How are your competitors doing ? What are they doing right now? Do you have that in mind? Three simple questions that sometimes got me swimming in the early days. Because, let's be honest: It's hard enough to run your own business. Then also keep an eye on the competitors?
However, it is very important to monitor your competitors! Only then can you develop your own business. And react to the new needs of your customers in good time - by measuring yourself against your competitors. Otherwise your customers will migrate – directly to the next provider. It's best to be one step ahead of your competitors anyway. If that's difficult at the moment, at least keep an eye on her steps. I recommend five tools for this – all very easily available, free of charge and ready to use in a short amount of time . Make regular checks on the activities of your competitors a regular part of your everyday work. Then nothing goes down.
Competitor Watch, the First: similarweb.com
Similarweb.com is one of the five tools I recommend to you. You can read easily accessible information such as PageRank, traffic sources, subdomains, organic and paid keywords, display advertising and thematically similar websites in a clear form immediately after entering the URL. That is, if information on this website is available.
Take the data as a source of inspiration : Wherever your competitors get their traffic from - these may also be good sources for your business and you. Beware: If the traffic is obviously from unlikely sources and looks like "bought", stay away from it. Because Google punishes you quickly and your competitors are quickly away from the good front places.
Competitor Watch Second: ahrefs.com
Are you primarily interested in how the link structure of your competitors looks like? Then you are well served with ahrefs.com . Because this nice little tool lists anchor texts , backlink types and of course the total number of linked websites.
Why should this be helpful? Very simple: If you are wondering why your competitor's website is positioned so well in the search engines - a look at the link structure can help you further. ahrefs.com is also a suitable source of inspiration for your own articles in new industry and specialist portals. If your competitors have published there, it doesn't hurt to show up there yourself. Or?
By the way, without registration you can only check one website per day. If you want more, you should register for free.
Competitor Watch the third party: PageMonitor add-on
Then there is the add-on for the Google Chrome browser. Do you want to be immediately aware of changes on your competitor's website? Tracked websites are automatically reported with a pop-up and warning sound when they are updated. As soon as you call up the pages, the changes are highlighted . This becomes important when you operate in a highly competitive price market. Or when your competitors launch new products and services .
The PageMonitor add-on is free and not restricted. So you can enter as many competitors as you need and track changes. If you don't want to use the Chrome browser, you can use the Website Watcher tool instead. However, this is only free for the first thirty days.
Competitor Watch Fourth: builtwith.com
Does your closest competitor use WordPress or another CMS? Which shop system is behind his flourishing business, and above all: What else does he use that could also be helpful for your purposes? Encryption in the background, mail server, widgets and co. - sometimes success is in the detai
A good infrastructure is essential. And it can always be improved. If the competitor is doing well - maybe he just has the better technology in the background ? Of course you can also ask him personally. He might even tell you the details. If not, builtwith.com is easier - and faster.
Competitor Watch, the latest: alerts and notifications
A good reputation is (almost) everything on the internet . Reason enough to keep a close eye on what is appearing about you on the Internet. Or what is published about and with your competitors. How do you get that? For example, via Google Alerts or services such as alert.io . Both are quick to set up, free, and will send you a quick synopsis as soon as the keywords you mention pop up online.
You can track down an approaching shitstorm just as quickly as you can identify the influencers in your industry. Incidentally, setting up the alerts takes less than five minutes. The rest runs by itself.
Do you have additions to these 5 tools from your everyday work? Which tool is indispensable for you?
I look forward to your comments.
Good luck and all the best!
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