Create a Comparison Website: 10 Tips for Creating a Professional Comparison Portal

Price comparison portal websites have skyrocketed in popularity since the e-commerce revolution. This is primarily because these websites help users easily find the lowest price and save money while shopping online. The ability to compare the prices of hundreds of equivalent products in an instant is especially convenient and time-saving. It is the foundation for a lucrative business opportunity that also benefits from advertising and affiliate marketing. However, creating a comparison portal is no piece of cake – it requires technical know-how and solid expertise in comparing price data. We will guide you step by step through the development phases to create a new comparison portal.

The Essentials in Brief

How to Create a Professional Comparison Portal?

The first step in creating a comparison portal is to prepare a requirements specification that outlines all the desired functionalities. This document is analyzed in conjunction with the available budget and targeted scalability, so that the appropriate technical infrastructure can be selected.

Choose a Niche

The greatest potential for a price comparison portal likely lies in a specific niche. Once you have found a suitable niche, you can start building a promising website as a comparison portal. Another option would be to create a locally focused comparison website, as this also offers a high potential for success. Every comparison portal succeeds when users are focused on a particular product. Therefore, if you specialize in a specific product, you can expect that most potential buyers searching for it will land on your comparison portal.

Preis.de is one of the largest price comparison portals in Germany.

Which Model Do You Choose?

If you want to create your own comparison portal, you should first decide what type of website you want to offer online shoppers. Do you prefer a customized pricing system or other features? You can base your selection on the ratings or descriptions during shopping, or you may tailor your website to market demands. Either way, a lot of research will be needed to see how other comparison portals are designed and to understand their advantages and shortcomings.

Integrate Your Database

Transferring your own database to the new comparison portal could become a real challenge. First, you should compile all the data you want to compare before launching the site. For example, if you create a comparison portal that only compares women’s shoes, then you should set up categories such as style, high heels, color, or size to make it easier for the user to search.

The Technical Side: Setup

This will probably be the most challenging task when launching a new comparison portal. There are various methods for setting up the price comparison search engine that is intended to drive your price comparison portal. Some of you may need advice or technical skills for this, while others may already possess these advanced technical capabilities.

Build the Website from Scratch

To bring your own ideas for your comparison portal to life, it is probably best to hire a skilled programmer. The advantage is that you won’t have to settle for other comparison portal search engines that are likely hardly usable for your purposes. The high flexibility is another benefit a dedicated programmer brings when creating your own comparison portal. However, if you want to launch your website as quickly as possible, there are other options available.

Price Comparison Portal Templates

If you do not want to design your search engine for your comparison portal yourself, you can build one using one of the existing templates available all over the internet. Most of these templates are offered in PHP and allow for seamless integration into your web presentation. The catch, however, is that perhaps not all requirements will be fully met. Pricetapestry is an excellent template that covers most aspects of a new comparison portal. But there are many other templates available.

The comparison portal Check24 focuses on services.

WordPress Plugins

With WordPress you can do almost anything, as it is as dynamic and versatile as it should be. You would not be disappointed if you used WordPress exclusively for creating your comparison portal, as it offers some great plugins waiting to be discovered. The best part is that you do not need an expert or programmer to install WordPress – anyone can use WordPress. There are several excellent options available that you can implement along the way. This includes using CompariPress, ComparePress and Compare Theme, which are available for purchase on Themeforest. Additionally, there are many other interesting plugins, although they are paid.

Data Acquisition

Now that you are ready to create your own price comparison portal, it is time to gather the price data. This dataset is the fuel for the comparison search engine. It should be a robust system that is well integrated and fed abundantly with collected datasets. The web crawling technology usually retrieves the product prices from e-commerce websites for the comparison portals. If the searched product is available in many models, then the dataset is also enormous.

Generate Visitors

Once the creation of the comparison portal is complete, you need to attract the necessary visitors to your beautiful, new website. However, you must first drive these visitors to your site, as they are not yet aware of your new website. To obtain the required traffic, using Google Adwords and Facebook Advertising is recommended. You pay a certain amount per click to target demographics, interested parties, and specific keywords. It is usually worthwhile to invest some money here to speed up the build-up.

Other cost-effective methods to achieve the necessary traffic include achieving a good ranking in recognized search engines such as Google or Bing, where the relevant keywords lead to your website. To attain a good ranking, high-quality content must now also be part of your site, as Google’s search algorithms evaluate the text quality and also pay attention to outbound links. The higher your ranking, the more free traffic you can draw to your website.

If time permits, you can further generate traffic through posts on social media platforms like Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook. Especially if you have humorous or interesting content, you have a good chance of going viral and attracting thousands of new users overnight to your new website.

Vergleich.org aggregates content such as blog articles about various products

Earn Commissions

To earn commissions from your comparison portal, various actionable models should be available. You should consider what a user needs in order to browse your website or decide to click through to another site.

Since you are comparing products from other companies, you will notice that most of them already employ advertising programs when you visit their websites. You can place links on your site and earn a commission if a sale is generated on another page as a result.

The commission rate fluctuates between 0.5% and 50%, depending entirely on the program and the agreed conditions. Amazon, for example, offers a great affiliate scheme where you can choose from millions of products to promote on your website to earn a commission.

Some companies even pay if you are contacted by phone or receive an email. All you need is a company that you can promote through your comparison portal. For this, you receive a special email address or a phone number displayed on your site, which also comes with compensation.

Approaching companies and negotiating new deals is crucial. However, for that you need proof that you have good experience with users and maintain a consistent level of traffic.

Licensing and Regulation

Depending on the nature of your business, you will need either a regulation or a licensing for the products being sold. For example, if you want to compare restaurants in your area, you do not need a permit as you would for employee wages or car insurance. To create a successful comparison portal, you must invest a certain amount. Additionally, you need funds to generate and sustain the necessary traffic on your site.

Over time, however, you will realize that your costs are significantly lower than those of companies that have to rent office space, hire staff, and purchase a lot of equipment or accessories. In your case, you will likely only incur the monthly hosting fees.

Once you have made your decision, you will surely identify a suitable industry as your target and attract the desired traffic.

Conclusion

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