Conference: semkonferansen.no The internet makes marketing efforts close to 100% transparent, you can track everything you do through analytics and file reports that would make any off-line marketer jealous. But that also has a dark site as there are tools out there that can be used by your competition to track your online marketing efforts and in some cases know things that not even you know if you are not vigilant and on the guard. Through tools and methods you can track your competitor, their PPC, their Organic strategy, see the banners they create and where they place them, how many people are coming to their site, where they come from and the list goes on. It can be said that you should not invent the wheel when it comes to internet marketing, track and learn from the best, then take that data and make a better use of it. But not only that you should use this same method to track your own brand and use that data to protect it. Kristjan Mar Hauksson, Director of Internet Marketing / Founder, Nordic eMarketing

1. What is your competitor doing Online? SEM Konferansen - Oslo

2. Before We Start

3. Agenda What is your competitor doing Online? Introduction 1 Tools 2 3 4 5 6 7 PPC data Organic data Analytics data Other data Summary

4. Introduction With the web close to transparant, we can see how the competition moves online We can see their: PPC spend Organic traffic In-bound links and Anchor-tags Estimate their traffic Understand their type of traffic

5. The Opportunities Study Your Competitors What are they doing now? What will their next steps be? What is their budget? Understand them Know their strengths and weaknesses How should you use your analysis? Benchmarking Forecasting Forensics Act on it!

6. But there is more... You can also call out “shady” usage of PPC such as: - Trademark use in ads - Are they steeling your content - Not playing by rules

7. Be One Step Ahead!

8. What is your competitor doing Online? The Tools

9. The Goals with this session?

10. The Tools Spyfu for International UK and USA SEMRush for International Russian, German, French, Brazil and more Trellian MajesticSEO Google Keyword Tool Alexa Keywordspy.com trafficestimate.com ... and the list goes on

11. What is your competitor doing Online? PPC Data

12. PPC data The data out there is public, so there is nothing unethical about gathering it The data might be wrong Make sure you normalize it Look at it in terms of the big picture Don’t take things out of context Is it actionable? What can you really do with it?

13. SpyFu Limited to USA and UK Monthly cost ranging from around $69 Gives both organic and PPC data Focuses on Google PPC Data

14. Boots.com in the UK PPC Data

15. SEMRush Cost per month from $49.95 Does similar things as Spyfu but adds languages and locations Beside USA and the UK there is Russia, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Brazil and Australia PPC Data

16. Trellian Expensive (around $199 per domain per month) Takes longer time to collect/show data Shows Yahoo!/Bing data Has some indications of Norwegian keyword data Allows you to monitor without paying PPC Data

17. Google Keyword tool Free to use and International Gives insights into how Google sees the competition Use to full potential to find missed opportunities in regards to keywords and cost You need login information PPC Data

18. Google Keyword Tool Even shows the landing page PPC Data

19. KeywordSpy The most Norwegian friendly PPC/Organic friendly tool PPC Data

20. What is your competitor doing Online? Organic Data

21. Organic Data The data out there is public, so there is nothing unethical about gathering it The data might be wrong Make sure you normalize it Look at it in terms of the big picture Don’t take it out of context Collect data over a period of time Again, is it actionable? What can you really do with it? Organic Data

22. MajesticSEO Who is linking to your competition? With what type of anchor tags? What are the most prominent landing pages? You can use this for free for your own site and get basic reports for others. Organic Data

23. Organic Data

24. MajesticSEO Aptotek1 versus vitusapotek.no Vitusapotek ranks number one for Apotek Has less inbound links Referring domains 176 (307) total external backlinks 2,127 (4,353) Gulesider.no strong in referring to Vitusapotek Opportunity for Apotek1? Organic Data

25. Keyword Spy Organic Data

26. Alexa Remember to collect over a period of time and normalize the data Organic Data

27. SEMRush Gives insight into keywords returning traffic Organic Data

28. Google Alerts Google Alerts is a fantastic way to monitor brands and search terms Organic Data

29. Others SEOmoz Keyword Competitors Ad Gooroo Compete Xenu The SITE: and the LINK: commands in Google Webmastertools Organic Data

30. What is your competitor doing Online? Analytics Data

31. Analytics Data Look at your own analytics and check if the competition is coming in Are they reading your press releases? Are they interacting with your content? What content?

32. What is your competitor doing Online? Other Data

33. Trafficestimator.com How much traffic is the competitor getting Remember to normalize the data Other Data

34. Alexa Gives you traffic data and top organic keywords Remember to normalize! Other Data

35. Compete.com Struggles outside of the USA Organic ranking seems to be close to reality Costs from $199 per month Other Data

36. What is your competitor doing Online? Quick Case Study

37. When I Google Apotek, I get... Case

38. When I analyze the links Apotek 1 has more inbound links Apotek 1 has more mentions of the word Apotek in the title, and the flow of internal links is smoother Apotek 1 has more traffic, 110k monthly versus 83k Alexa does not agree and gives me NO Rank 979 for Vistus and 1501 for Apotek1 (lower is better) Then there are pages and links Vistusapotek.no has more pages indexed Vitus: Omtrent 6 880 resultater (0,14 sekunder) Apotek1: Omtrent 2 170 resultater (0,14 sekunder) Vitus has has the Gullesider.no links Case

39. There is a twist to this! Case

40. Conclusion in short Vistusseems to have stronger links with a better build of anchor tags, giving them the little nudge needed to rank number one for Apotek in Norway This would need to be analyzed further But both sites have left room for the competition to gain that number one seat Can do much better in regards of onside SEO Lack of strategic build of external endorsement Case 3.

42. What is your competitor doing Online? Summary

43. Summary Follow best practices and take competitive data as guidance - Directional Monitor competition focusing on any PPC clues Remember you could be monitored also Try different tools to help give insight into missed opportunities Be Sensible Don't obsess over Competitors Worry more about bettering yourself Be aware of Intelligence limitations/blind spots Also manual searches on keywords Geographic ad presentation Be ethical

44. Kristján Már Hauksson Thank you