Even before the world of ecommerce started to dominate the business landscape, it was always important to know what your competition is up to.

With the interconnected world we live in today, it makes it even easier to identify the marketing strategies of your competition. Numerous tools allow you to gain essential insights on what your rivals and other industry players are currently doing with respect to their marketing tactics.

The use of such online tools is widely accepted and even encouraged by marketing experts. Alongside these tools, you can also manually investigate what your opponents have been focusing on recently. Here are some of the simple, yet creative actions that can be done to spy on your business competitors.

Purchase Their Items or Services

If possible, purchase an item or a service from your competitor. This is a creative and effective way to understand the kind of customer experience they are providing. This is also an excellent method to feel their buying experience and see how good their communication is with their customers.

It is also a good chance to analyze how they display their products visually and how the actual item looks like once it is delivered to you. Examine their post-sales customer support as well to see if there are some techniques that you can adopt for your own company.

Ask Questions Via Social Media Accounts

Studying how they use their different social media accounts will be easy. The next best step to take is to communicate with them as if you were a regular customer. Identify their response speed, their communication skills with their customers and their knowledge of their own product.

Social media is the place where businesses and their customers interact. It is also the best platform to target an audience. It only makes sense to check how they incorporate them into their marketing campaigns as well.

Observe Their Customer Service

Email or call your competition. Are they using a conversational tone on their emails? Are they sticking to template emails? Do they go the extra mile to assist their customers on their needs, especially on social media? These are just some of the things you need to examine.

If you want to dig deeper and discover more technical information regarding your contenders, here are some of the things you can do, and the tools you can download.

Track Web Traffic

Perhaps the most used tool to track web traffic is Alexa and Similarweb. Knowing their traffic can be a great source of comparison to yours. Check their peak seasons and try to identify their best-performing web pages.

Identify Their Backlinks

A website’s backlink profile can boost its page ranking. Moreover, good quality backlinks can help grow your DA score and improve one’s business image to search engines like Google. Tools similar to Majestic Site Explorer, Ahrefs, and Moz’s Onsite Explorer can help you identify where your competitors get their backlinks. Once you have this data, you can try to mimic their backlinking strategies and observe how search engines would react to your website.

Explore Ads Monitoring Tools

Ads are essential in digital marketing. In addition, their targeted keywords also help your competitors gain their traffic. Tools such as AdGooRoo and Moat may help you identify the ads and the keywords they are using.

Succeeding in the competitive digital world can be challenging. But with some creative spying skills and appropriate tools to use, you can put your business one step ahead of your business rivals.

Understand the successes and failures of another company and learn from them. This will help you strategize sensibly, save budget and increase profits. A mindful approach with the use of powerful tools makes you a better entrepreneur, and possibly an eCommerce mogul.

The proliferation of slapdash, unconstructive information is the single heaviest drawback on the progression of SEO in 2018.

As though it’s not enough to be constantly ensuring our campaigns are up to scratch through careful budgeting, the perpetual quest for top quality backlinks and constant watchfulness of Google’s algorithm updates – we have to contend with our industry’s reputation being besmirched by the pondweed, swindling SEO agencies out there.

Bad practices have filtered through into so many of my new client’s minds, due to their past experiences, that it beggars belief how many delusions they believe are fundamental to attaining high rankings.

Many people don’t believe SEO works at all due to the lack of solutions their previous business partners provided them with. At the end of the day, SEO is a tough nut to crack; it takes years of experience and constant interaction with the inner community to consistently graft out top quality results, and the circulation of shoddy information is entirely inhibitive to this end. Even after showing the dedication required to consistently provide clients with returns on their investment

2018 is a big year for SEO, but to get our industry on the right track, I think it’s essential to outline some of the most common delusions circulates by certain schmucks across the net.

Bargain Hunting SEO, Cheap Backlinks, Cheap Content will maximise your ROI

In a word, this is absurd. SEO is not a shortcut-conducive practice, it takes time, research and daily engagement. Gone are the days of the formulaic approach to SEO, where a few title tag adjustments, tactful placement of keywords and any old backlink acquirement could positively impact on rankings.

With the introductions and consistent upgrades of Panda and Penguin, it’s just not that black and white anymore.

A firm which promises high quality, cheap backlinks and content are either engaging in shady link building practices sure to land you in trouble with Google, or else lying and will actually supply you with thin, practically useless content. Either way, the penalty you’ll incur due to your misplaced faith in these suspect firms will blow your budget out the water leaving you desolate amidst your site’s ruination.

If you choose to invest in SEO, even if you go into business with renowned optimisers, do not expect to organically blow your traffic levels out the water immediately. Campaigns are multi-layered, incorporating long term strategies involving high quality content marketing, social media management to boost coverage all contributing to the overarching building of excellent links.

This all takes time and investment – but the price will always be right for strong SEO application.

