Ready, stedy, go! How to track competition online?

Whether you’re interested in e-commerce or want to expand your business into the digital world, competition is one of the most important aspects of your business strategy. However, it can be very difficult to keep track of who you’re competing against on a regular basis. This guide will help you track your competition more easily and effectively so that you can ensure you remain ahead of the game.

Do you know how big the competition is in your industry?

You may have a good idea of who your major competitors are, but do you know how big the competition is in your industry? If you’re not sure, it’s time to find out. By tracking your competition online, you can get a better sense of the size of the playing field and how your business measures up. Monitoring the sites and pages they are most active on can help you better understand what’s going on with them and where they might be going next. There are many free and paid tools available for keeping tabs on competition online—so why not take advantage of them?

How to find your rivals online?

By now, you’re probably aware that the Internet is a vast and ever-changing landscape. As a business owner, it’s important to stay ahead of the curve and monitor your online competition. But how do you find them? The answer is: e-commerce audit SEO. Not only is this process extremely useful in assessing the quality of your website, it also allows you to gain data on your competitors. Keywords, links, content, ranges, followers, comments and much more.

In order to make informed decisions about your marketing and advertising strategies, you need to know what your competition is up to. Monitoring your rivals can give you a leg up on the competition, help you adjust your own strategies, and give you insights into the larger market.

Are you operating locally? So does your competition

Optimization and positioning techniques aren’t just reserved for big players – small and medium-sized businesses operating locally may, and even should, take advantage of them. Local SEO marketing is the process of optimizing your online presence to attract more customers from local search results. By improving your website, listings, and social media profiles, you can make it easier for potential customers to find your business when they’re searching for products or services like yours. And, when you keep an eye on your competition, you can adjust your own marketing strategy to stay one step ahead. 

What tools should I use?

There are many different ways to track your competition online. Depending on your business, you may want to track different metrics. Here are a few tools to help you get started. 

• SEMrush is an all-in-one suite that provides research, data and tracking for PPC, SEO and social media marketing professionals. It offers competitive intelligence across 160 million domains and 50 million keywords.
• Google Alerts is a free tool from Google that sends notifications to its users whenever it finds new results matching their search criteria – like when something new appears in the news or someone mentions them on social media sites like Twitter or Facebook. You can also use this tool to monitor blog posts, videos and images related to your industry. 
• Another useful tool is Open Site Explorer, which allows you to see who is linking to your competitor’s website. This can give you some insight into their link building strategy. It also helps you identify influential sites in your niche that could be worth reaching out to for potential links or mentions.
• Majestic SEO provides analytics about the links pointing to websites and gives an overview of social media activity. Compete offers market share data and estimates how many people visit a site. 

How to use this knowledge?

Competition tracking is a process by which businesses can closely monitor the activities of their online rivals. By keeping tabs on what your competitors are doing, you can adapt and adjust your own strategies to stay ahead of the curve. See what works for others and what is better to avoid. However, remember not to copy, but to improve. Successful businesses have learned that copying competitor’s strategy may yield short-term success, but will ultimately lead to failure in the long run. The key is to never stop innovating! You’ll always need something new in order to keep up with evolving technology and changing customer needs.

What to pay special attention to?

1. Google ranking. As a website owner, your ongoing task will be to monitor your ranking. In this context, you can use Google Analytics to generate ongoing reports and respond to inheritance alerts.
2. Keywords. Pages constantly compete with each other in terms of better matching to the intentions and inquiries of users. This is important not only for organic results, but also for paid results.
3. Content. Pay particular attention to the headings, length, keyword saturation and originality. Remember that content is the most important value for search engine robots.
4. Link building strategies. You also need to pay attention to the visibility of your website and the like on the web. Look at the position of anchored text, the number of inbound links from other domains, the link history, and the topic match.
5. Security certficate. Websites with an SSL security certificate are favored by Google. See if your competition cares about customer data, if not – this is the gateway for you. This is especially important for online stores where Internet users make payment transactions.

Wrapping up

If you’re not monitoring your online competition, you’re missing out on valuable insights that could help your business grow. By tracking your rivals, you can stay ahead of the curve, react quickly to changes in the market, and find new opportunities for success. The three steps outlined above are a great starting point for mastering competitor intelligence. They will provide you with a deep understanding of who your competitors are, what they’re doing well, and how to keep up with them by either adapting their strategies or finding new ways to beat them at their own game.

Main photo: Priscilla Du Preez/unsplash.com