Market intelligence is crucial for any business to survive. In law firm marketing, however, it’s relatively rare to see firms gather market intelligence on competing firms in ways that help you outrank the competition online. Tools of a specific, digital kind have been made to sleuth on your competition, giving you the upper hand in promoting your firm successfully online by using what they have in place to play to your benefit. One easy and strategic way to legally spying on your competitors to learn what key phrases and snippet summaries are driving excellent traffic to their websites, and possibly away from yours. Let’s explore how your law firm can use tools to legally spy on your competitors to gain a competitive edge without them knowing.
Why spy on your competition?
Spying on your competition is a completely legal way that allows you to stay on the edge of the wave for search terms. By analyzing your competitors’ online presence, you can learn which keywords and phrases they are using to attract traffic and the type of content, including subject headlines, that are resonating with their audiences. This knowledge can help you optimize your own content and improve your online visibility.
Ten tools for spying on your competition
- SEMrush: SEMrush is a powerful keyword research tool that allows you to spy on your competitors’ organic and paid search strategies. With SEMrush, you can identify the keywords your competitors are ranking for, the backlinks they’ve acquired, and even the paid ads they’re running.
- SimilarWeb: SimilarWeb provides comprehensive traffic insights for any website, including traffic sources, referral sources, and audience demographics. You can use SimilarWeb to see how your competitors are acquiring traffic and what channels are working best for them.
- BuzzSumo: BuzzSumo is a content analysis tool that allows you to see what content is performing well in your industry. You can use BuzzSumo to identify the most shared content on social media, the top-performing blog posts, and even the most popular authors in your niche.
- Ahrefs: Ahrefs is a powerful backlink analysis tool that allows you to see the backlinks your competitors have acquired, the anchor text they’re using, and even the referring domains. You can use Ahrefs to identify new link-building opportunities and to monitor your competitors’ link-building efforts.
- SpyFu: SpyFu is a keyword research tool that allows you to see the keywords your competitors are ranking for, the ad copy they’re using, and even the estimated ad spend. You can use SpyFu to identify new keywords to target and to see how your competitors are approaching paid search.
- Social Mention: Social Mention is a social media monitoring tool that allows you to track mentions of your competitors’ brand names, products, or services across social media platforms. You can use Social Mention to see what people are saying about your competitors, and to identify trends and sentiment around their brand.
- Owler: Owler is a competitive intelligence platform that provides company profiles, news updates, and insights on over 13 million public and private companies. You can use Owler to stay up-to-date on your competitors’ business strategies, funding rounds, and executive changes.
- Google Alerts: Google Alerts is a free tool that allows you to set up alerts for specific keywords or phrases. You can use Google Alerts to monitor mentions of your competitors’ brand names, products, or services across the web, including news articles, blogs, and forums.
- WhatRunsWhere: WhatRunsWhere is a competitive intelligence tool for display advertising that allows you to see what ads your competitors are running across various ad networks. You can use WhatRunsWhere to identify new ad creative, messaging, and targeting strategies that your competitors are using.
- Kompyte: Kompyte is a competitive intelligence platform that provides real-time insights on your competitors’ digital marketing strategies, including their SEO, PPC, social media, and content marketing efforts. You can use Kompyte to monitor your competitors’ online activities and to track changes in their strategies over time.
Each of these tools offers a unique set of features that can help you gain insights into your competitors’ online strategies. With the information you gather by sleuthing your competitors, you can quickly get a leg up using their hard work for your own marketing efforts.
