As with any business, spying on your competitors is one way of staying on top of things.  Often, spying on your competitors give you a good insight into what you could do better and what you should avoid. 

When it comes to Competitive Intelligence, Jake Baillie is an excellent resource person and I always make sure to attend his sessions.  Jake talks about “Social Engineering” which is defined as the ability to get people to tell you information that they aren’t supposed to tell you.  This ability helps you to gain advantage over your competitors as well as protect you from business attacks. 

While we spend all our efforts and money on systems to protect our computers, networks and servers from outside threats, we do not realize that the biggest threats are our employees, families and friends.   

Now, why is this? 

Among all others, employees, family and friends have access to confidential and sensitive information and they can unwittingly divulge these information to others without realizing the importance of these information.  You need to protect yourself against this by instructing them to keep sensitive information to themselves and to never disclose any business information to others without your approval.   

Be warned that one piece of sensitive information could be all it takes to sink your business down.  Do not let this happen to you.  Be careful with whom you share your most sensitive business secrets. 

On the same note, how confident are you with your Internet Service Provider (ISP)?  Do you trust them?  Do have agreements with them regarding your log files and visitor data?  Have you ever wondered where HitWise gets their info?  They purchase log files routinely from large ISPs.  Be careful with whom you trust with your data and get it in writing that they will never sell or lease both your log files and visitor data to an outside company.   

The worst you can do is to go with a web host that is cheap and small.  Because they can be bought.  Jake told the story of a major competitor they had which they found were hosted with a small local web host.  He called the host and offered them $100,000 for the web logs for the past five years and they gladly accepted.  He then used this information to bring down his competitor.  I, too, have once been successful in getting my competitor’s log files and it only cost me a grand.  Do not let this happen to you.   

If you want to get ahead in this industry, it would be wise for you to spend time and effort in investigating your competitors.  There are various ways of going about your research both online and offline.   

One way is by calling your competitors to find out certain information.  When you do this, make sure that you do not use your real name and do not forget to mask the Caller ID system.  Try to get the marketing or sales department.  People who want to sell you a product will usually talk and will often say more than they should to close the deal.  Always take good notes and do not spend time talking about irrelevant things.  Get the information you need, thank them for their time, get off the phone and starting working on the information you have just received.  Keep track of the information you get by creating a spreadsheet which will allow you to track changes and see patterns over time.  It is these patterns that will help you overtake even the toughest competitor.  

Another thing you can do is to analyze and study their websites.  Learn from their triumphs and avoid their mistakes.  Remember that most of your competitors are novice webmasters.  Use this to your advantage.   

I have listed below some tools which you can use to study your competitors.  These tools will provide you various data such as the domains your competitor is using, landing pages, backlinks, traffic, contact information and a lot more.  By being aware of what your competitor is doing, you increase the probability of tipping the scales in your favor. 

1. Domain Tools 
   Domain Tools used to be Whois.sc.  This is one of my favorite sites when spying on the competition.  It is the place site to go to when starting your research on your competitor.   
   
   It would benefit you to use this daily and I would suggest that you get at least the silver membership if you want to be able to track all domains on any IP address. 
   
   While their “SEO Advice” isn’t always accurate, checking it out would be to your advantage as it can often give you some information that you may not be aware of.  Their “SEO Text Browser” is also another area you should look over. 
   
   They also have a new “Registrant Search” which allows you to find all the domains of a certain registrant.  This is especially useful if you want to know all the domains that your competitor have.   
   
   To protect yourself from competitors using this function, you can opt to use “Pen Names.”  This way, they do not see all the domain that is currently  
   


2. Google Trends 
   Google Trends is a free tool that tells you what is currently hot in the market.  I use this tool everyday and I recommend that you do too.  The search trends are updated daily and their data is from Google.  If you don’t know how to use this tool yet, I strongly suggest that you take time to learn this tool.   
   


3. Xenu Link Sleuth 
   Xenu Link Sleuth is one of the best free tools out there.  This tool is great for identifying broken links.  I use this weekly to ensure that I do not have any bad links on my site.   
   


