If your competitor is receiving tons of traffic, has 1000s of backlinks and is making lots of sales it would be wise to study them so you can use that information to your advantage.
1. Find the top 10 competing web sites in Google
Enter your main keyword in Google to view the top 10 web sites in your niche then dissect them to see why they rank well.
2. Find the main keywords they are using
Visit your competitor’s web site and do a view-source in your web browser to view the main keywords they are using in their meta tags. Observe where those keywords are repeated in the text.
You may want to use a few of the same keywords for your own web site.
3. Do a backlink check
Enter the URL of your competitor in Yahoo explorer to view how many links are pointing back to their website. The number and quality of backlinks determine rankings.
Contact the same web sites to get backlinks to your own site.
4. Check traffic levels at Alexa.com
Enter the URL of your competitor in Alexa.com. It will display a monthly traffic history graph for that site.
Offer to write an article or provide free software to this site in exchange for link to your own. A link on a high traffic site will boost your own traffic levels.
5. Study the content
Well written content has high conversion rates. By studying your competitor’s content can get an idea what to include in your own.
6. Subscribe to their newsletter
Subscribe to several competitors newsletters to see what they are offering to their customers and how they write their web copy.
If you’re going to sell products through your newsletter you need to write compelling content.
7. Visit and contribute to their blog or forum
Engaging in communication with your competitors will help you to keep up with recent news, articles and tap into the minds of their customers.
For more information on how to conduct market search and write articles to start an online business please visit: Article Marketing Strategies.
Great post. I’ll definately bookmark you. Cheers