Whereas the Internet is growing extensively these days, many business owners started doing business online. It is not a regular simple task but quite challenging one. In this case, you face many different aspects to consider. You are not only made to sell the best products at the most profitable prices, you are made to review your competitors. You need to constantly monitor your competitors, understand how they operate, learn their marketing strategies and the percentage of sales to grow your own online business. If you neglect this issue and have not the vaguest idea what your competitors are doing, you will ruin your own business. You are always made to keep ahead of the business competition.
If you are a new chum in one or another business sphere, you should browse the web in quest of the marketing strategy your competitors use. First, analyze the companies that outperform you. Try to analyze the competitors’ strong points – it will help you sharpen your own business.
The prime objective of this review is to present 10 best tools that will help you examine your competitors, discover their strategies and see which ones you can use in the development of your business. They will assist you in your effort to work out successful and efficacious online marketing campaigns. Having analyzed the competitor’s websites, you will get new ideas to develop your own web marketing. Every marketing move of you competitors must be monitored by you.
SimilarWeb – a Tool to Keep Tabs on the Traffic of Your Competitors
This tool enables you to get the comprehensive analysis of any website. The tool analyzes many sources and creates the most truthful picture of the digital world. The platform allows users to get the in-depth information about each website and even compare them. SimilarWeb spent many years to build their data collection infrastructure. With this service you will receive the following data:• The traffic sources;
• Traffic and commitment of users;
• The detailed data break-down according to each traffic source;
• Popular websites;
• Analyze the keywords.
You will get the information on all traffic insights for any websites. You will always have access to the information on how many leads come from referrals, search or display ads.
Simply Measured – Social Analytics Tool
With this platform, you can analyze such social networking sites as Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Youtube. The information you may get fully depends on the social channel you wish to check. For instance, if your overarching goal is to monitor Facebook account, you will see the historical data that was posted at the beginning of the page. In the case of Twitter, you will view the information up to the 1500th tweet that was posted. Besides, this tool has one more distinctive feature: it separates historical tracking from live tracking.
Simply Measured also enables you to segment the targeted audience. Having done it, you will see who contributes to positive conversion. This is a great chance to check how you are performing on social networking sites and check whether your campaign has a meaningful effect.
In other words, with this platform, you will increase the keywords ranking and website traffics.
Simply Measured also enables you to segment the targeted audience. Having done it, you will see who contributes to positive conversion. This is a great chance to check how you are performing on social networking sites and check whether your campaign has a meaningful effect.
SpyFu – a Tool to Check Keywords and Ads
With this easy-to-use service, you will receive the detailed report concerning all website characteristic features like competitors, keywords, statistics, etc. It allows you to see which keywords are used by your contestants in AdWords and organic search. To check the information, you need to type in the web address of your competitor and the service will show you a report in seconds flat. You will see the whole list of all keywords. This is a great free service, allowing you to check each keyword and organic rank used by your contestants in the last ten years.In other words, with this platform, you will increase the keywords ranking and website traffics.
SocialMention – The Tool Providing Users with Social Media Analysis
This is a reputable platform providing all users with a social media search. It is empowered with a plethora of useful options that focus on video, social and blogs. Its overriding goal is to gather any topic from across the world into one simple report. With this service, the process of monitoring the information on what people think about you or your company is simplified. To find out this information, the user needs to enter the required search term and the service will process data and will show the information about what have been said about this term in different social networking sites. It also enables you to subscribe to an RSS feed for you not to miss something important.Google Alerts – the Best Instrument to Control Mentions
Google Alerts is a well-liked service used by a plethora of SEO specialists in the entire world. This is the best content change detection platform, developed by Google. The prime objective of this service is to notify the users about new webpages, blogs or articles that are similar to the user’s search term.This tool is widely accepted in the following cases:
• To check keywords mentions;
• Control social mentions;
• Get the backlinks of competitors.
This service was launched in 2003 and during these years it developed the reputation of one of the most simple (yet effective) tool to analyze the contestants’ sites.
Marketing Grader - a Free Online Tool to Grade Your Site Performance, Mobile Readiness, SEO, and Security
This is a great service allowing users to keep a check on mentions. The platform was founded in 2006 and since that moment it graded approximately 4 million websites. This service recommends marketers how to make their websites better.
Marketing Grader makes a detailed analysis of all of your marketing. To provide users with this information, it reviews more than 30 different factors. The service analyzes all peculiarities of your marketing plan and shows your good and weak points.
• With this service, you will learn more about:
• Lead Generation.
• Social Media;
• Blogging;
• Competitive;
• Benchmarking.
Alexa – a Tool for Web Ranking
This tool is the most popular one. Among all available free instruments, this one is widely thought to the most advanced one. This software is a helping hand for each business, which wants to get the better results. When it comes to controlling the linking, keywords or traffic of your competitors, Alexa is an A-number resource for doing it.Alexa can help you with the following issues:
• Improve SEO;
• Choose keywords;
• Compare different traffic metrics;
• Find out new ideas that will improve traffic;
• See the keywords your contestants use;
• With Alexa, you will improve your PPC strategy and SEO.
InfiniGraph – a Social Media Tool to Explore the User Connections
InfiniGraph is an excellent tool to use in your competitive analysis. This is a reputable content intelligence solution, which offers you a helping hand in your effort to utilize all industry benchmarks. The prime objective of this tool is to inform users and offer them many significant tools that help users choose information in social networking sites. It can help your marketing team work better.The most important and useful features are as follows:
• Content Discover;
• Brand Map;
• Trend Notification;
• Contend Trends.
What Runs Where – A Tool for Monitoring the Advertisement
This is a fair opportunity to see what type of ads really works. Besides, What Runs Where helps business owners buy correctly. The platform has great features to monitor all your competitors. This tool has more than 40 ad networks in many countries, allowing users to monitor a number of competitors.The feature “Alert Notification” allows you to receive alerts each time your competitor starts using any type of content or advertisement. With this advanced tool, you will always have the insight track on all strategies, used by your contestants.
SpyOnWeb – Find the Websites that Probably Have the Same Owner
This is the easiest tool to analyze competitors you have ever seen before. The service allows you to check what resources belong to one and the same owner. To do this, you need to enter in the required field a URL, IP address, Google Analytics Code or Google AdSense and all the rest the service will do for you. It processes the data and offers you a result quickly. Having entered one particular domain, you will get the list of all domains with the same IP address. Now, the procedure of identifying all websites that are run by one and the same company is easier.Bonus infographic:
Source: RWD
Even if at first gaze this information seems to be complicated, you have to understand one simple truth – continuous learning and development are the main formula for success. Learn how to use all the above-listed tools and you will always be the first in any competition. The modern digital world develops at a rate of knots and requires business owners to search for the most full-fledged strategies faster. All tools mentioned in this review will teach you how to guard against mistakes in your online marketing.
About author:
Alexandra Foster is an ex-English teacher who helps parents/students and organizations with educational planning. She is a tech savvy, who loves education and technology, that makes studying process more convenient and collaborative. Currently working with Noplag.com Team as a consultant.