We all know SEO assists a site to perform better in the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages), but the reasons people SEO can differ. Some just want to share their knowledge with the world and aren’t selling anything, (like in informational blogs), some want to rank as an authoritative site to increase the revenue in their AdSense campaigns, and some want to find new clients through organic search, or do better in their PPC campaigns. There are also some that are motivated by all or a combination of these motivations. For me personally it is the opportunity to find more clients, and to out-compete my competitors for those clients.
In the introduction to his seminal book On Competition, Michael Porter (recognized Harvard professor and expert in competitive studies) states:
“No company, and no country, can afford to ignore the need to compete. Every company, and every country, must try to understand and master competition”
(Porter, 1998, p. i).
I come from a primarily business background, and have spent a good bit of time studying competitive analysis theory, or the use of different analytic tools to attempt to understand, predict and prepare for the strategic adjustment competitors are most likely to implement in the marketplace. It is truly a fascinating area of thought. However, each of these competitive analytic tools requires considerable amounts of time and research to make them worth anything, and even when the analysis is complete, it can only provide the researcher nothing more than a more educated guess as to what a competitor might do. Some widely used competitive analysis tools used today include: SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats), Competitive Array, Game Theory (very interesting), Five-Forces, etc., just to name a few. There are even many firms that will perform the analysis for you, using a variety of these tools for a fee. Dun and Bradstreet offers small business firms information about their competitors for a fee, $9.99 per firm, for a firm analysis, $24.99 for an industry analysis and $65 for various marketing lists. Despite the inherent weaknesses of these various analysis tools, innumerable firms continue to spend all kinds of resources to run these analyses in hopes of putting themselves in a better competitive position.
Now on to why I love the online competitive world… There are certain SEO tools and techniques which provide us the opportunity to really know what our competitors are up to online, with real data. The SEs (Search Engines) have already aggregated the data, and using these SEO analysis tools properly can drastically reduce the ability of a competitor to surprise you, or make huge moves online unnoticed. Not to mention this real data reduces the need of firms to “make educated guesses” as to what their competitors are really up to. Online, the competitive marketplace is more transparent than offline, and with the increased competitive information comes the increased importance to be more competitively astute and responsive. So once competitive trends are discovered, firms need to react more quickly to address these trends, to stay ahead of the curve, and remain competitively viable. This is done by using other SEO tools which assist your site to become more competitive online, specifically in the SERPs. SoloSEO was built to not only to provide competitive intelligence tools, which efficiently watch industry competitors, but to also offer effective SEO tools, allowing firms to improve their online competitive position.
This week we will be launching a new service, which will make the competitive intelligence process more convenient and streamlined for our subscribers. We are very motivated to assist our clients become more aware of their competitors more quickly, and assist them improve the competitiveness of their sites with effective SEO tools. Please stay tuned… 🙂
