Understanding the competition is a practice all successful companies employee.  Without the knowledge of what the competition is up to, how their products compare to your own, and what tactics they're using to promote themselves over you, your marketing and development efforts can veer wildly off course.  Think about it.  How can you tell consumer why they should choose your product if you don't know what makes yours stand out from the rest of the industry?

To help companies study and better understand the competition's internet marketing strategies, many companies have developed tools designed to analyze search and keyword programs by a variety of companies from a wide range of industries.  One such tool is Hitwise's Search Intelligence tool and SearchEngineWatch has an exhaustive look at just how the service works… and how it can benefit you.

For instance, the Search Intelligence tool offers detailed demographic profiles and reports dating back two or more years for more than 170 industries.  Hitwise tracks over 800,000 websites to compile it's data and offers a representation of over 25 million worldwide internet users.  SearchEngineWatch's report even says that websites not included in those tracked by the tool can be added.  After a few weeks, you'll have data on the specific website in question.

The Search Intelligence tool also shows you how people came to your site, where they went while there, and where they went once they left in much more detail than logfiles could ever show.  As Christine Churchill, who wrote the SearchEngineWatch article, says… sometimes you end up seeing that visitors eventually end up at the competition.  While that's not exactly what most companies want to hear, the knowledge that such things are happening is the first step to correcting the problem that makes it happen.

Comparison tools allow you to compare results for keyword searches for individual websites or an entire industry.  In addition, Churchill says, graphs illustrate changes in website traffic and give you opportunity to find out what was going on with a company during times of increase or decrease.  Another tool allows you see exactly what search terms are being typed into search engines for any site you enter.  You can look at your list of search terms… and your competition's.  The same tool will also generate a report of suggested search terms based on what people are already searching for.

Information like this invaluable to companies looking to maximize their search advertising campaigns.  Not only do they show you potential weak spots in your own efforts, but they also show your competition's weak spots, which can be taken advantage of, and your competition's strong points, which can be learned from.  There are, of course, other similar tools available.  Do some research and see which one has the best feature set for your interests.

If you've ever wanted to sift through another companies file cabinets this might be the next best thing.  And it's legal… which will keep you out of trouble.