4. SpyFu.com 
   SpyFu.com used to be GoogSpy.com.  It used to be a free tool but is now on a paid membership level.   
   
   This is a powerful tool which allows you to find the keywords that your competitor is ranked for as well as the keywords they are using in their AdWords campaign.   
   
   I use this weekly but know that their data is updated every quarter on average. 
   


5. Google Alerts 
   Google Alerts sends you an email when a keyword phrase you are tracking is indexed by Google.  It is a great tool that allows you to monitor when your domain or your competitor’s domain gets indexed.  As a warning, if you do not want your inbox to be flooded with these alerts, it would be wise for you not enter general keywords.  
   


6. BlogPulse 
   BlogPulse is a good tool to use especially when you are conducting market research.  I use this tool weekly to search the blogosphere, trends as well as profiles.  You can get useful information from BlogPulse which you can add to your data collection. 
   


7. Traffic Estimate 
   Traffic Estimate used to be Metrics Market.  This tool is similar to Alexa although from my testing, Traffic Estimate seems to provide a more reliable data than Alexa does.  I am not sure where they get their data though. 
   
   Traffic Estimate provides an estimated number of unique visitors for any domain.  While they may not be able to provide a precise and accurate number, they do give a good approximate of the number of unique visitors the domain had over the last thirty (30) days. 
   
   I use this tool weekly. 
   


8. Google Sets 
   Google Sets can be found in Google Labs.  It is a good tool to use to complete your keyword set.  I use this tool weekly to expand my keyword list and I have been pleased with the results I have been getting.  Often, it gives me keywords that I wouldn’t have thought of. 
   
   When using this tool, I prefer to input at least three phrases and then choose the “Small Set.”  This method allows me to receive a good sized list from which I can pick and choose from.  Receiving a massive list just takes a lot of time to go through and often not worth the time and effort it requires.  
   


9. Alexa 
   Alexa is owned by Amazon.  It is a good tool which I use occasionally to verify traffic ranking, speed levels, visited sites and others.   
   
   While Alexa’s data isn’t always accurate, it does provide a good indication of how much traffic the site gets.  Personally, I use Alexa to determine whether a site is worth looking into.  Any site that isn’t in the Top 100,000 does not carry much weight in my opinion. 
   
   The “Related Links” is one of my favorite functions in Alexa.  This function allows you to find other competitors as well as their other domains that you may not have been aware of.  Would you believe that through this function, I have also once found my merchant’s supplier?  I had originally thought that my merchant was the manufacturer.  Apparently I was wrong.  I got the contact details of the manufacturer, called them up and cut a deal with them directly.  This drove my commission up by nearly three fold.  Use this function as you will never know what you will find.   
   


10. Archive.org 
    Archive.org is a good tool to use when you want to check out how a site used to look like.  I use this occasionally and when I do, I sometimes discover old content and landing pages. 
    
    When buying an existing or expired domain, I strongly recommend that you run the domain though Archive.org first to make sure you are not getting a site that previously belonged to bad neighborhoods.  The last thing you want to own is a former child porn site. 
    


11. DNS Report 
    DNS Report used to be DomainReport.com.  It is now a part of DNS Stuff.  I use this monthly to run a domain against a variety of tests.  It keeps your domain on the right track and ensures that everything is in order.  Immediately address the areas that are marked as “Fail” and look into the areas that give you a warning sign. 
    


12. Index Rank 
    Index Rank is made by Solo SEO.  It provides the site a ranking of its IndexRank which is defined as the strength of new pages getting indexed on a consistent basis.   
    
    Understand that it is not enough to have a lot of pages indexed.  It is equally important that these new pages are indexed consistently too.  I use this tool monthly to track how often my new pages are indexed in the following time intervals – past two weeks, one month, three months, six months and one year. 
    


13. SEC Filing Information 
    SEC Files are good sources of data when doing your competitive intelligence work.  I use this monthly and make use of the data I gather to my advantage.   
    


14. Seeking Alpha Transcripts 
    This tool allows you to search for transcripts on your competitor.  When using this tool, you will be pleasantly happy to know how much free information you can get on your competitors.  Gather this data and use it to your advantage.  This is best used monthly. 
    


