As I mentioned on my last post, I’m starting my second semester exam tomorrow and you know what that mean? I won’t be having enough time to work on and update this blog again as usual but, I will be trying my very best.
However, I know that you can also assist me to run TBC somehow for this period which will last for 2-3 weeks so, if you have a good post that my readers will like please, send it to [ngenebiz (at) gmail dot com] I will check it out and create a contributor account for you to submit it, thats if your post is good. Please, remember to make it original and spam free. Thanks
I will try and make today’s post will be shorter than my usual posts because, I should be studying my book by this time so that I will not fail:). Without further ado, let’s get to it.
We all know the benefits of carrying out research when we’re starting a new blog in fact, its one of the things anyone that is creating a new blog should not joke with. With all the huge competitions out there today, it’s very important to carry out market and keyword research very well before launching any blog.
The tools below are the ones I’m using to analyse my competitors sites and, I’m sure they will also help you.
4 Awesome Tools For Spying On Your Competitors Website’s
1. OpenSiteExplorer.com: This is a very popular site and, I know you might have heard of it before or even use it. Open site explorer will help you to check your competitors Domain Authority, Page Authority as well as the number of backlinks they have.
It will also tell you the sites that are linking to the domain you’re evaluating and as you, it’s good to check out these things so that you’ll know how to beat and outrank your competitors on the search engines. This site is very useful and if you’ve not used it before, I suggest you do so now.
2. KeywordSpy.com : This tool is also very useful when it comes to spying on your competitor’s keywords. The tool can provide you with data in key areas such as; PPC keywords used, organic keywords and their positions and competitors, as well as organic listing variations and many other things.
3. Magestic SEO: This is one of my favorite sites when it comes to analysing competitor’s website’s backlink profile. All you have to do is type the URL you want to analyse on the area provided and it will get you a comprehensive report of the site’s backlink profile.
Recommended Reading: When Stealing From Your Competitors is Recommended
It can give you a report for thousands of backlinks to a particular URL and retrieve useful data such as; anchor text, PR (pagerank) and the number of backlinks and outbound links, and whether any inbound links have been flagged as no-follow. This tool can really get you lots of awesome reports for any URL apart from the ones I’ve mentioned here.
4. Alexa.com : Alexa is not a new site and if you don’t know about it yet then, you are not serious. Many webmasters always visits it to check out their own website traffic rankings, but have you ever used it to check your competitors statistics?
Alexa can provide you with lots of useful information such as: How engaged visitors are on a particular site, data on audience demographics, where traffic is coming from and from what keywords. However, I’m not so sure how accurate the data from Alexa is, I don’t believe its 100% accurate, but still a great tool to use for gathering some raw data.
Your Own Turn
Have you heard of any of these sites before? Do you know of any other site that can perform such an amazing work of spying on your competitors sites? Let’s talk about it on the comment section. Please, remember to share this post with your friends :).
Photo Credit: freedigitalphotos.net
Harleena Singh says
Hi Theodore,
Yes, I’ve heard about all of these tools, though never used anything other than Alexa, which I think most bloggers use and they should, if they want to compare other bloggers sites or check their ranks. Although I have this tool up, I rarely use it except to check my own blog rank off and on.
I’ve never honestly thought of spying tools nor ever gone to see what and how my competitors work. For that matter, I don’t even know who my competetitors are as yet. I think leading a blissfree life of your own is the best because the more you know all such things, the more ways you try to overpower them, and you might even succeed, but you lose out a great deal also, don’t you?
Wishing you all the very best with your exams, which I’m sure would go off well.
Thanks for sharing. Have a nice weekend 🙂
Theodore Nwangene says
Thank God for my exam so far Harleena,
I will soon finish. Yea, alexa is very important and, I use it always. You know, it can really be necessary for you to check out what your competitors are doing sometimes especially when you want to build a new site.
When carrying out research, that’s when those tools will be needed. Its just to know what the people that already have similar site with you are doing in order to know how to do it better for a better result.
Often times, if you fail to carry out such research especially with the competition out there today, you might not succeed so well with the new site.
