Online competitive intelligence is a rather tricky subject. Collecting information on your competition’s marketing tactics online is fairly easy, though it is getting more difficult now that Yahoo! Site Explorer is no longer live. You can still do back link analysis, but you’ll have to pay for it. The question is, is it worth it?

In many cases, I’d say it is worth it to study your competition and see what they are up to. But bear in mind that just because your competition is engaged in a particular marketing strategy doesn’t mean that it is working for them. And that means you could spend hours and hours analyzing your competition and coming up with nothing but wasted time. That is true particularly if you intend to mirror their actions.

If your competition is still engaged in five-year-old link building tactics that don’t work, then you could be killing yourself trying to follow them. My recommendation is, don’t.

It’s good to keep tabs on the competition, don’t get me wrong. But if your only intent in doing so is so that you can figure out what they are doing online and following that, you should rethink your competitive intelligence strategy. Monitoring the competition is not the same as analyzing them. And analyzing your competition’s moves is only useful if your analysis leads you to actionable steps that benefit your marketing strategy.

Competitive intelligence is one of those areas where it pays to be cautious. Collect, measure, and monitor, but don’t take action until you’ve engaged in effective analysis.

• Use it to improve your search engine optimization campaigns.
• Keep abreast of your competition’s developments so you can maintain a competitive posture. Remember when Google+ introduced Circles? Facebook replied with its own version of friends management called Lists.
• Find out how your competition is responding to your developments.
• Use the information to poll your customers to see if you can improve your own products and services.
• Compare the intelligence against developing market trends.
• Identify your own areas of relative weakness.
• Discover new ways of looking at old problems.

Competitive intelligence is a never-ending process. What you can learn from studying and spying on your competition could improve your own business practices. Your core products and services might have some weaknesses revealed by what your competition is doing. Do consumers have a more favorable perception of your products or those of your competition?

If you want to remain competitive, keep tabs on your competitors and use the information you gather to make your company and its products the best they can be.

1. Reputation Management – Without a good reputation, all the SEO in the world is for naught. Good products and services, customer service, and the ability to solve your customer’s needs are the building blocks to good reputation management.
2. Conversion Optimization – Bottom line, if you aren’t closing sales, then nothing else matters. Drive traffic and convert it – by any means possible.
3. Market Research – Successful online marketing begins with market research, and that includes competitive intelligence.
4. Relationships – Business is all about building relationships. Maintain good, solid relations with your prospects and you’ll take care of #1.
5. Targeted Marketing – Who do you serve? The best marketing in the world reaches out to the market you serve and let’s everyone else go.

If you want to build a solid online business, make sure you focus on these 5 key areas. To the degree that you succeed at these and that your search engine optimization efforts support them, you’ll do well online. Forget these and it won’t matter how good you can optimize a web page.

Still, legal concerns aside, you can spy on your competition in a number of ways (all of which are legal). Here are 7 of them.

1. Subscribe To Their Newsletter – Just about every company has a newsletter. Are you a subscriber? Companies often share their latest developments with their newsletter subscribers first. If you’re on the list, you’ll be in the know. Subscribe to the print version as well as the e-mail/digital edition.
2. Follow Their Blog – This is something you can do anonymously. No subscriptions necessary. Just log on once or twice a day and see what they’re up to.
3. Follow Them On Twitter – Almost everyone has a Twitter account these days. Are you following your competition? You should be.
4. Newspaper Clippings – People and companies still make the news the old-fashioned way. Are you clipping any print news about your competition? You should be. But also include clippings of online news – websites, blogs, etc. Anything that is newsworthy should go in your drop file.
5. Check Out Their Facebook Page – These days, companies are as likely to update their Facebook page before doing anything else.
6. Stay Connected On LinkedIn – Is your competition active on LinkedIn? Have you even looked. Many companies have their employees answer questions on LinkedIn. You should be there right alongside them.
7. Download Their Mobile Apps – If your competition has a mobile app, you should be using it.

There’s no telling what you’ll learn about the competition if you do these 7 things. Competitive intelligence today isn’t like it was 20 years ago.

Here are three ways to make the most of your competition’s marketing efforts on Facebook:

1. Join their Facebook page – Many businesses spend all of their Facebook time managing their page and marketing through their page. If your competition has a Facebook page, join it. Check it often for updates and subscribe to their Networked blog if they have one.
2. Sign for their app – Many businesses are developing their own Facebook apps. You should use those apps because they can be a clue as to what your competition might be considering next. Many apps tools later become marketplace offerings.
3. Executive profiles – If you can get the names of your competition’s top executives, look to see if they have profiles. If so, send them a friend request. If necessary, send a friend request from a fake account or have your sister’s cousin do it instead. Be sneaky, but legal.

