into this trap.

On the contrary, the Free tier of SimilarWeb is actually functional and works like a charm. When you check out a site, you will receive five results per metric, which is pretty goddamn awesome. You will also get one month of data for the site’s mobile app (if applicable) and approximately three months of data on their Web traffic. That gives you plenty to work with, and allows you to learn what makes the site in question proverbially tick.

Of course, the Enterprise version is full of all types of useful information. It would be nice if there was a price on the Enterprise version, but reaching out to SimilarWeb will fix that. In the end, though, not only do you get a grand idea regarding how SimilarWeb works, but it’s actually functional. See what kind of information you stumble across, and I think you are going to be pleased with what you find.

An easy way to get the statistics you need

The bottom line to using SimilarWeb is that you gain information about your competition across all types of metrics and datapoints in one easy-to-consume dashboard. The extension makes it even easier to obtain this information in one fell swoop, and it’s mandatory for those that want to gain insights into every single competitor in your niche.

Spend some time with the extension. Get to know SimilarWeb and how it operates. As you use it, you will discover the value and how it can be applied to your own adult business. So what the fuck are you waiting for? Check out SimilarWeb and its extension on Google Chrome (or Microsoft Edge) and learn some of the secrets of your competitor’s success!

Suggestions:

SimilarWeb and its extension makes it so simple to figure out all-important insights and metrics about any website, that it should be in the repertoire of every entrepreneur. It should be available for more browsers than just Google Chrome (and by proxy, Microsoft Edge), and the Enterprise plan should have information about pricing. Even when it is free, it’s extremely functional and user-friendly, which is what counts.