Keeping your website up-to-date with new products and related news is very important. First of all it shows your visitors/customers that you are a ‘cutting edge’ company, one step ahead in its chosen field. The other reason, and this will be covered in great depth in a later article, is that the search engines will see you updating your website with fresh content and you will receive credit for doing so.

Sometimes writing articles and newsletters can be a drain on your creativity and you’ll get a ‘writers block’. Also, how on earth are you to know what is happening within your market when there are four of you running a small company with no time to spare? As usual the internet is brimming with solutions.

The first, and most heard of, is Google Alerts. That’s right, Google will mail you with news of anything that becomes newly available on the ‘net.  All you do is enter in the ‘keywords’ you want to be alerted about (new products, your competitors, travel news, a popstar, etc) and then choose from a few options regarding the incoming email and that is it.

Next is Yahoo Alerts – this is the exact same service as Google’s but Yahoo has a different way of finding information (an algorithm) so some of the alerts may differ.

Then, finally, we have an alert service that scours the world of social media (for example Facebook, Twitter and services where individuals create the flow of information). Social Mention leaves no service untouched whilst listening out for your alerts. This image sums up their service nicely.

If business was a battlefield then the enemy would be called ‘your competition’. The military of today never engages an enemy without first learning as much as they can about them and then figuring out ways to defeat them using this knowledge. It is this attitude you must adopt if you are to be successful in business.

I know what you are thinking “But I don’t want any part of all this ‘army’ nonsense, I just want to sell my products and live happily ever after”. Well I now say “Rubbish” and if you want to learn a few tips on how to succeed please read on.

The gloves are off!

Newsletters – if your competitors have newsletters then sign up for them to learn what they are up to. Special offers, new products or services, etc. Read between the lines of the newsletter, is it well written, knowledgeable, is it a generic newsletter template that has just been thrown together.  Does it look like they give a damn? Your newsletter will be exactly what theirs isn’t.

Social Media - if they have Twitter or Facebook, etc, then sign up for them. In social media people talk too much and they talk from the heart. Keep your eyes open for a Tweet that gives a hint of a future product release that shouldn’t have been mentioned (you could use that opportunity to get onto the search engines first with clever use of your own content publication) or maybe a Facebook entry mentioning a move to a new address (again, you could target the product or service for that location in advance with your own content, so even though they have just moved there you already are above them for that locality in the searches).

Hire them - if they offer a service, hire them! Are they professional, do they wear a uniform, is their vehicle a normal one or a dedicated company vehicle. Interrogate the worker who is providing the services on the following things – are they busy, where does he work the most, what services is he doing the most, what is morale like within the company …. I’m sure you get my point here. Use the information gained to help structure your own marketing (especially after hiring all of the competition above you in the search results).

Visit them - if they have a premisses that is open to the clients (such as a shop) then pay them a visit. Start by noticing products, new releases, offers, etc, then get chatting to the staff. “This Panasonic XYZ looks good but have you guys got the ABC in just yet?”. To see where I’m going with this section re-read the above paragraph. Once chit chat has gone past their product/service then move onto some of the more crucial stuff that might give away things to help you in your battle for search results.

Strip their site -go through their website and strip it down to its bare SEO – learn how their search engine optimisation has gotten them to where they are in the search engines. To save time use ‘ctrl U’ to view each page’s meta tags. See image below -

This is called a page source code - you are not doing anything illegal by viewing it!

Viewing  the entire SEO of a website is a large task but if you do it right you will find areas of optimisation that they haven’t covered – things like Product A hasn’t been adequately done, or, they failed to mention they provide services in such town (don’t forget, we are talking SEO here, not how they physically advertise or what is seen on their website, this is all behind the scenes. This is information for you to use to get you ahead of them in the search results).

There are also many free tools that help you in your quest to know thy enemy, however I haven’t found one that ticks all the boxes. Give them a try -

• SEOmoz
• SEO Chat tools

Remember – do not spend too much time learning about your competition when you could be making your own website/company better, with the end result being a higher place in the search engines!