Competitive intelligence is alive and well, even on Facebook. Embrace it.

Of course, there’s not a lot of information you can get from a press release. You already know the name of the company and you probably know their address and contact information. But the one really important piece of information you can gain from a press release is what the company has been up to lately. That’s important news.

Chances are, you won’t know about new developments until they go public. That’s when press releases are written. But the press release can give you some insight into a company’s thinking about a new development.

What you want to do with the press release is drop it into your clipping file. You should have one of these for every competitor you do research on. Anything related to that competitor goes into the clipping file. News stories, press releases, D&B information, stock market reports, brochures and annual reports, and anything else that gives you insight into the company’s operations. As new developments roll out, have someone be responsible for doing the research and collecting the information.

Competitive intelligence is a cost of business you can’t ignore. If you do, you’ll fall behind.

You bet it does.

In fact, if you aren’t using social media for competitive research, then you aren’t using social media to its fullest potential. The first thing that comes to mind is following your competition on the top social networks. At a minimum, you should be keeping tabs on what your competition is doing at

• Facebook
• Twitter
• LinkedIn

And if you are a local business with local competition, then you should consider looking at what your competition is doing at

• Foursquare
• Meetup
• Google Places

Just to start.

Social media is a tool with many uses. Competitive intelligence is just one of them, but it’s an important one. You can spy on your competition through any social network just by following them and learning what they are up to. If you want to be sneaky, you can set up anonymous accounts or proxies and spy on your competition that way.

Any way you do it, social media is a great competitive intelligence tool. Don’t ignore it.

1. Twitter – Are you following your competition on Twitter?
2. Their website and blog – Are you following the competition’s blog? Do you regularly check their website? You can use SEO tools to look at their effectiveness in search engine marketing and use that against them.
3. Facebook – Are you checking in on your competition’s Facebook page or the walls of their executives? You should be.
4. News sites – Do you read industry news portals? That’s a great place to find out what announcements the competition is making public.
5. E-mail newsletters – Do you subscribe to your competition’s newsletters?
6. Forums – Industry forums are a great place to gauge what people are saying about you and your competition, plus you might be able to lurk on what representatives of your competition are saying in the forums.
7. Q&A websites – Is your competition using sites like Quora, Yahoo! Answers, and Answers.com? Are questions being asked about your competition? You should be keeping tabs.
8. LinkedIn – If your competition is using LinkedIn, find out if they are using the Questions format or joining groups. Go where the competition is going and watch what they are doing.
9. Google and Yahoo! Groups – Is your competitor a member of any groups on Yahoo! or Google? Unless you join the niche groups yourself, you can’t know.
10. Niche social sites - Are there are social sites within your niche that your competition might be a member of? Join them.

Competitive intelligence is important. Don’t be blind to its benefits. Use these tools effectively to keep tabs of your competition.

If you’re like most people, you’ve flocked to Twitter to see what the big fuss is about and you’re not quite sure how to use it. What is this thing called Twitter? There’s so much going on yet you haven’t quite figured out what to make of it, or how to use it.

Rest assured, there are as many ways to use Twitter as there are people using it. It’s a very flexible and versatile social media tool. That’s one of its strengths.

I know people, for instance, who simply use Twitter to listen in on what is being said in cyberspace. They use it for competitive intelligence. They also use it to hear what their customers are saying. They follow who they want to follow, then listen.

There are other people who just can’t seem to say enough. Any time something happens around the world, they have to tweet about it. They tweet their blog posts, they tweet the natural disasters, they tweet their grandma’s pea soup, they tweet other people’s blog posts, they tweet industry insider news, and the list goes on. Which way is the best way to use Twitter?

In truth, there is no best way to use Twitter. Most business owners and managers can benefit from using Twitter in a variety of ways, and that includes both listening and shouting. The key to effective Twittering is to figure out your strategy before you start, and to be consistent over time. But don’t be afraid to change your strategy midstream either.

One way to use Q&A sites for competitive intelligence is to query your competition’s name or name brand on the site. You’ll almost always find people asking about and discussing the features and ways of using your competition’s products.

If you read the answers on those questions related to your competition, you can often learn new things about your competition. If not, you can sometimes use those questions as a platform for suggesting your own products as an alternative. In other words, if someone asks a question about alternative uses for your competition’s product, then that’s an open door for you to discuss your product.

Competitive intelligence is non-negotiable. The only way to win in any market is to know what you’re up against. Q&A sites present the perfect library of information on resources on almost any industry, and it’s a great place to learn more about the competition.

• Competitive intelligence
• Market research data
• Keyword research
• Industry background research

And that’s just a start. Take a look at one of our case studies to see how a success start with market research ended with a well thought out plan that made our client successful.

