I almost forgot to pick up where we left off on the topic of competitive analyses.  Yesterday we were discussing the use of Alexa.com to spy on your competitors.  If you have not yet had a chance to go to Alexa.com, take a minute right now and check it out.  It’s a great tool tool that allows you to see how much traffic your competitors are getting through their site.

Another great tool that I like to use to verify the Alexa number is Compete.com.  This one allows you to also see the top phrases that are used to find your competitor’s site.  It’s awesome to see that your competitor is getting traffic for these 5 phrases.

I was just asked by a new client this week to look at their #1 competitor and see what they were doing to get so much traffic.  Immediately, I could see, by the top phrases used to find them, that they were probably selling a lot more pergolas than decks or awnings.  The top 5 phrases all has something to do with pergolas.  My client now knows that the competitor may not be selling as many awnings as they once suspected.  And we also know which phrases we can concentrate on to cut into their market share.

Other valuable research tools include Google’s Webmaster Tools.  In there, you’ll find great resources that show you which keywords are the most searched for and how competitive each phrase may be.

We’ll be hitting on this topic a lot more so stay tuned…

Wishing you online success,

Chadd Bryant