Some people may refer to me as a competitive character. Sometimes it’s not always the best quality and not a pretty picture; just think of me as Monica from Friends. However, one thing I learned in life is that you should always make the best out of any situation and quality. I decided to find ways to checkout competitors in the business and blogging field. This time I’ll tell you a bit about how it can be done with the use of proxy. I’m aware of different tools there are these days, and I use them as well. However, manually checking rankings is very legitimate and works every time.
The Playing Field has Changed
The Internet has conferred many benefits on the world but a more relaxed trading environment is not one of them. Competition today is fiercer than at any time in history and one of the major reasons for this is the Internet and its worldwide proliferation.
From the retail level all the way down the last link in the manufacturing or service chain the Internet has had a profound influence. Want to know whether you can source a product or service cheaper than you currently do, enter your search parameters, send an email, and in record time you know where you stand in the proverbial food chain. When I try to receive a better price at retail, I search the product you I’m interested in from my smartphone whilst in the store and see if the retailer won’t match the online price.
Blogging with a Proxy
Over the last few years blogging has become a legitimate income earner. I’ve also enjoyed it on the side but being as competitive as I am I realized it’s full time job to be number one. Blogger friends of mine that have made this their full time job, see very good income. And as the income opportunities have increased, the competition has increased even more!
In theory, to be the owner of an effective, productive, and profitable blog, you don’t need to have spent tens of thousands of dollars and dedicated years of your life to acquire a college degree. You can work from the comfort of home with limited overhead and earn a nice income doing something that you love.
Once again, the Internet will render any profitable niche open to all and sundry. Consequently, the competition amongst bloggers, who use the Internet to generate their livelihood, is fierce. If you do not know what your competitors are doing, you are a goner. Because I am known to be so competitive, my blogger friends as well as business associates asked me for advice. I started looking at where the traffic comes from, keywords, and then realized I can take it up a notch.
I came to find quite a useful tip which now I am advising to you. Using a proxy to monitor your blogging competition is mandatory. As the Internet is global, so is your blog. And if you limit yourself to one market when the world is your oyster you are bound to fail. As the famous quote states, “Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.” Rest assured that your competition is “shooting for the moon” and if you don’t you’ll be destroyed.
When using proxy you can chose which country you are surfing from and see search results as they come up in other countries. You’ll be amazed, or at least I was when I saw the big differences. I found this so exciting, checking your blog competition and their important Google ranking in different countries without leaving your keypad! This is a vital step in monitoring your competition’s strategy. You can determine which keywords, backlinks, and domains work best in which countries and optimize your SEO and SEM strategy accordingly armed with this data.
As I mentioned before, there are numerous SEO tools. And still sometimes it is best and far more effective to do things manually, not to mention for much cheaper at most cases. For example, if you SEO your site to rank 1st in the UK, you will still use a UK proxy every day to check the rankings, and not fully believe SEO software.
What I personally like about this tactic is that proxy enables you to do this anonymously, not to mention cheaply, effectively and help you save time and money when formulating your blogging strategy. You will be able to glean the best ideas and strategies of your competitors without their knowledge. If you’re a bit of a geek like I am, it’s fun too!
Promoting Using Proxy
Whether you promote and market your product overtly or more stealthily, the use of a proxy to check the performance of your strategy is essential as it saves you both time and money. You may ask me what this has to do with checking competition using proxy. In this instance, the word “checking” is not being used in an investigative sense but rather in a restraining or controlling sense – keeping your competitors in check.
Advertising is best used as a pro-active tool for opening new markets and maintaining them. Imagine if you were formulating an advertising/marketing strategy for foreign markets and had to test had to test that strategy in the actual target market. The beauty of technology lets us do everything without moving an inch! Depending on the size of your business, the cost would be prohibitive and an inordinate amount of time would be required to satisfactorily complete the task.
If the initial results are not to your satisfaction, it will not require your team of highly paid advertising professionals to return home, formulate a new strategy and then fly from country to country to test its effectiveness. I’m a big fan of traveling, but I don’t mix business and pleasure.
Author bio: This article was written by Sharon R., a passionate tech writer who enjoys sharing thoughts and ideas about tech subjects such as premium proxy service.