While research is important, going through the steps to learn about the competition, the competitive landscape of the playing field, and your own keyword research will not necessarily guarantee success. You’ll also have to implement your plan.

There are a lot of moving parts to an effective Internet marketing strategy. There are content development initiatives to oversee, paid search initiatives, social media opportunities to exploit, and some additional research along the way to uncover unseen opportunities that might arise during the course of a campaign.

When there is so much at stake for the future of a company, you cannot afford to hand your Internet marketing over to amateurs. You need a professional to manage the process from beginning to end.

First, do your research. Then, take what you find and mold it into a plan. Execute your plan aggressively and monitor. Internet marketing success is not an accident.

It raises a question – would you report your competitor for breaching Google’s terms of service? I am sure there are thousands, if not millions, of online businesses that are frustrated because they cannot climb above their competitors in Google search. There’s the obvious way out – transfer your SEO efforts to closely investigating your competitors then reporting them to Google. I can see Google slowly sinking under the weight of reports if this situation occurred.

While a lot has been said about reporting competitors, we should compare the situation to that of offline businesses. What would you do if a competitor was gaining an unfair advantage due to illegal or immoral actions? Would you report them to authorities? The business community has done so for decades. While buying links, for example, is not illegal, it does run contrary to Google’s policies and those that do engage in this activity should be aware of the risks.

So what does the short-term future hold? Will the next growth area in SEO be an extreme form of competitive intelligence, who’s only aim is to find dirt on competitors? There is a real danger in this tactic. If you have been online for several years, can you remember what you did at the very beginning? Before digging up dirt on your competitors to gain an advantage, make sure you’re squeaky clean first. It could come back to bite you! Of course, with the three big scalps mentioned at the start of this post, it could be just the tall poppy syndrome at work.

According to SmallBusinessNewz:

nearly 36% of small businesses are investing in improved email marketing campaigns, 28% are looking at Google Adwords and 21% are looking at Facebook advertising.

They also report that 30% of small businesses are investing in “virtualization, business intelligence and collaboration“.  Business intelligence (or competitive intelligence) has been a primary motivator for many medium to large businesses where dedicated staff research competitors across the broad spectrum of the Internet – especially social media.

One of the driving forces into the future will be the introduction of smarter software that will deliver better analytics of social media activity. We are already seeing better analytics coming out of Facebook, other social media sites will not be far behind. One of the best indicators of how successful Internet Marketing is becoming is the fact that traditional marketing sources, print, television, and radio, are now crying poor and bemoaning drops in sales, viewers, and listeners.

Today, you can create a highly successful video ad for far less than the cost of a television ad. Where television charges tens of thousands of dollars for some 30 second ad spots, you can publish and promote a video of any length, almost for free, across the Internet. You may not get the same audience, but when you can produce 20 or 30 videos for the same cost as one television ad – savings are fairly obvious.

We are only touching the surface when it comes to cost cutting. Cloud computing is yet to make a huge impact yet the potential for savings could be huge for small businesses. Internet marketing is just one dimension, but its success will drive ventures into more cost cutting activities using IT and the Internet. The ride is going to be interesting.

When planning your Web marketing strategy, try to incorporate these 5 proven strategies that work today and likely will work next year and the year after too.

1. Search engine optimization – After all these years, search engine optimization is still at the top of the Web strategies that are proven and work. In fact, it works just as well today as it did ten years ago – if you know what you are doing.
2. Competitive intelligence – Gathering information about the competition and your niche is an important starting point for any Web strategy. But it’s more than just a starting point. You should collect information on an ongoing basis.
3. Pay per click marketing – Click prices are a lot higher now than they used to be. But pay per click marketing is still a good Web strategy to employ. It’s effective, results can come quickly and conversions are high if you are capable of managing a campaign that draws in traffic.
4. Social media optimization – Social media is here to stay. From Facebook to Twitter and LinkedIn to Flickr, there are opportunities to engage with your audience in powerful ways.
5. Video marketing - Video marketing is still in its infancy. The right video can go viral in a heartbeat and if you are effective in uploading the right video at the right websites then this Web marketing strategy can pay off big time.

Internet marketing has changed over the years, but it hasn’t changed that much. From SEO to video marketing, these Web strategies should be a part of every Internet marketing campaign.

1. Pay Per Click Management – PPC has become a staple of online advertising. You pay for traffic and if you do it right then your traffic will be targeted and conversion ready.
2. Search Engine Optimization – The original search engine marketing. There is no reason not to pursue a search engine optimization strategy. It’s the perfect search engine marketing.
3. Online Reputation Management – Don’t wait until you need it. Incorporate reputation management into everything you do.
4. Social Media Optimization – Social media is here to stay. This is evidenced by Facebook becoming the No. 1 trafficked website online. Develop a strategy and make it work for you.
5. Competitive Intelligence – Learn everything you can about your competition, then use it against them.
6. Web Design & Development – It all starts with your hub on the Web. Web design is one of the most important things to do in your total marketing strategy. Give it some thought.
7. Video Marketing & Production - Video marketing is the Internet sleeper. It’s taken awhile to catch on, but it is catching on. This is where the money will be in the future. Count on it.

