| The beauty of the Internet is the | | | | "site:competitorsdomainname." You'll be |
| inherent open nature of competition. It | | | | presented with a list of their pages, |
| is so open, you can check indexes when | | | | the meta title and meta description. |
| analyzing the competition to improve | | | | This works particularly well with |
| your site. | | | | Google. |
| Analyzing the Competition | | | | The resulting list of pages can be |
| A key step to any search engine | | | | analyzed in a couple of different ways. |
| optimization effort is to analyze the | | | | First, you can isolate the particular |
| competition. The simplest way to do this | | | | keywords being pursued by the site. |
| is to simply go to their site and look | | | | These should then be compared to your |
| at the code. Most browsers let you do | | | | site to ascertain whether you're missing |
| this by clicking the "view" tab and then | | | | anything. You almost always are missing |
| selecting "source." | | | | a key niche. Second, you can analyze the |
| You competition isn't stupid. Many sites | | | | meta description to see both the layout |
| will bar browsers from showing source | | | | and particular formation of sentences |
| code using the above technique. If your | | | | and keyword placement they are pursuing. |
| competition takes this step, is there | | | | Again, compare it to yours. Using this |
| anything you can do? Yes, there is. | | | | process, you can get an idea of how your |
| Indexes | | | | efforts differ from a competitor. |
| Almost everyone knows how to check if | | | | Importantly, this approach should not be |
| their site is indexed in a search | | | | overvalued. It is only a glimpse of the |
| engine. Simply go to the engine and | | | | competitor's site, not a thorough |
| search for "site:yourdomainname." This | | | | review. It will tell you nothing about |
| technique can also be used to see what | | | | how pages are arranged, keyword density |
| your competition is up to. | | | | approaches and so on. You'll have to |
| If you want to see a glimpse of how a | | | | hunt and peck around the site for that |
| competitor is pursuing search engine | | | | information. Still, the meta information |
| optimization, check how many pages are | | | | gained from this approach makes it worth |
| indexed in the relevant search engine. | | | | a go if you are shut out from the code |
| Do a search for | | | | of a site. |