Posted by: admin in small business tips on Nov 11, 2009
In this day and age most of your competitors can be found online. So knowing how to do some quick and easy online competitor intelligence gathering may give your business an advantage by helping you counter their strengths and/or exploit their weaknesses. Here are four incredible resources that will give you key insights into how your competitors conduct business… and they’re FREE.
1) Spyfu.com Discover how your competitors are marketing their products/services online through Google Adwords. You can find out how much they pay for search advertising, how many clicks they receive, their average page position, the exact keywords being used to rank in organic searches, who your top competitors are and more. This is an extraordinary research tool that every business should be using.
2) Keyword density analyzer You can find several of these on the internet simply by doing a Google search for this term. Knowing the keywords your competitors use, and how they use them, will tell you a lot about their marketing strategies.
A good keyword density analyzer will give you the exact keywords used on a web page for the title tag, keyword tag, description tag, headings, alt tags and more. You’ll also learn how many times the keywords are used (keyword density). All of these elements are important for Search Engine Optimization (SEO – how to get you web pages ranked high for organic searches) and reveal your competitor’s selling message and how they target their market.
3) Internet Archive Wayback Machine This incredible resource will show you how a competitor’s web site has changed over time. Learn how they’ve changed their marketing focus simply by reading their copy. Discover what kind of marketing approaches they’ve tested and what won. See how they’ve priced their products/services over the years and learn what they’ve offered in the way of guarantees, bonuses, free trials and the like.
Studying your competitors’ marketing trends can help you predict their direction for the future, and maybe help you to get there first. A quick Google search will help you find this tool.
4) Google alerts This free service from Google will help you keep tabs on your competition around the clock. You don’t need to pay some clipping service to follow your competitors in the newspapers and trade magazines. Just sign up with Google and you’ll start getting alerts sent directly to your email right away.
This handy little service is also a great way to see what others are saying in the news and on blogs about your business. Go to Google and sign up today.