If you’re serious about Internet marketing, these 7 strategies should be a part of your plan – starting today.

Research shows that companies with well-established CI programs enjoy greater earnings per share than companies in the same industry without CI programs.

To the degree that you uncover your competitors’ secrets and learn what they are doing in the marketplace, to that same degree you can enjoy the success coveted by every player in every niche. And you can even go on to dominate your niche. Competitive research is that important.

In 2001, BusinessWeek published an article that illustrated just how much competitive intelligence research can pay off in a recession. That was 2001, long before the real recession hit.

Of course, competitive intelligence is important any time, but companies tend to cut back on marketing when the economy slows down. Companies, however, that go against the tide do a lot better. And there are two ways to go against the tide: Spend money on competitive intelligence, and take what you learn from competitive intelligence and invest it in a solid marketing initiative. You do that when your competition is scaling back and you’ll win.

So where do you start? I’d say start with what you know. Who is your competition and what was the last thing they did? After that, it’s a matter of staying one step ahead.

Search engine optimization has become its own competitive arena. You can place that within the marketing realm, but you could just as easily place it within its own domain too

Regardless how you see it, though, you need intelligence on your competition’s SEO initiatives. Here’s what that intelligence entails, in a nutshell:

• Number of web pages
• Number and strength of inbound links
• Keywords targeting
• Search engine rankings per keyword
• Web hosting relationships
• Page load speeds
• Code-to-text ratios
• Unique SEO strategies implemented
• Movements within search rankings

That’s just to name a few. You can drill down deep in the SEO landscape to find out more about your competition or keep it simple. It’s entirely up to you. But I recommend that you learn as much as you can about your competition’s SEO strategies, both those planned and implemented, as you plan your own campaigns.

If you want to compete online, competitive SEO intelligence is an absolute necessity.

But how do you get there?

Competitive intelligence is a process. You’ve got to outline the process and work it strategically if you expect to excel. Here are five steps you can follow to better competitive intelligence in any industry.

• Decide which areas of market intelligence are most important to your strategic positioning.
• Make a list of companies in your industry that excel in those functions or that have an upper hand to your business – these should be companies that you want to know more about and/or that you want to study for the purpose of beating in the marketplace.
• Collect information on each company regarding those areas of market intelligence you identified in step 1; compile information from the SEC, press releases, trade journals, articles in the media, credit reports, clients, the companies themselves, trade associations, government offices and anywhere else you can get information on the companies that is legal and ethical.
• Start a file on each company and keep all compiled information on each company in their respective files.
• Rank the companies in order of most proficient for each market intelligence category you are tracking then rank your own company for each of those same tracking metrics to know where you stand against the competition.

The whole idea behind competitive intelligence is to know where you stand against the competition. If you are not No. 1 then you should target your efforts to overcome obstacles and challenges that prevent you from besting the competition. But it starts with knowing who you’re up against.

In fact, if you aren’t following your competition on the most popular social networks then you probably are not engaged enough online. I’d recommend, at a minimum, following your competition on these three four social networks:

• Facebook
• LinkedIn
• Twitter
• YouTube

But what if you can’t find your competition on these sites?

If your competition isn’t engaged in online social networking then take advantage of this shortsightedness. You’re there so enjoy the competitive advantage. Chance are, however, that you can find at least one of your competitors on these social networks. When you do, follow them. Keep an eye on what they’re up to.

Are these the only social networks to monitor? By all means, no. In fact, if you have industry social networks, forums, blogs or other areas online where members of your profession meet then you should go there and monitor/follow your competition.

Knowing what your competition is doing is a necessity and always has been. The best offline businesses are the ones that have always strategically placed themselves to best advantage – and you can’t accomplish that without knowing where you competition is, and what they are doing. The online business world is no different. What is different are the methods used to obtain some of that information.

You can research and spend some time spying on your competitors – or you can let them send you information. The reality is that you will need to do both. Your own research will uncover a lot of the un-publicized data ( such as keywords) – but that flood of information coming out in the form of blog posts and newsletters for example, can also help to build a picture  of where they are at and what sort of threat they present to your business.

Internet marketing can be a two way street – while you are out there promoting your business, you need to be aware of how your competitors are promoting theirs. Are you subscribing to any of the information that your they provide? You should – it’s free and they can’t wait to send it to you!