{"id":879,"date":"2014-04-16T13:48:07","date_gmt":"2014-04-16T17:48:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.florist20.com\/blog\/?p=879"},"modified":"2014-04-16T13:48:07","modified_gmt":"2014-04-16T17:48:07","slug":"spy-competitors-best-tools-tactics-use","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.florist20.com\/blog\/seo\/spy-competitors-best-tools-tactics-use","title":{"rendered":"How to Spy on Your Competitors: The Best Tools and Tactics to Use"},"content":{"rendered":"

The average florist simply doesn’t have the time to use cutting-edge marketing techniques to one-up their competition. The common thought is that it\u2019s good enough to simply create a website, spruce up your social media profiles, snag a decent amount of web traffic, and that\u2019s it. While all of that is fine and necessary for a business that is beginning their online marketing campaign, will it really be enough to propel you past your competitors? Will it make your website\/blog an authority? Will it guarantee a tremendous amount of sales?<\/p>\n

Nope. Not even close.<\/p>\n

\"Spying<\/p>\n

If you want to take your online endeavors beyond the status quo, while also becoming garnering the most authority and sales, you need to try harder.<\/p>\n

And I\u2019m not saying that you need to launch a marketing campaign equal to the likes of Samsung or Coca Cola; I\u2019m saying that you need to be better than your competition is willing to be.<\/p>\n

The good thing: accomplishing this really isn\u2019t that difficult. In fact, it\u2019s pretty simple. It will take a little initiative and effort on your part.<\/p>\n

You\u2019re going to be spying on our competition. You\u2019re going to see what they\u2019re doing well, and make it better. This will all be done legally, of course.<\/p>\n

So, let\u2019s say you\u2019re a florist in Dallas, TX that also has an ecommerce shop.\u00a0 You\u2019re on page 3 of Google for the keywords you want. Your competitors are on the first page and have more engaged social media followings than you do. And they seem to be doing well with their online sales and conversions. How do you go about researching your competition, replicating what they do well, and succeed where they fail?<\/p>\n

The key: Spy on their search engine rankings (and how they achieved them) <\/b><\/p>\n

So, your search engine position is currently mired in the proverbial swamps. You\u2019ve been stuck on the third page of Google for what seems like forever now. Newer websites have surpassed your ranking position and your older competitors remain near the top. To see what you\u2019re doing wrong, you need to see what they\u2019re doing right.<\/p>\n

Luckily, there are is wide array of tools to help you spy on your competitors. We\u2019re going to discuss the best ones.<\/p>\n

To spy on their keywords<\/b>: The Google Keyword Planner<\/a><\/p>\n

Everybody should be familiar with Google\u2019s flagship keyword researching software. If you want to see what keywords your competitors are ranking for, then put their website url into the field that says \u201clanding page\u201d, hit enter, then click on the \u201ckeyword ideas\u201d tab. It\u2019ll list some of the keywords that the website is ranking for, and the data (avg. monthly searches, competition, etc.) for those keywords.<\/p>\n

Price: Free, but you must sign up to use their service. <\/b><\/p>\n

To spy on their backlinks<\/b>: Open Site Explorer<\/a><\/p>\n

This is the juicy stuff. It\u2019s pretty simple to use. Simply put in your competitor\u2019s web url and you will see how many inbound links they have and the websites that gave them these links, with info on:<\/p>\n