Top Quality Content = SEO success

This is a delicate issue. Great content is a cornerstone of SEO success, and thus ensuring your content is relevant to your target audience, flows in the way it reads, is grammatically correct and ranks for the appropriate keywords, is a necessity for your SEO campaign.

However, without adeptly leveraging that content – whether that be through the building of links towards your various articles, infographics, how to videos and promotional pieces or a rigorous social media campaign which places your pieces of content on relevant pages, forums and across a multitude of social media channels – it is most likely your instructive pages will not be seen by an overwhelming proportion of your target audience.

There’s just too much noise out there, even if your content is incredible – it needs to be promoted properly. It’s like Tyson without Don King, Movies without Harvey Weinstein, Compare the Market without Meerkats – you need someone or something that garners you extra publicity, that allows you to shine.

Of course, if you’re a huge brand, such as Huffington Post, Forbes or some other reputable news circulation group,

Well written, relevant content will prevent you from receiving a penalty, sure – but it won’t guarantee you exposure – for that you need both the tequila and the lemon!

What is SEO

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. SEO is the techniques to improve visibility and position of a website among all popular search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing.

Google is the most popular search engines that is mostly used by people. In other words we can say that SEO is an art of making sure that a website gets a top position in all the most popular search engines with relevant keywords.

SEO follows the search engine rules and it is free of cost once a website ranks on page 1. Before that it will cost to implement SEO campaigns.

SEO is a systematic procedure that may take a long time for improving the ranking of a website on the search engines. There are many search engines and all search engine follow different rules and algorithms to display the website on their result pages related to the relevant keywords.

The website following the SEO rules best will get the top position on the search engine.

Why SEO is important 

According to Google statistics, most of the online users click on the first, second and third position on the search engine results. 85% to 90% of online users prefer organic search.

To get the top position of a website on the search results, search engine follows the SEO tips and tricks which is called White Hat SEO techniques.

The High Quality Bank-links from trusted websites with regular unique content updating on a website and manual link building are the best example of White hat SEO techniques. White hat SEO is the approved way of doing SEO and it is also called Ethical SEO, it focuses on the online users.

Some user owning a website may deploy negative SEO tips and tricks but obey search engine rules to get the top position on the search engine results. This is called Black hat SEO techniques, it focuses on the search engines but not users.

Black hat SEO is not a way of SEO approved by google; there are some examples of Black hat SEO like Doorway pages, Keyword stuffing, Automatic link building and Duplicate Content. If a website follows long time Black hat SEO techniques then the Search Engines may ban such website.

Benefits of SEO

SEO is an effective and inexpensive marketing technique that can bring a ton of visitors and users to your website.

There are two main techniques for optimizing a website; these are On-Page Optimization and Off-Page Optimization.

To get the top position of your website on the Search Engines both techniques are essential for Organic SEO. A website is optimized internally during On-Page SEO. Firstly On-Page SEO Optimization is necessary.When On-Page SEO is done then we make the backlinks for your website that means we do Off-Page SEO.

Google uses two different algorithms called Panda and Penguin to identify the White hat SEO and Black hat SEO techniques. Panda is focused on the On-Page SEO and Penguin focus on the Off-Page SEO ranking factors.

Google provide the special rank to the individual web page is called the Page-Rank. The Page-Rank determine a page’s relevance between 0 to 10 and it give the high preference to the website with related keywords.

How Search Engines Work

Search Engine Working process for a website is shown below:

First of all Search Engines will crawl the webpages using Robot or Spider. The Spider or Robot is a software that finds webpages and stores the information into the database of Search Engines.

Search Engines will change their technology frequently to get the most relevant search results for users. This process is called Search Engine Algorithm.

SEO for Small Business

A website is a collection of webpages having information about different types of topic and A webpage is a small part of the website having relevant information about a particular topic. Business is a process of economic activity, produce and distribute his products and services to the users. The Users or Customers must know about the products and services before they select it.

The local users know about it through voice basis, but globally many users don’t know about the products and services. The Search Engines is a platform to give the relevant query to the search results. The SEO Services is used for optimize the website and your business offers.

Internet users are increasing rapidly worldwide and most of these online users can find the business products and services. Even without a website that is with the help of Local SEO and attract online users and promote his Business.

In the present day most of small business holders optimize their website using Search Engine Marketing (SEM) Services. The SEO and Pay Per Click (PPC) are the two main steps in the SEM strategy but without paying some money get tons of traffic with the help of SEO services and techniques.

The paid PPC services holder website not guarantees that website is relevant, but Organic SEO guaranteed that website have most relevant webpages. So the most of the online users prefer the Organic Search Engine results.

Installing Joomla Modules

Joomla Modules extend the capabilities of Joomla giving the software new functionality. Joomla Modules are small content items that can be displayed anywhere that your template allows it to be displayed. Joomla Modules are very easy to install in the Admin Section. Joomla modules may include: Main Menu, Top menu, Template Chooser, Polls, Newsflash, Hit Counter, etc. Members of the Joomla Community are producing third party Joomla modules on a continuous basis.

