Spying on your competition online is one way to get ahead of the game. With so many brands competing for your audience’s attention, you need to know which strategies work and which ones don’t so you can improve your own campaigns.
Imagine how advantageous it would be to discover your competitors’ weaknesses and watch their every move – from their backlinks to keywords and Google rankings. Knowing these things allows you to create new goals and get a clear idea of your current position in your niche.
The good news is that there is no shortage to the strategies you can employ to understand your competitors’ performance in relation to yours. Below, I’ve prepared for you a list of proven methods to help you reach your brand goals.
Let’s get started, shall we?
Stay Updated with Your Competitors’ Activities in Real-Time
If you haven’t been using Google Alerts, it’s a free way to keep yourself up-to-date with what your online competitors are up to. All you have to do is enter the desired keywords you want to track so Google can automatically send you emails about the latest buzz on your rivals from time to time. Taking advantage of Google alerts helps you compete with leading brands in your niche worldwide.
Check Your Competitors’ Best Pieces of Content
Are you a newbie blogger and experiencing difficulty gaining traction with your blog post topics? If blog engagement is something you haven’t been getting, a good strategy would be to find out which content types and topics your competitors are using that are actually getting tons of shares, likes, and comments. You can write similar topics and improvise. Make sure to share your content on social media to check whether your method has been effective.
To get started, subscribe to your competitors’ newsletters. You can also use Feedly. It’s a feed reader application that let’s you discover newly published posts by blogs or websites you follow – in real-time.
Find out Their Best Social Media Platform
When it comes to building brand awareness or gaining social acceptance, you need to take advantage of platforms that are best suited for your niche. Remember that you can’t be great on all platforms. There must be one or a selected few that matches the nature of your business.
According to Business 2 Community, you should be able to choose a social media network with a clear goal in mind. Your top performing competitors are well-aware of this. Does your business involve visual content? Are you providing a lot of how-to tutorials? Or are you focused on providing industry news/trends? Ask yourself these questions.
For example, if you have started a photography website, you’ll notice that your competitors are using Pinterest or YouTube. It pays to check which communication channels they use.
Interview Your Customers
Customers are the best sources of information when it comes to improving your current product or service. Run an online survey so you can ask your your customers about the brands they used before or are using now. Find out what they liked most or least about these brands. Use the information you get to your advantage.
If you’ve just launched your business, you’ll want to avoid wasting resources and committing a lot of errors by learning from your competition.
Choose the Right Tool for Your Needs
It’s no secret that competitor analysis tools can help you streamline your brand for success. A lot of these tools are available nowadays – both free and paid. Before you can choose the right tool, ask yourself the area/s of your business you need to improve on. Next, pick a tool that provides you with the data you need based on these target area/s.
Ask yourself whether you need to assess your rankings and backlinks at once including your competitors’. Or if you run ads, you might want a tool that allows you to spy on your rival’s best ad placements.
No matter which strategies you use to understand your competitors, always check your business goals. This allows you to run laser-targeted campaigns and get the best results.
