Spying on the competition is something that we all do, from small businesses to huge corporations. It’s important to keep up to date on your competitor’s strategy, and the changes they are making to their business model and products. Additionally, look for how they promote themselves and see what kind of website traffic they are getting. It’s also a way of getting ideas and inspiration and the way you promote it.
Spying what the competition is doing and what they’re failing at can help you do better than them. What can you learn from their mistakes?
- What type of content are they writing and sharing? Is it better than yours, or getting more engagement on social media than you do?
- How do they promote their business, and what marketing strategies are they employing, and are they working for them?
- What is social media activity like? If they are getting more followers and engagement than you, and how can you remedy the situation?
Best Tools to Spying on the Competition
Google Alerts
In order to keep up with every move the competition is making and keeping track of any mention of their name online, the easiest way is to set up a Google Alert. It’s probably the cheapest and fastest way to make sure you’re up to date on every mention of your competitor’s brand. Another cool feature is that you can create multiple alerts, to highlight exactly what the differences are between you and your competitors.
Mention
Mention is a really great tool for monitoring, but it can also easily be used to monitor the competition, as well as any keyword you can think of. Mention monitors in real-time, and checks millions of sources, not just the blogs. It also checks social media, videos, forums, and images monitor lead generations. All of the mentions are updated, and you will also be able to see detailed statistics, such as mention locations, Twitter, Instagram, talking about the brand, reach, sentiment, and more.
Brand24
Brand24 is a tool designed to help you track any mentions of your brand, in real-time and find out who is mentioning them. That said, you can also use it to track mentions of your competitor brands. What are they saying online, what social influencers are talking about them, and what is the sentiment behind these mentions? You can also use it to search for any keywords, topics, or trends on the social web.
Link Alerts
Link Research Tools are, “like Google Alerts but for links”. You can use it to monitor your own link alerts and backlink history. But the focus is on their competitive backlink analysis feature in search engines. Therefore, once you’ve set up the alert, you’re going to get a full list of what backlinks you’re competitor is getting. Their Link Research Tool Power Trust features will let you know how valuable each link is.
Monitor Backlinks
Monitor Backlinks is a great tool for monitoring your competition and your own backlinks, as well. This useful tool will monitor and alert you whenever they get a new link that has good SEO value. It has a keyword rank checker that allows you to monitor your keywords and then compare your rankings with your competitors. With this information, you can create a better strategy and boost your search engine ranking.
