Next time you perform a search in Google, note how many results appear on page one?

Out of millions of hits there are only 10 results on page one. as research indicates 89% will click page 1 results. and 4% on page 2, 6% page 3.

In the world of Search Engine Optimization competitor research plays a very important part to a successful campaign. By knowing who is on the top 10 result, and digging deeper to find out how they achieved this, you will be able to budget and plan your campaign. To be on page 1, you have to beat the other 10 results.

In the world of online business, knowing your competition is the key to success. From knowing who your top competitors are, why they are at the top and finding out when a new competitor appears will help your business grow and prosper.

Knowledge is power, here are some great tools I use on a daily basis to help my clients and to spy on my competitors. I will be covering each tool in separate posts to keep reading at a minimum.

Case Scenario

My company ( Clear-A-Face ) sales a fast acting acne removal cream, recently a new competitor ( Super Clear-A-Face ) has launched a similar product claiming to remove acne twice as fast. Been a smart business man, I want to know what this new competitor is up to and how they are marketing the product.

Google Alerts

Imagine if you had a personal assistant that was scouring the internet for information about your competitors 24hrs a day, 7 days a week. No overtime pay, no holiday leave and best of all , they work for free and deliver their research to you without fail, everyday.

Google Alerts

This is Google Alerts. A free service provided by Google which delivers to you in the latest customised topics from ;

• Google News
• Blogs
• Web Search results ( new SERPs )
• Videos
• Google Groups

Use this great tool to gather intelligence about your competitors products, their online marketing efforts and the markets interests on your competitors products. There are of course many other websites that offer a similar service, but to be able to see the news from Google’s eyes is great for SEO.

Using Google alerts I can setup as many campaigns based on keywords related to my competition.

• Campaign A for their brand name Super-Clear-A-Face.
• Campaign B for product related keywords : Acne Cream, acne treatment cream, pimple removal cream, acne gel.
• Campaign C for treatment , symptoms related keywords : Acne treatment, rid acne, cure acne, acne medication

Google News alerts will let me know if my competitor appears on major news networks or official press releases

Google Blogs alerts for possible product reviews by their customers, or any new competitors on the scene.

Google web search alerts to inform me of their SEO / online marketing efforts. I will see when their new website has appeared in Google’s index, any new pages they may have added, websites selling their products, websites possibly been used for link building purposes and research websites / forums dealing with acne.

I can also find out what products are gaining popularity by following discussions and forums found in my alerts.

You can really build a great overview of your competitor’s SEO and marketing strategy, the markets interests and awareness in your competitors products. Any interesting alerts should be bookmarked and filed for reference. After a few weeks you should have enough data to make a calculated decision whether this competitor poses a serious threat.

If you are reading this, stop. Click here and setup a Google alert campaign for your own keywords. Currently I have Google alerts tracking keywords such as SEO, SEM, search engine optimization, search engine marketing, Google Caffeine, Caffeine, Goobinghoo, lil engine, li’l engine, little engine.

I really can’t stress how useful this tool is, if you are already a Google Alerts user let us know how you have benefited.

As always if you have any questions feel free to post them in the comments section, or discuss it on our forum. Please pass on this article if you found it to be useful. ( http://bit.ly/Gripp )

In the next few posts I will be introducing competitor research tools like Google Ad Planner, Real-time search monitoring and link analysis, keyword scraping tools.

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Great news for local sites in Thailand. You can now benefit from better targeted ads with Google’s announcement of its support for Thai in Adsense for Content. Last year, it was already included in the Adsense for Search program, so this just comes as the next logical move. Hopefully, other languages will soon follow. I’m all for localized content. Read the rest of this entry »

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From my experience, AdSense for Search churns out great CPM (at least in most cases, better than those for my AdSense for Content). The problem is that on average, very few people use the search feature on websites, translating into even fewer ad clicks. I’ve already written a post on how to try and boost your AdSense earnings, but here’s a few more little tweaks you can do, courtesy of Google’s AdSense blog. Read the rest of this entry »

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It may come as a surprise for many webmasters and bloggers, but the truth is that waiting for advertisers to come to you is generally not a good idea. Unless you already have a famous site, of course. If you aren’t that lucky yet, it’s time to realise your site won’t be easily found by prospects. So, having an “advertise here” page won’t be enough. If you really want to make some money by selling ads, you will have to approach potential buyers. Read the rest of this entry »

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So, you decided that you aren’t going to wait for advertisers to find your site. Instead, you’ll take the initiative to look for them and offer them a good advertising spot or package. That’s great! But now you must be wondering where those ad buyers can be located.

There are several places where you can find advertisers for your blog or website, but today I’m going to focus on the following ones:

1. Your own site

Yes, your own site can help you compile a list of prospect ad buyers. Here’s how: install AdSense (or other contextual ad network’s code) on your template. Wait a few days, until Google learns what your site is about and starts showing appropriate ads. Now visit the sponsor sites (don’t click on your own ads; type their URLs on your browser) and see if they are indeed relevant to your audience. If the answer is positive, these are ad buyers you may want to offer a deal to. Read the rest of this entry »

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We may be living in the fast-paced world of online marketing, but when it comes to reading, sometimes it helps to pamper ourselves and take things slow. While there are tons of ebooks out there about this industry, some of which I already wrote about in another post, there are also great old-fashioned paperbacks and hardcovers you should try to check out. Here are just some of the best out there on the topic of social media marketing: Read the rest of this entry »

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A lot of bloggers use several ad services for their site, and sometimes, managing all of them can get pretty messy. Thanks to the awesome developer community, there are a number of available plugins for WordPress that can turn your dashboard into a control panel, to customize and control your ads from most of the leading publishers. You also get the ability to insert them inside posts themselves, which help tremendously in increasing the click rate. Listed below are just some of best plugins in this category. Read the rest of this entry »

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Direct ad sales are among the best monetization methods that a blogger or webmaster can use. However, I’ve seen a certain mistake being made by numerous site owners. They don’t seem to realise how harmful this can be to their monetization strategy. But I won’t let you become one of them. I’m going to draw your attention to this problem and teach you some simple solutions to this.

What’s the main mistake made by webmasters and bloggers who sell ads on their pages?

No one will be getting too many interested advertisers while their site or blog isn’t popular. It’s only natural. Most advertisers are interested in either branding or direct traffic. The exception to this rule are link builders seeking for favourable Google rankings, but they’re out of this article’s scope. So let’s go on analysing only the typical ad buyer. Read the rest of this entry »

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Putting all your eggs on one basket don’t always work. If you’d like to expand your blog advertising beyond Google’s AdSense, you have several options to choose from, each with its own pros and cons. If you’re site is product-oriented like, say, about digital cameras or mobile phones, one good ad program to try is Widget Bucks. Read the rest of this entry »

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When AdSense for RSS feeds was announced, a lot of people cheered. FeedBurner’s ad network was OK, but it catered to select publishers who had reached a certain number of subscribers. AdSense on FeedBurner meant even the little guys could now monetize their feeds. However, from the feedback that I’ve gathered, the service leaves much to be desired. Critics have been especially vocal the past few days. Read the rest of this entry »

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