Install New Modules and Manage Installed Modules

Modules:
Type:com_installerAccess:menu=>Installers=>ModulesUser Level:Administrator; Super AdministratorUninstall:Select the radio button next to the Module that is to be uninstalled (deleted) from the web site. Then click the Uninstall icon.
Warning: Uninstalling a Module deletes it completely from the system. Any other Extensions that depend upon it will also no longer work.
Install New Modules:
NOTE: Many new Modules (and Templates, Mambots(Plugins), and Components) are packaged inside a .zip file with documentation and other Extensions (Therefore there are .zip files and other items inside the .zip file). It is good practice to check this before attempting the new installation as it may be necessary to unpack this file first of all and then install the individual Extensions separately via the appropriate installer.
To Upload and Install a New Module:
If the host web server has GZIP support enabled with PHP, it is possible to upload a zipped (.zip) package file that will be installed automatically.
To trace the file click on the Browse button. This will open the File Upload dialogue window. Navigate to the location of the desired Template file on the local hard drive. Select the Module file and click the Open button. The dialogue window will disappear and the path to, and name of, the Module file will appear in the File Upload field. Click the Upload and Install button to complete the transfer and installation of a copy of the Module file from the local computer to the joomla_root/modules/directory tree.
NOTE: There is usually an upper limit to the size of files that can be uploaded within the web server itself. This limit is set in the PHP configuration file (php.ini) and may differ between web servers and web hosts. The limit cannot be altered from within Joomla!. Some hosting companies do not allow the limit to be altered at all!
To allow larger files to be uploaded it will probably be necessary to increase the upload_max_filesize and the post_max_size settings.
For very large files it may also be necessary to increase the max_execution_time and the memory_limit settings. Alternatively it may be necessary to use an external program to upload the files. If so follow the next set of instructions.

To Install a New Module From a Directory

If the host web server does not have GZIP support enabled with PHP it will be necessary to transfer the Module file to the web server using FTP (File Transfer Protocol) or possibly a web host provided control panel, bit these are varied and outside the scope of this Help Screen.
Unpack the compressed .zip file onto the local hard drive before uploading it via FTP. Ideally the file should be transferred to the joomla_root/administrator/componentrs/com_installer/module/
yourmodulename directory of Joomla!.
Once the files are uploaded enter the exact location of this file (it must be the absolute location) in this example: joomla_root/administrator/components/com_installer/module/
yourmodulename then click the Install button.
The new Module will be installed by Joomla! in the joomla_root/modules/yourmodulenamedirectory of the web site.

If all goes well a page will be displayed proclaiming Upload Module – Success. This confirms the name of the Module installed together with the authors Module description message.
The new Module will have been installed by Joomla! in the joomla_root/modules/yourmodulenamedirectory of the web site.
If things did not go to plan the message Upload Module – Failed, followed usually by the reason for the failure. Make a note of the reason before clicking continue. Rectify the error, if possible, before trying again.
The newly installed Module will now be accessible via the appropriate Module Manager in menu=>Modules=>Site (or Admin) Modules Menu Item. The Module is also listed in the Installed Modules Manager within the Installer screen.
NOTE:To use the new Module ensure that it is Published after the installation is complete and that any necessary Menu Item shortcuts are created in the Front-end Menus.

Installed Modules

This section of the Installer screen contains a listing of all the installed (and editable) Modules within this installation. Essential Core Modules that cannot be deleted are not included in the list.
Columns:
Module File: Lists all the Modules currently installed on the web site (these are only those that are not a part of the core operation of the Joomla! installation).
Client: Identifies whether the installed Modules are used in the Site (Front-end) or the Admin (Back-end) areas of the web site.
Version: This column identifies the Version Number of the Module. The information displayed here is copied by Joomla! directly from the module_name.xml file that is included in a normal Module installation.
Date: This column identifies the date upon which the Module was released. The information displayed here is copied by Joomla! directly from the module_name.xml file that is included in a normal Module installation.
NOTE: Extension developers don’t always provide all the information within the module_name.xml file as they should so there may well be gaps in the display!
Uninstalling a Module:
Select the radio button next to the Module that is to be uninstalled (deleted) from the web site. Then click the Uninstall icon.
Warning: Uninstalling a Module deletes it completely from the system. Any other Extensions that depend upon it will also no longer work. Deleted Modules cannot be restored as a Menu Item orContent Item can. If the Module is required again it must be re-installed from the beginning.
NOTE: Modules essential to core Joomla! operations cannot be deleted.
Upgrading Modules:
There is no standard procedure for updating a Module. In some cases it is necessary to uninstall an existing version before adding the new. In other situations the update will be handled automatically.
It is therefore essential to read the Module developers upgrade notes – these may be enclosed in the file that is downloaded, or will be located on the developers web site.