Best Tools for Businesses That Will Help Gain Advantage Over Competitors

Keeping an eye on the competition is essential to ensure business longevity. Even if you have a superior service for a better price, that does not on its own ensure better sales. There are many additional things to consider, such as brand awareness, online presence, social media marketing, and more.

The Internet has opened numerous investment opportunities but also significantly increased the competition. For example, companies spend vast resources to get the first spot in the Google search engine, which brings the most organic revenue. You can check our list of 7 essential tools for marketing managers if you want to increase your conversion rate performance. This article concentrates on the best tools that will help you get the upper hand ahead of the competition.

1. SEMrush

Seeing SEMrush on this list comes as no surprise. The service is renowned for providing numerous useful features, many of them applicable to competition analysis.

SEMrush is a search engine optimization tool that will help you to secure top spots in Google SERP. According to FirstPageSage data, the first spot enjoys 39.8% organic CTR, shrinking more than twice in the second place. Furthermore, if you play your SEO strategy well and secure the first spot, it will drive continuous traffic without wasting your resources. You will have to maintain the keywords to remain there, but the hardest part is over.

SEMrush provides a very straightforward dashboard with organic search, paid search, CPC distribution, keyword, and related keyword sections. My reports, Domain Analytics, Keyword Analytics, Projects, and Lead Generation tool are other navbar options.

However, you will mostly use its robust keyword research tools for competition analysis. For example, in its SERP positions report SEMrush displays what keywords your competitors are not ranking for so you can easily spot the opportunity to get ahead. An invaluable Domain vs. Domain tool allows you to inspect what your competitors are ranking for, but you are not. This side-by-side comparison is visually appealing and enhances an otherwise tedious task.

Lastly, you will get a keyword difficulty score that includes Domain and Page authority criteria, paid search influence, and what competition you can expect ranking on it. The demand for online content increases annually, and SEMrush will remain a popular SEO tool for quite some time. Use it wisely, and check out our tips on improving your SEO strategy to learn more.

2. Proxies

Proxies are not your typical business software. Primarily, it's an essential part of computer networking that governs online data flow. However, they were quickly adopted for professional use due to proxy relevance to business needs. For example, you can use proxies to collect publicly available competitors’ web data, build a competitor intelligence system, compare global commodity prices, and even protect your brand.

A proxy is an additional server that handles online communication. It can be located in a different geographical region than yours and issues you an alternative regional IP address. This way, you can access the local Internet and previously unavailable information. The most secure and trustworthy proxies are residential proxies as they mimic real users’ IP addresses.

SEO specialists use proxies to get local keyword volumes and regional Google SERP results, automate their tasks, and track rankings. Digital marketing managers use proxies to bypass geographical blocks, access local retail and discount sites, and read product reviews to identify strong or weak points. 

Lastly, data analysts use proxies to collect publicly available web data automatically. With new services emerging every few weeks, keeping an eye on their features, prices, and keyword strategies is essential. Instead of spending valuable hours going over them manually, proxies excel at connecting to target websites and extracting valuable information in an organized format.

3. Google Trends

No one has as much data as Google. This IT giant provides several business-oriented tools. However, Google Trends can help you get ahead of the competition in a very valuable way.

Your competitive strategy should focus (among other things) on finding market niches and going there first. Coming up with new popular services is outstanding but rarely happens. Most often, businesses improve on current services. Consider Netflix or Spotify, which changed how we consume entertainment products over the Internet. In reality, Spotify is not that different from good old Winamp, but it improved it significantly.

Google Trends illuminates what people search for online. Even though it is keyword based, it calculates trend popularity differently, focusing more on regional desires reflected in Google searches. 

The service is extraordinarily easy to use. You enter a search term and select a country, time frame, and category. It can perform web, image, news, or YouTube searches, including the Google shopping platform. Moreover, you can add more search terms to compare them in a visually attractive graph.

Once you get the hang of it, you will identify what people are looking for in a specific geographical location during a certain time. It can be Vanilla ice cream during hot Texas summers, healthcare security apps after Ireland's devastating ransomware attacks, a powerful video card before the release of a new game – the list is endless. 

The trick is to identify an opportunity and jump on it. Instead of speculating whether a particular service will be required, you can know beforehand whether people are asking about it. As simple as this idea sounds, Google Trends is a potent tool that can shape product development trajectories in professional hands.

Lastly, Google Trends provides related queries, which you can use if you run out of ideas. Brainstorming sessions are not the same without Google Trends, and because Google has the most user data, their correlations are the most accurate.

Final Words

There are many ways to get ahead of the competition, but the task is nearly impossible without adequate tools. Remember that your competitors are doing the same – looking for lucrative opportunities to outrank you. 

You will overcome the competition if you master the discussed tools and use them to base your business decisions on hard, verifiable facts. Of course, there are many more tools for you to check out, but we gathered three popular ones that assist in managing competition in three different and crucial ways.