Your best techniques or tools to check on the competitor

[Jaesin]

Hello, This is my first post here on wickedfire, and looks to be a great site. My first question is what type of techniques or tools are used to check on what makes a competitor rank well in the search engines?
I am trying to learn as much as I can about online marketing, and am wondering how can I watch or learn what a competitor is doing to acheive a solid ranking?
Thanks

 

[xmcp123]

Hello, This is my first post here on wickedfire, and looks to be a great site. My first question is what type of techniques or tools are used to check on what makes a competitor rank well in the search engines?
I am trying to learn as much as I can about online marketing, and am wondering how can I watch or learn what a competitor is doing to acheive a solid ranking?
Thanks

Yahoo (linkdomain:domain.com) is pretty much all you need. Spyfu and compete.com can help too.

 

[Musashi]

Like xmcp123 said, Yahoo's linkdomain command is great.

Sometimes, when using the linkdomain command, the listings will show one site over and over again, making it hard to find the diversity of backlinks for your target site. I'll often use the the linkdomain: command coupled with the -site: command to get a clearer picture in those cases;

linkdomain:domain.com -site:someOtherDomainListedOverAndOver.com

Also, I often rely on the SEO for Firefox plug-in (others like seoQuake, but I've never used it). Search for the site in google with one of those plug-in's turned on, like this;

site:domain.com

They will provide some more useful information nested in the Google SERP's, as well as some not so useful information (take it all with a grain of salt)

 

[sam1am]

Yea, Yahoo's linkdomain tool rocks. I'd also throw dnscoop in there as a useful tool, and it's always good to do some analysis of their landing pages (go look at their source and see how they're placing keywords).

 

[Jaesin]

Thanks for the start, Im gonna enjoy this board...