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Monitoring The Competition

The old adage, "keep your friends close, and your enemies closer", is
applicable not only to personal relationships but business relationships as
well. While I'm not suggesting that you befriend your competitors, it is
important that you are cognizant of your competitors' business ventures and
methods.

It is important to realize that while monitoring your competitors is
essential, it could easily become an obsession. Therefore, it is crucial
that you strike a balance when incorporating it into your business plan.
There are several ways to conduct successful stealth competitive
intelligence operations. While it is fanciful to imagine yourself as a
secret agent or spy, none of these techniques are difficult, hidden or
secretive. In fact, most of them are tools or services available to all
businesses.

1. Ego Searches What are ego searches?
Ego searches are keywords or keyword phrase searches for a specific brand,
product, or company name. Ego searches are a great way to monitor mentions
of a competing product. You can automate the set up of ego searches using
RSS, so anytime a competitor's product or brand name is mentioned in the
news, blogosphere, or print you receive notification and the details in an
RSS feed.

How to Setup Ego Feeds - http://www.feedforall.com/ego-searches.htm
Create RSS Ego Searches - http://www.rss-tools.com/ego-search-feeds.htm

2. Competitive Intelligence
Competitive Intelligence is defined as the process of gathering actionable
information in a competitive environment. Competitive Intelligence is
researching the business environment or techniques that another business
uses. Competitive Intelligence is often used to influence a strategy for
business development.

First, it is necessary to know your competition. Background research can be
conducted using the tools at DNS Stuff http://www.dnsstuff.com , and various
other websites. The DNS stuff website will allow you to do a whois lookup. A
number of other research tools are also available on the site.

3. Google Alerts
Receive notification via email on the latest relevant Google search results
(web, news, etc.). Define the Google Alerts using a competitors company name
or product name. http://www.google.com/alerts

http://www.googlealert.com/ (3rd party tracking service) - Google Alert is
the web's leading automated search and web intelligence solution for
monitoring your professional interests online. It tracks the entire web for
your personalized topics and sends you new results by daily email.

4. Meta Tags
Have you ever considered what keywords or phrases a competitor is targeting
on their website? Have a peak at their meta tags by simply viewing the
webpage source. Pay particular attention to the header tags that include
title, description, and keywords. Are these keywords part of your marketing
mix?

5. Information
Arm yourself with information. The Googspy website is particularly useful
when used properly. Enter a keyword, company name, or domain, click the
results and view the companies top 25 competitors. If any of those websites
are using pay per click on Google, you will also be able to obtain a partial
list of the adwords they have purchased. The website gives you a glimpse
inside competitors, but the list they provide is by no means exhaustive.
http://www.googspy.com

6. Incoming Links
There are a number of ways to determine who is linking to a competitor.

A simple search can be conducted in Google and MSN for "link:domain.com"
(replace domain.com with competitor's domain). In Yahoo enter a search for
"linkdomain:domain.com" (again replacing domain.com with your competitors
name). The search will produce all webpages that provide a link to your
competitor. Ideally you can request links from the websites as well.

Other BackLink Tools - http://www.webuildpages.com/tools/

Search for Places to Submit to; this site auto-generates
http://www.webuildpages.com/search/ another tools that works in a similar
way - http://tools.seobook.com/general/link-suggest/ ; simply enter the
keyword and a list of sites that will allow you to request links appears.

7. Alexa Ranking
Use Alexa to determine not only who is linking to a competitor, but also to
determine what sites are related (list yours) . Alexa monitors web traffic
trends, and a list of similar websites. Alexa also has the ability to show a
website's popularity trends. http://www.alexa.com

8. Website Monitoring
It is generally a good practice to monitor competitors, and you can do this
using a tool like CodeMonitor. CodeMonitor takes a snapshot of a websites'
HTML and notifies of any changes. The differences in the web pages are
highlighted, making it easy to discern what changes occurred. CodeMonitor is
a free online tool, that can be found at:
http://www.emarketingperformance.com/tools/codemonitor/

9. Comparison Tools
MarketLeap has some great search comparison tools that allow for you to
compare domains and ranking. Marketleap's Trend/History report gives you a
view of how you or a competitors website's Search Engine Saturation has
performed over time. It also verifies search engine placement based on
keywords so you can quickly discern a competitors ranking for various
phrases in the top search engines. http://www.marketleap.com/publinkpop/

10. Other Useful Spy Tools
Domain tools has a mark alert that allows you to monitor the use of a
trademark. They also have a number of domain tracking and monitoring tools
that can be helpful. http://www.domaintools.com/

Keep in mind that while you should be aware of the direction a competitor is
moving. I do not advocate copying a competitor. These tools above are to
assist businesses in monitoring their competition. I am not suggesting that
you replicate, duplicate, or copy anything that a competitor does. Use the
competitive intelligence to make sound business decisions about the
direction you want to take.


Regards Gerald Crawford

Webcraft.ws Stellenbosch
PO BOX 12216 Die Boord 7613 Stellenbosch South Africa
Telephone: +27-021-8833027 (office)
Cell: +27-0720390184 (mobile)
SMS: 0796343545
Skype: webcraft.guru
Fax: 0865657300
After Hours: 0881242372
Website: http://www.webcraft.ws
E-mail: gerald@webcraft.ws
Yahoo: webcraftguru@yahoo.co.za
Blog: http://webcraftws.blogspot.com/

Twitter: WebcraftGuru
Facebook: Webcraft Guru

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