If you want to be at the top of your game, the first step is to know what you’re up against. Gone is the time when having an online presence was enough – these days no matter what your niche, there’s bound to be at least a handful of other businesses doing what you do, and vying for the same customers that you are. So how do you get that competitive edge? In short, by spying on what your competitors are doing.
Now, it’s not as sinister as it sounds, and in fact monitoring the competition is one of the most common ways that top-notch marketers stay that way. Here are a few tools that will help you get up to speed on what the other companies in your space are up to, so that you can decide which tactics of theirs might work well for you, too.
- Spyfu is one of the most popular keyword research tools out there. It can show you the keyword ranking of your competitors as well as helping you create a better strategy for your own advertisement.
- If email marketing is significant for you, Owletter can combine your competitors’ newsletters into a searchable database that you can use to help optimize your campaigns.
- For social media analytics, Sprout Social is a tool that can help you make decisions based on how often your competitors are sharing posts, what the content of their high-performing posts is, and how your account growth compares to theirs.
- SEMrush delves deep into your competitors’ SEO tactics, pulling their backlinks and following changes in their ranking. This can help you focus your own SEO strategy.
- If you just want a good starter kit in a neat package, Mention is a great all-in-one monitoring dashboard that tracks web mentions, social media accounts, and customer comments all in one place.
- And finally, if you really want to get serious about your competitor monitoring, BuzzSumo gives an extensive (though somewhat expensive) look at everything that’s going on with the brands you’re tracking. it can monitor everything from social media to web links, and from SEO to writing content.
Whatever method you choose, the important thing is to keep your eyes and ears open for what changes are leading to the greatest benefit. The rest is just a matter of applying what you’ve learned, and watching your marketing success grow.
Cogo Interactive is an award-winning digital marketing agency specializing in online marketing strategy, web design, SEO and social media marketing. We work with clients in Virginia, Maryland, Washington, DC and nationally.
