A business owner sat across from us on a video call a few months back and pulled up a competitor’s website. Nice site. Clean layout, good photography, the whole thing looked like money. He said what a lot of people say: I want my website to look like that.
We hear this more than you’d think. And the instinct makes sense — you see someone in your industry doing well, their site looks sharp, and the natural conclusion is: whatever they’re doing, I should be doing that too.
Here’s what we said back: “Well, we’ll aspire to be as good as that — but do you have any objection to it looking better?“
That question changes the whole conversation. Because the goal was never to match someone else. The goal was to stand out. And in the sea of sameness, Google differentiates nobody. Nobody rises to the top. It’s only through your differences that you have a chance to rank — and through those differences, that’s where you need to grow.
That’s really the conversation. And it matters more than most business owners realize when they’re staring at a competitor’s homepage wishing they had one like it. Here’s why copying competitor website fails — and what to build instead.
The industry playbook everybody follows
There’s a layout that exists across nearly every small business industry, and once you see it, you can’t unsee it. Hero section at the top — big photo, tagline, maybe a button. Scroll down: “Our Services.” Then three boxes.
That’s the playbook.
It doesn’t mean it doesn’t work. It’s just it sort of lacks creativity. And the problem isn’t that one business uses this structure — the problem is that every business in the category uses it. Open three roofing websites in the same city. Three plumbers. Three dentists. You’ll click between tabs and forget which one you’re looking at. The layout is the same. The stock photos are interchangeable. The services section could belong to any of them.
That’s not a website. That’s a placeholder. And the business owner looking at their competitor’s site thinking I want that doesn’t realize they’re asking to become another placeholder in a lineup of placeholders. It’s one of the most common reasons business websites fail — not because the design is bad, but because the design isn’t theirs.
Why web companies don’t push back
Here’s the part nobody talks about: web companies have no incentive to fight this. When a client walks in and says “make mine look like theirs,” the easiest response is to say yes, pull up a template, swap the logo and the photos, and ship it. Paint by numbers. Literally filling it out, no customization whatsoever.
Why would a web company push back and say “no, we can make this better” when it makes their job easier?
They wouldn’t. And most don’t.
The onus is on the company to provide a better product — because you can’t expect the consumer to know to even ask for it. A business owner doesn’t know what they don’t know about web design. They know what they’ve seen. And what they’ve seen is their competitor’s site. So they ask for that. And the web company delivers exactly that — not because it’s the best outcome, but because it’s the fastest one.
Now look — anyone that says they’ve never cut a corner is a liar. That’s the truth. We’ve cut corners and then you go back and you fix it because you realize it’s bullshit. So you just got to be honest with yourself about the standard of work that you’re willing to put out and stick to it. The difference is whether cutting corners is the exception or the business model. For template shops running hundreds of sites a year, the playbook is the product. There’s nothing behind it to fix.
Why copying competitor website fails — every single time
The business owner looking at their competitor’s site doesn’t know why it looks the way it does. They don’t know the processes that led to that design — the conversations, the brand decisions, the SEO strategy underneath it, the years of testing and revising. They see the surface and think the surface is the product.
It’s not.
Especially if you’re newer — if you’re looking at an established competitor and thinking I want to be like that thing — you don’t understand there’s steps one, two, three, and four that have to happen to be able to deliver on that. The site you’re admiring is the result of a process you haven’t gone through yet. Copying the output doesn’t give you the process. It gives you a shell that looks familiar and communicates nothing about who you are or why someone should hire you instead of the business you copied.
And here’s the SEO reality: in the sea of sameness, Google differentiates nobody. If your site looks like your competitor’s site, reads like your competitor’s site, and offers the same generic value propositions — Google has no reason to rank you above them. Or above anyone. You’ve given the algorithm nothing to work with. No unique content. No distinct voice. No reason to believe you’re the better answer to the search query.
