You didn’t see it coming, and you certainly don’t know where to start to determine how they managed to displace your site in the search results. I’m a big fan of building or using tools to do the heavy lifting. In this article I will give you a handful of free tools and ways that you can use them to monitor what your competitors are up to so that you are able to react quickly or stay one step ahead.
1. Google Alerts – I am sure you have
heard of Google Alerts, it is a free service america phone number list from Google which will send you an email whenever a new piece of content containing your pre-defined search phrase is found online. The great thing about this is you can use a variety of search operators to create queries, if you don’t know about advanced search operators then I recommend this article.
Google Alerts
I usually use Google Alerts as a
way to monitor brand mentions of my own site or my client’s site; however you can create searches for your competitor’s brand name, site name or staff names. This is a great way to see what types of content they are producing and whether they are getting press mentions or using link building tactics such as guest blogging to get links to their “money pages”.
2. Open Site Explorer – this is one of the most popular link analysis tools online. It allows you about 5 free searches per day with very limited information. However if you sign up for a 30 day free trial you unlock the tool’s full potential.
My favourite new element of OSE is the Just Discovered
links tab (below) which will tell you who has linked to you (or more importantly your competition) over the past few days. There’s even a tip on the SEOmoz blog to create an RSS feed so you are updated when it happens.
moz-just-discovered
3. Topsy – Topsy allows you to find out who the influential people are that share a specific URL. This is a great way to learn a bit more about the relationships your competitors may have with influencers in your niche.
Topsy
Simply copy and paste the URL from your competitor’s article or infographic into Topsy and it will highlight all the people who shared it. Then hit the “Show Influential Only” checkbox and you have your list of people to contact with your next piece of content.