15. Ranks.nl 
    Ranks.nl provides detailed information about any domain.  It is a good site which you can use when analyzing and studying a competitor’s site.  You may opt to use this tool monthly.  
    


16. Market Leap 
    Market Leap is a good tool for finding page saturation and link popularity levels across the most popular search engines.  There was a time when I’ve used this tool on a daily basis but since other tools have come out, I no longer use this as often.  At best, I use it on a monthly basis. 
    


17. Page Rank Future 
    This tool allows you to see PageRank across different data centers.  Its effectiveness has lessened as the Google Dance is now a thing of the past.  Before the Toolbar PageRank update, it used to appear on the secondary datacenters a day or two before. 
    


18. DNS Stuff 
    DNS Stuff provides a collection of tools from spam lists to IP lookup.  They have over 45 tools and the investment cost on this is just $3.00 a month.  I use this quarterly to run reports on my domains.  This allows me to check for various issues such as the Blacklist Database in which I discovered we have been previously listed at. 
    


19. Code to Text 
    Code to Text is a good tool to determine the ratio of code to text on the page.  I use this tool on a quarterly basis to ensure that my code to text ratio is not over the percentage requirement.  I also use this tool when one of my pages is having a hard time ranking.  If my code to text ratio is below 20%, there is a good chance that it is the reason why the page is not ranking well.  To solve this issue, I find that pushing the JavaScript and/or CSS to external files usually does the trick. 
    


20. Cool SEO Tool 
    Cool SEO Tool is a tool from WeBuildPages.  This tool shows you your ranking in the top three search engines - Google, Yahoo! and MSN.  It likewise provides the number of indexed pages, backlinks for both page and domain as well as the age of the URL. 
    
    While this is a good tool, I rarely make use of it as there are other better tools which incorporate the all these data that they provide.  The only advantage I see in using this tool is the fact that it is free. 
    


21. Google Cache 
    Google Cache is a good tool to use when you are experiencing ranking and indexing problems.  This tool will likewise give you all the URLs that have internal links.   
    
    I rarely use this tool as I prefer to use the straight command in Google (cache:domain.com) and I recommend that you do too. 
    


22. Keyword Difficulty 
    Keyword Difficulty is a tool which analyzes the difficulty level in being able to rank in the top ten for a specified keyword phrase. Personally, I prefer to use NicheWatch as it depicts a better picture of the competition.    
    
    While I rarely make use of this tool, I do check from time to time to find out what it says about the difficulty level of the keyword I am targeting.  However, note that a knowing a keyword’s difficulty level has no bearing on me.  And it shouldn’t discourage you too.   
    
    If a keyword is indeed making good money, competition shouldn’t matter.  Investing to get to the top should not be a concern for you.  If you knew that getting a top five ranking on a difficult keyword phrase would bring you an added $60K a month in revenue, would you care how difficult the keyword is?  Neither would I. 
    


23. Link Analyzer 
    Link Analyzer is a tool which analyzes internal and external links on a page.  Truthfully, I rarely use this tool as I prefer to use SEO Elite and Leslie Rhode’s OptiLink which are both paid programs. 
    


24. Link Price Calculator 
    The Link Price Calculator is a tool which figures out how much a site can charge for links per month.  The estimate includes backlinks, PageRank, traffic, content pages and others.  I rarely use this tool as the accuracy of this tool is questionable.  Furthermore, the factors it uses are often out of date and inconsistent. 
    


25. Page Size Lookup 
    Page Size Lookup is a tool that shows the byte size of any page.  I never use this tool as other tools that show this data also provide you other relevant data too.  I just don’t see the value of using this tool as a stand alone tool. 


26. PageRank Search 
    The PageRank Search is a tool that provides you with the PageRank of each site displayed in the SERPs for easy viewing.  I never use this tool as I do not see its advantage over using the Firefox plugins. 
    


27. Position Check 
    Position Check is a tool which allows you to check and verify your position across multiple data centers.  I never use this as I do not have the need to check my ranking across multiple data centers. 
    


28. SEO Browser 
    SEO Browser is a tool which allows you to see how your competitor’s site looks to a search engine.  Since I do not see the need for using this over Domain Tools, I never use this tool.