If you’re a young startup copying an established competitor, you’re just going to get crushed. They have the domain authority, the backlinks, the years of content. You have a site that looks like a smaller version of theirs. That’s not a competitive position. That’s a disadvantage disguised as a strategy.
The difference between being inspired and copying
There’s a line, and it’s worth finding.
In writing, there’s an exercise — and we went through this in a book years ago — where you take the first couple of sentences of a Kafka paragraph and the last couple of sentences, and you try to fill in the gaps just like he would. You do the same thing with Dostoyevsky. And it’s through that sort of exploration that you can gain that craft and that skill. You’re not copying Kafka. You’re learning how Kafka thinks. You’re studying the structure underneath the words.
It’s the same thing with websites. You can look at a competitor’s site and ask what are they doing well? You can identify elements you admire — the way they handle their services page, the tone of their copy, the way they use photography. And you can take that information and decide: these are the most important things from this website that I want on mine. How can we turn this into something that is unique to us?
Because everything has been borrowed from the past. Anyone that says they have a unique idea — give me a break. There’s been billions of written words. Everything is stacked on the shoulders of giants before us. It’s not like we’re all these unique, amazing individuals. It’s just the conversation has evolved over time.
The key is being able to find those little nuggets in that really cool website you’re admiring. That’s the difficult thing. If you can find those things, then you have something to build on. And you work on it, and a few years down the line you look back at it like, “oh, I can make that so much better.” And then you get better and you get better and before you know it, you have a unique brand.
Inspiration is studying someone else’s work to sharpen your own. Copying is skipping the work entirely.
Why business owners are afraid to look different
The fear that drives the conformity is simple: they haven’t done the work to figure out what they want to say or what they stand for.
That’s it.
Uncertainty is a huge problem in this conversation. If you’re uncertain about your brand, your voice, your positioning — then you will be fearful. And you should be, because you have no idea what one direction is going to take you if you haven’t vetted it. So you default to what’s safe. What’s familiar. What everyone else is doing. Because at least if you look like your competitors, you don’t look wrong.
But looking the same isn’t the same as looking right. It’s just looking invisible. And invisible is worse than wrong, because wrong at least gets noticed. Wrong can be corrected. Invisible just sits there, collecting dust next to every other site that made the same safe choice.
The chain is real: uncertainty leads to fear, fear leads to conformity, and conformity leads to a website that could belong to any business in your industry. Breaking the chain requires one thing — doing the work to figure out who you are before you figure out what your site looks like.
What to build instead — brand values first
The design should come from the brand values. The company values. It starts there.
For our brand, we went through it. It’s metamorphicized three or four times since the beginning. We filled out hundred-page worksheets — the exploration process of what does your brand stand for? There’s charts and pie graphs. Where are you in all this? We landed on the honest renegade. Harley Davidson. Brutal honesty, no BS. That’s our brand. And the amount of work it took just to get to that — you wouldn’t believe. Hundreds of hours of work.
From that, you start to develop a voice. Then you start to understand exactly what it is that you want. And then you look at the industry, you see what’s out there, and you realize there’s no one like you. Because when you do that kind of work, it’s very clear how you’re different. That’s where it starts.
Now — for $130 a month, you’re not going to get an entire brand redesign. That’s a tens of thousands dollar package for hundreds of hours of work. What we do is help as much as we can within the scope: get clients off the stock photos, get them to do real photos, help them with language, help them stand out. It is a longer process sometimes. Typically seven to 21 days, it might be longer, but sometimes it’s worth it.
They have to stand for something. If they do, man, the process is easy because you could just roll with it. They’ve got an awesome logo that has great colors, taglines, maybe wrap trucks — and you can showcase what they do and it’s a lot less work.
We built a roofing website in the last six months that is so different from anything else in that space. The client said, “I don’t want to look like my competitors. I want to be different because I am different.” We rocked the orange. And it’s really cool because when someone goes there, it doesn’t feel like you’re talking to a roofer. It feels like you’re talking to a real person. He’s a big company — this is a big company, not a small company — and that connection, that human connection, makes all the difference.