Thanks for coming Harleena 🙂
Ryan Biddulph says
Hi Theodore,
Cool tools! I know Alexa and the Majestic Tool. Gaining insight into your competitor’s stats can help you improve your blog.
All the best with your semester!
Ryan
Theodore Nwangene says
Thanks Ryan,
I’m glad to hear that you already know and is already using those tools, thanks for coming
Lisa says
Hi Theodore, I’ve used Alexa a lot in the past for this. I just read somewhere too that we should know hide our meta keywords, been thinking about that one, what’s your recommendation for it? I don’t use it on my blog but on other sites I have. I’ve heard of the others but never used them extensively especially when fees are invovled. I think with the new Panda’s and penquins we not need to as much. Focus more on quality content, I hope that’s how it will pan out anyways.
Theodore Nwangene says
Hi Lisa,
Sorry for my late reply, I’m writing exam and it has been taking much of my time. Yea, nothing can ever beat writing quality contents, its very important. And for the issue of not hiding meta keywords if that’s what you meant, I can’t say much about it but, I don’t even understand what that meant but, I will find out.
Thanks for coming.
Lisa says
Theodore, no apologies needed, it’s never to late to reply 🙂 Black hat SEO used to hide their meta keywords…I hope your exam is going well there.
Vocational Courses by Des says
Awesome article.Really getting excited about read more. Continue writing.
Theodore Nwangene says
Thanks
Mike Huiwitz says
Is it legal to spy on our competitor’s site though? LOL
Theodore Nwangene says
It all depends on how you do it man 🙂
Its all about just monitoring what they are doing and then, learning how to do it better…….That’s very much legal
Isaiah Joe says
Thanks theodore for this useful websites to use when spying a competitors website, i normally used this tools before entering any niche, because some niche are very hard to break into.
Thanks Theodore, i really appreciate it.
Theodore Nwangene says
Hello Isaiah,
Thanks for visiting my site. Those are very useful tools indeed and, I’m glad you’re already familiar with them. Thanks
Rahul says
Hello,
Nice post! All the mentioned tools are really cool, i like the keywordspy which is my favorite and it work great. To check the stats of site i use opensiteexplorer and if we need to buy a site it is really important to check it.
thanks
Anirudh Karthik says
Hey
I’m using all the tools mention above, it’s greatly important on our site or to tract the performance. According to that point we need to work better and better.
Cheers!
Theodore Nwangene says
Thanks Anirudh,
I’m happy to hear that you’re already familiar with them. Thanks for coming.
Shiv Saroya says
The information shared by you is really useful and would help a lot, I would definitely try the tools to get the right vision of my competitor.
Dima Al Mahsiri says
Hi Theodore,
It has been long time since I checked your blog, so I guess I will be spending some time, I should say, enjoying my time reading your posts 🙂
Alexa always confuses me, it gives me opposite results when compared to Google Analytics! I don’t know why or which one to trust. While Google Analytics shows high bounce rate and most traffic coming from country A, Alexa shows a low bounce rate and most traffic coming from country B , so which one should I depend on?
P.S I have seen that you are taking exams, good luck !
Theodore Nwangene says
Great to have you again Dima,
It has been a very long time indeed. Hope you’re doing well?. I think both Alexa and Google analytics performs different tasks. They are both awesome tools that will give you lots of insights regards what’s going on in your blog and that of others.
Just perform a google or youtube search and, I’m sure you will find lots of resources that will teach you more about them.
Thanks for coming.
Dima Al Mahsiri says
Yes, indeed!
For a stay at home mom, it is a challenge to balance between blogging and mom’s tasks, but I am trying to do my best 🙂
You are right! We can’t ignore any of them, I believe I will find an answer somewhere.
Thanks !
Theodore Nwangene says
You’re right Dima,
You know, I’m also a student and, i understand how tedious i can be to run your family and blogging at once just as I’m also having some challenges to balance my work and studies.
Thanks for your awesome response.
Spook SEO says
“Hello Theodore!
Thank you for sharing these powerful tools. I am actually using Magestic SEO. This is actually my favorite tool when it comes to analyzing my competitor’s site backlink profile. I will also be checking the other tools that you have shared here.”
Theodore Nwangene says
Thanks man