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Knowledge is power. However, the types of knowledge may vary. It is true that the more knowledgeable you become regarding your own area of interest the more powerful you will become. Since the advent of digital media in our lives, not only our means of communication has changed but it has also changed our way of thinking and the defined ways of prosperity. That is why you have to be a little sneaky if you are in the business of website marketing and use different competitor research tools.
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SEO is an integral part of digital marketing which is an unannounced race or confrontation between your website and the websites above of you in search engine ranking page. For this now, knowing the algorithm of the Google is not enough. You have to keep a keen eye on the activities of your competitor so you can do better than him. But for this, you will need few competitor research tools. Fortunately, we have some.
Free Competitor Research Tools
These tools not only help you in monitoring your own web performance but it also helps you gather the information about your competitor. Even with the little insights of your competitor’s plan, you can do wonders.
To find out about those tools, keep reading this article because in the next lines I am going to tell you about the top 10 free competitor research tools for the best SEO strategy.
1. Google Alerts
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The Google not only keep your competitor on the check but also keeps you updated about his every act by sending reports directly to your inbox. This competitor research tools is the Google’s product that means you cannot get more authentic reports about your competitor for a better SEO competitor analysis. Whether your competitor has published a post or got mentioned somewhere, you will get that report to your inbox by the Google Alerts. Some of the core insights you will get of your competitor is his backlinks, social media mentions and postings or any other keyword mentions.
2. Alexa
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So Google Alert is going to show all the activity of your competitor. But what about the results it is getting from it. For the better comparative market analysis, it is always important to know how much lucrative the efforts of your competitor are. This is where the Alexa tool can help you.
With the Alexa, you can find out a detailed analysis of any website’s traffic. This can show you from where your competitor is getting more traffic and how the visitors are behaving which are critical for competitor analysis models between your visitors and your competitor’s.
3. ISpionage
Comes out from the word espionage, this tool is like a magnifying glass on your competitor’s SEO activities. This spying tool shows you the organic search of your competitor. With this tool, you can enjoy the features of SEO competitive analysis, social monitoring, and keyword tracking. This tool can even show you the best converting keywords of your competitor and how much paid advertising he is doing on any specific keyword. Instead of making you confuse by putting numbers on the excel sheet, it creates an infographic as a report.
4. SE Ranking
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After getting better ranking on the search engine result page, you still cannot take a sigh of relief. Just like you did all that efforts and spying with the help of competitor backlink research SEO tools to get your competitor down in the ranking, it is his time to do the same. That is why you have to keep your eyes open from the top too. For this, I have another tool for you. The SE Ranking is a great tool for competitor market analysis. This tool can help you in monitoring the ranking of your competitor so you can also build your own competitor analysis model that what this website is doing to get its ranking back.
5. Monitor Backlinks
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Some people have a big appetizer and want to do a thorough competitor analysis before making any strategy against it. That is why if you want to track every single backlink build by your competitor then you need a special competitor research tool for this like the Monitor Backlinks. Just like the Google Alerts, this tool also sends complete reports of your competitor’s backlinks. With this tool, you can build your own competitor analysis models as a counter strategy.
6. Moat
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In the times when you have to go aggressive, you cannot rely on the organic ways. Some paid ways like advertising also count a lot especially if your business is in early stages. However, companies with big budgets also continue their paid advertising which still as a competitor important for you to keep informed. That is why many SEOs use Moat a multifunctional tool for paid advertising. With this tool, you can find out on which sites your competitor is placing your ad. For the icing on the top, the Moat also provides a guide on how to place your ads on the same place too.
7. SEMrush
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As far as the SEMrush is concerned, there is no need to introduce this tool in the SEO circle. Not just limited to providing different SEO services, it also specializes in the competitor analysis. With the SEMrush, you just have to type the name of your competitor website and wait a few seconds to generate a detail report on competitor’s organic keywords and rank, ad keywords and even the traffic.
8. Simply Measured
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Not so common among competitor research tools but very effective. The Simply Measured is an aggregator for the social metrics raw data. Instead of backlinks and the keywords, it measures those things which may sound nothing to you but create an impact on the ranking when combined. Through this, you can find how your competitor is performing on the trends, in which way he is pursuing his branding, how much traffic it is getting from social media activities and numerous more things.
9. SpyFu
Out of all the competitor research tools on this list, this is the easiest to use. The SpyFu does a very specific but precise job for you. It spies the insights from your competitor by doing a complete SEO competitor analysis that which keywords he is targeting. From the SEO’s point of view, this information worth gold because it explains the entire strategy of your competitor.
10. Open Site Explorer
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This is the Moz’s product so you can expect it to be good. Just like Google Alert, Alexa, and SEMrush, this is also a famous competitor research tool. This is another tool that gives you the entire competitor’s link building effort and also shows who are linking back to them in terms of Page rank, domain authority and anchor text. To help you out in driving a strategy which can keep you up on the ranking, it gives you a compare link data that makes things easier for you.