That’s what happens when a business owner has done the work and a web design company builds around it instead of handing them the same playbook everyone else gets.
The price trap — and the legacy question
If every plumber’s website looks the same, what’s the only thing left to compete on?
Price. Every time.
If everyone looks the same, they compete on price — and that’s why it’s such a terrible trap. You have to be unique so you can compete on value. If you look the same, how do you compete on value when everybody’s value is the same? That’s the difference. Compete on value, not on price. Be unique. Be different. Stand for something — and don’t waver.
Here in the Chattanooga area, there’s an HVAC company called Hiller. They do everything — plumbing, electrical, HVAC. Their symbol is a big smiley face. Think Walmart back in the day — that yellow background smiley face you can picture right now. Hiller had used it first. And they took on Walmart — one of the biggest companies in the world — and won. Imagine the guts it took to understand that their brand identity was worth fighting for against a company that size.
They’re not a small business anymore, but compared to Walmart, they are. They’re massive in the area and expanding all through Tennessee. And it’s one of the greatest comeback stories — almost like an FU to the man. And I love it. Every time I think about it.
When I first heard that story, guess who we went to when our heater went out. We went to Hiller. Because of that story. That one story. And it wasn’t something I found online — it was one of their reps who told me. It’s not heavily marketed. But how freaking cool is that?
That’s what competitive advantage looks like. Not a prettier version of the same template. A brand that stands for something so clearly that one story — told by one rep, not even part of a campaign — turns into a customer for life. That’s why copying competitor website fails — and why the businesses that win are the ones that stopped copying a long time ago.
The cost of competitive advantage is massive growth, massive wealth, and a legacy for your family. That’s not a small thing. And if you’re looking at your website right now and it could be any business in your industry — you’ve got to do the work. If your company is just a job, then maybe you don’t need to worry about it. But if it’s a future you want to create for yourself — a legacy, maybe for your kids, maybe something you want them to take over one day — that’s a totally different story.
So the question is real, and it’s worth sitting with: do you want to hand them a job, or do you want to hand them a business?
If the answer to the legacy question matters to you, the site that looks like everyone else’s isn’t going to get you there. And neither is a site that’s been left unprotected — if you haven’t thought about what happens when your site gets compromised, that’s worth thinking about too.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I use a competitor’s website as a reference when building mine?
Yes — as a reference, not a blueprint. Look at what works on their site, identify the elements you admire, and then ask how to make those elements yours. The goal is to study the structure, not copy the surface. If your finished site could be mistaken for theirs, you went too far.
What if I don’t have a strong brand identity yet — should I just go with what my industry does?
That’s the worst time to default to the playbook, because it locks you into looking like everyone else before you’ve figured out who you are. Start with the brand work first — even a basic version. What do you stand for? What makes you different? For $130 a month we’re not doing a full brand overhaul, but we help with language, real photography, and positioning that separates you from the template crowd. The brand work is the foundation. Without it, the website is just decoration.
Why does copying a competitor’s site hurt my SEO?
Google ranks pages based on relevance, authority, and uniqueness. If your site says the same things in the same way as every other site in your industry, you’ve given the algorithm no reason to choose you. Unique content, a distinct voice, and original value propositions are what give Google something to differentiate. In the sea of sameness, nobody rises.
How long does it take to build a website that stands out from my competitors?
It depends on how much brand work the client has already done. If they’ve got a clear identity — logo, colors, voice, values — the process rolls. Typically seven to 21 days, sometimes longer if we’re helping develop that identity along the way. But the time is worth it. A site built around who you are lasts. A site copied from someone else needs replacing the moment they change theirs.
What if my competitor’s website is legitimately good — shouldn’t I try to match it?
If it’s good, study it. Figure out why it works. Then build something better. That was the first thing we told the client who pulled up his competitor’s site on a call: do you have any objection to it looking better? The answer is always no. Matching someone else’s ceiling means you’ve already capped yourself. Build your own.