baseballjbrguxc

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.rss-specifications.com/rss-ego.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.

Copyright 2006 Sharon Housley

Sharon Housley manages marketing for FeedForAll http://www.feedforall.com software for creating, editing, publishing RSS feeds and podcasts. In addition Sharon manages marketing for NotePage http://www.notepage.net a wireless text messaging software company.Make Money Fast Online Work At Home Crafts Home Business
Tax Software For Home Based Internet Business
Make Easy Money Online Credit
Online Business Administration Degree
Resell Ebook Packs
Free Ways To Make Extra Money At Home
Quick Ways To Make Money Online
Tampa Search Engine Optimization Company
Bloggers In Romania
Do Task Earn Money
Mlm Health Network Marketing
Tampa Web Site Marketing
Home Based Business Internet Work Opportunity
Free Background Check Search Engines
Goole Adwords Keyword Research Online Marketing Ppc
Latino Advertising For Physician Procedures
100 Ways To Make Money
Ebook Reseller
Based Business Home Opportunity Small Work At Home Internet
Seo Search Engine Marketing Botswana
Make Money Is On The Internet
Web Search Engines
Google Pagerank Web
Make Money Off Real Estate
Managed Pay Per Click Advertising
Sharedprofitcom And Affiliate Programs
Domain Registration Affiliate Partner Programs
A List Seo
Rocket Ebooks
Google Adsense Preview Tool
Link Seo Suggest Tool
Canon Usa Consumer Products Digital Cameras Powershot S
Marketing Web Site Promotions Leader Directwebvisi
Google Page Rank Tool
Meta Travel Search Engines
Top Ten Ways To Make Money Online
Best Network Marketing Company
Make Money Online At Home
Affiliate Programs Affiliate Marketing Webmasters Earn Money
Clickbank Thank You Page
Home Job Online Surveys Make Money Work At Home
Blogging And Privacy
Clickbank Cookie What Does It Do
Engine Optimization Search Seo Site Software Submission
Earn Extra Money The Internet
Google Adsense Clickbank Google Profits
Car Insurance Business Use Online Quote
How To Make Money On The Internet No Start Up
Mlm Marketing Network Web Design
Internet Marketing Online Advertising
Price For Web Site Marketing
Technical Search Engines
Internet Home Business
Make Incredible Huge Amounts Of Money On The Internet
How To Make Easy Quick Money At Home
American Domains And Internet Search Engine Pay Per Click
Lan Internet Marketing Strategy
Sony Ebook
Future Internet Marketing Shopping Strategy
Best Affiliate Programs
Blogging And Lawsuit
Grants And Loans Free Government Money
Advertising Business Online Web
How To Make Money Online The Easy Way
British Search Engines
Surveys Make Money At Home
Low Cost Web Site Hosting Business Marketing
Work At Home Internet Job
Secret Adult Search Engines
Buy Cheap Make Money On The Internet
Internet Advertising Agencies
Affiliate Programs Make Money With Domain Parking 3
Search Engine Optimization Wisconsin
Adsense Tips
Clickbank Health Alternative Medicine Clickbank To
How To Make Money Work At Home Income Opportunity Money
Earn Money Taking Online Surveys Paid For Opinions
Isllong Seo
Earn Or Make Online Money
Affiliate Beauty Cart Health Program Shopping
Free Tamil Ebooks
How Do I Make Money On Or With The Internet
Best Company Marketing Mlm Network
Internet Income Business Opportunity Home Based Mlm Business
Paid Internet Survey Earn Money Taking Online Surveys Free
Free Money Charitable Foundations Grants For Small Business
Work From Home Based Business Internet Marketing Sydney
Make Extra Money By Taking Online Survey
Internet Marketing Seo Pay Per Click
Seo Tool Effective Search Engine Optimization
Web Site Submission Seo Software Submitprobiz
Mlm Business Opportunity Network Marketing Internet
Make Money Selling On The Internet
Blogger Php
Website Ranking And Seo Search Engine Optimization Services
Ways For Kid To Make Money Fast Loan
Search Engine Online Marketing Optimization
Affiliate Diego Internet Marketing Program San
Seo Web Site Promotion Internet Marketing
How To Make Money With Online Forms