Before starting your SEO strategy, it is important to first know who your online competitors are and what kind of online marketing tactics they are already engaging in. You will want to take some time to research and analyze your competitors to gain intelligence and hopefully stay one step ahead of them.

Here are some guidelines and questions to consider while performing research on the Internet about your competitors:

Website Design and Layout

Are your competitors using a search engine friendly Web design, like a basic HTML or ASP site?

• Are they using JavaScript, a dynamically-driven site, frames, or tables that will prevent search engines from properly indexing their sites?

• Are any Web sites built entirely in flash?

• Are their sites easy to navigate with a professional look and feel by using the same font styles and sizes and similar color schemes throughout?

• How heavily are the graphics on the Web site?

• How many Web pages total does each of your competitors have on their site? Does your site need improvement on the amount of content-rich Web pages you have?

• Does the entire Web site focus on one central theme alone?

Placement of Keywords

• Where are your competitors using their chosen keywords? The META title tag? The META description tag? The META keywords tag? In ALT tags? What about in link text and headline tags? The page URL? Image names?

• How often do those keywords appear on each Web page?

• Where does each of their keywords first appear on the pages of each of your competitors sites?

• Are they achieving good rankings for their chosen keywords online in Google, MSN and Yahoo!?

• What is the keyword weight and density of the entire content of your competitors’ pages? Are they keyword spamming?

• What are their chosen keywords being targeted on their sites? Are they single words or long-tail keywords with 3, 4 or even 5 keyword phrases?

Off Page Factors

• Check your competitors Alexa.com and Compete.com traffic rank and compare with yours. Do they receive more or less Web traffic to their sites?

• What is their Google PageRank? Again, is it higher or lower than yours?

• Go to a reputable link popularity checker online and compare the number of incoming links your site has versus your competitors. How much improvement in link building, if any, does your site need to effectively compete online?

• What types of incoming links are they receiving, how top quality are these links, and how much traffic does a link from these sites generate for your competitors each month?

• Are any of your competitors registered with any popular link directories, like dmoz.org, Yahoo! Directory, Business.com or other similar high traffic directories online?

• Do they have a sign up box for an industry email newsletter on their sites?

Use of Spamming Techniques

• Is the competitor’s site using any spam or unethical search engine practices? If so, what are they?

• Do any of these sites have doorway or gateway pages?

• Do they have same color text on a same color background?

• Are they blatantly keyword spamming?

• Are these sites publicly listed or affiliated with gambling or adult-oriented sites?

Yes, these are basics for you advanced guys out there, but take a look at this list again and think of the couple of tactics you don’t look at on a regular basis. Ah, yes we may have studied all of these tactics but not using them regularly may give missed opportunities in the long run.

I caught an awesome special last night on the Discovery Channel called Download: The true history of the internet. I guess it started at the beginning of March and have 3 or 4 in the series. This one focuses on the beginning and ultimate rise of Google and the beginnings of search. Throughout the whole episode, it made me think how a little about how the early birds got into the internet at its infancy and really built great products and business since then. (I just wish I had got into it a little earlier!).

It profiled the old dinosaur Excite and how they set the stage for Google to chance the entire industry and the internet as a whole. Just think if this evolution never happened!! I wouldn’t have a job and you would never find my blog.

Anyways I digress and encourage you to check it out. The schedule can be found here . Oh, and they mention Sergey Brin and Larry Paige’s now infamous Phd dissertation on Google while attending Stanford. I read it after the program and thought it was pretty interesting. I encourage you to read that too. You can check it out here.