How To Take Advantage Of Your Competition

How To Take Advantage Of Your Competition

by: Rich Hamilton, Jr

When people market their business, they pay little attention to their competition. However, they can learn a lot from them. Your competition plays a large role in your business and in your marketing efforts, so don’t ignore them.

There is an old saying, กKeep your friends close, keep your enemies closerก. In this case, your enemy is your competition. You shouldn’t look at your competition as an enemy, but, as a guide or a valuable tool.

Your competition can be an asset to your business. I want you to think about this for a minute, your competition is like having a one stop shopping center, they have it all. Let me give you an example, take a look at your fearsome indirect competition, they have it all. They may have targeted an area of the market that youกve missed, on the web thatกs not hard to do.

Who Are Their Link Partners

One day when I was analyzing my competition I immediatley noticed something about their link partners, a lot of them were different, but some were the same. Let me give you an example, if you were to take three of your competitors, you may only find a few of them with the same link partners, other than that, a large portion of your competitionกs link partners will be different.

Once youกve found out who your competitorกs link partners are, persuade them to link to you. By getting your competitionกs link partners to link to you, it will take some of your competitionกs traffic away and give it to you, bringing targeted traffic to your web site.

How do find your competitionกs link partners? A couple of ways, one is you can use software like Arelis. Arelis will retrieve all the web sites that are linked to your competitor in minutes, saving you a boatload of time. Another way to find your competitorกs link partners is by using Marketleapกs Link Popularity Tool, which is free to use.

Who Are Their Affiliates

Another way to take advantage of your competition is to find out who their affiliates are. If you offer an affiliate program, this may be an ideal strategy for you. Track down your competitionกs affiliates and persuade them to promote your product or services, instead of your competitorกs.

If your competitors offer their affiliates a lower commission percentage than you, then you already have the upper hand. How? Affiliates are always looking for away to make more money and by offering them a higher commission percentage, theyกll be able to increase their affiliate profits.

How do you find your competitionกs affiliates? You can use the same methods to find their affiliates, as you would trying to locate their link partners, by using Arelis and/or Marketleapกs Link Popularity Tool.

Spying On Your Competition

Thanks to the power of the internet, spying on your competition couldn’t be any easier. You can easily find out what their marketing angle is, what they have for products, how much they are charging for their products, and any new products that they may be working on.

If you were to go to your competition offline and evaluate their establishment, while taking notes on their products, you would immediately draw attention to yourself and get thrown out of the store. There is nothing worse than letting your competition know you are keeping tabs on them, but on the internet, itกs completely anonymous. Your competition will never know you are there or what your doing there.

When you pay a visit to your competitionกs web site, the first thing you want to know is, what their weaknesses and their strengths are. That way, you can capitalize on the opportunity of making their weaknesses, your strengths.

About The Author

Rich Hamilton, Jr is the CEO/President of http://www.ElitesMarketing.com and the Author of Inside Internet Marketing. His book will show you how to laser in on your targeted market with unconventional marketing strategies to promote your web site without ever having to pay a cent in advertising. http://www.InsideNetMarketing.com.

This article was posted on November 23, 2003

by Rich Hamilton, Jr

Understanding What Reciprocal Linking Means

Understanding What Reciprocal Linking Means

by: Dirk Wagner

If you have been marketing on the internet for any length of time you have surely heard that reciprocal linking is a great way to boost your google page rank as well as your search engine ranking. But what does reciprocal linking actually mean?
Reciprocal linking is a joint venture of sorts between you and another website owner to exchange links on each others websites. The benefits of reciprocal linking is getting targeted traffic directed to your website and viceaversa. Don’t be afraid to put your competitors website on your links page, especially if they have a high Google page rank. Linking to your competitors will actually help you. For example do a search on Google for your keyword(s) and find your competitor with the number 1 ranking position, now check their links page. You will more than likely find other websites that are sending them quality traffic, as well as other potential reciprocal link partners for your website.
Will any websites link do? No! Nonrelevant links won’t help you with Google. Try and stay within your ขnicheข market.
When looking for potential reciprocal link partners there are few things you can do. Using search engines as mentioned above is a very good way to go about getting reciprocal link partners. Visit the top 10 or 20 sites ranked in Google and yahoo, and do some research on their link partners. Some other things to consider are sites with quality content, articles, reports, ebooks, anything that is original. Look for websites that stay within their ขnicheข, you don’t want link partners that offer everything under the sun and no real substance to their website or business. These types of sites don’t usually last to long on the internet. Two other great free tools for researching reciprocal link partners is the Google and Alexa toolbars. Within the Google toolbar you have the ability to check the page rank Google has assigned to a potential link partner, the higher the page rank the more traffic and quality content that particular website offers. The Alexa toolbar shows you the traffic rank of a potential link partner. Any website within your niche that is that is ranked under a hundred thousand is a good potential link partner.
Now you know how to find link partners, what should you do? Most sites offer you a webpage on their website where you can add your links manually. You fill out a short form with your website url, description, email address and submit it to the webmaster for consideration. You in return add their particulars to your site and with in a day or two after they have had time to find their link on your site you should get an email from the webmaster that says they have added your link. It is that easy. However, with some sites you may have to send a reminder if they have not responded with a week or so. If you still get no response simply delete their link and move on. If they can not show you some common courtesy to bother to let you know that your link was approved or not then you really don’t need them as a partner.
To review, use search engines to find potential link partners with your niche. Research these sites for quality content. Use the Google and Alexa toolbars to find high traffic and high page rank sites to link to. Fill out a short form and start all over again. Remember your looking for quality not necessarily quantity with reciprocal linking. Good Luck.
Copyright 2004 Dirk Wagner

About The Author

Dirk Wagner is CEO and owner of http://team4success.biz and the free, easy to install #1 home business toolbar with automated updates.A website dedicated to helping the homebased business entrepreneur start and succeed with there very own homebased business by publishing his free online course for successful Hoem Business.
My name is Dirk Wagner. I started my internet business in the past with the helping hands of TOP Internet Marketers like Stone Evans. My goal is helping others who are just starting their business and so I have created the #1 Home Business Toolbar.

This article was posted on May 17, 2004

by Dirk Wagner