If you ever get curious about your competitors’ websites eg. how well they are doing in search, what tools are they are using or what changes have they recently made – here are 3 tools that are free and easy to use.
1. What technology are they using?
When you are using Google chrome do a Google search for “wappalyzer chrome extension” and install it on your browser. When you go a website click on the extension icon and it will give you an overview of the technology being used on the website eg. Is it a WordPress website or a Joomla or Shopify site? What type of ecommerce system is being used? What plugins are being used? What payment processing options are offered and lots more.
This tool is very handy if you are wondering how to tell whether a site is a wordpress, Joomla, Wix or Shopify site – a question I get asked a lot in courses.
2. What changes did they make recently?
If a website has been updated recently you might want to compare it to the old version to see what has changed. Simply go to archive.org and enter a web address. You can then select a date in the past where a version of the site was “archived” and you can browse the pages to see what it looked like on that date.
3. How well are they doing in search results compared to you?
If you would like to check where your site and up to three competitors’ sites appears in Google search results for 10 search terms at a time, serprobot.com is a really useful tool.
Go to Serprobot.com. Click on Free SERP check.
Select your country (Ireland), Enter your web address and click the option for comparing competitors site. Enter their web addresses.
Then type in up to 10 search terms you want to know where you appear in search results for on Google.ie search terms and the country eg Google.ie and then it will tell you what position your site appears in search results plus your competitors sites.