If you have a website, being ahead of your competition is an important part of having a good online marketing strategy. You should be aware of what they are doing at all times. Luckily for us, there are plenty of tools to help us do that. Some even include multiple different tools to help us with all types of SEO related stuff. If you are unaware of some of those tools and are having a hard time finding some good ones to use, then don't worry. We are going to cover incredible options for you. Some of these programs have premium versions, but they will all be able to provide you with at least a free trial so you can get some free information and try out the tools.

KeywordSpy

This is one of the best tools around for getting up to speed on what your competitors are up to. It is much more than a simple keyword research tool that gives some basic information. It will provide your with extensive reports about what your competitors are doing in regards with keywords, their pay per click campaigns, how much money they have been spending on those campaigns, what their organic traffic is, and so much more. On top of that all, you will also get tracking tools so you can just track your competitor's activities and always stay updated.

WebSeo Analytics

This tool goes a bit above and beyond most other competition analytic tools. It will provide you a course of action to take to outrank your competitors for certain keywords. There have been many reviews saying that it worked, but then there are critics that say it is impossible to have an algorithm that explains how to rank higher, since search engines keep their algorithms a secret. It comes with a free trial, so you might as well check it out for yourself to see if it is a good fit for you.

SpyFu

This program was made to provide you with simple and effective statistics. It gives your competitor's profitable keywords, how many times they have been mentioned, helps you avoid bad keywords, details of their PPC campaigns, and plenty more. You will also have access to their tracking services, so you don't have to keep doing the same procedure day in and day out. You will just get automatic reports.

SEMrush

Another good option to see all of your competitors organic traffic, check out their advertisements, finding good keywords to target, etc. There have been plenty of reputable large brands to use the services of SEMrush, so their information has been trusted. Another useful part about this tool is you will be able to compare different metrics of your website as you please. Checking trends and making sure you efforts see an increase in traffic is important, so don't underestimate this feature.

Compete

This is an easy to use tool that has been useful to many before us. They have a little different payment system than most other tools which since. If you decide to use the paid version, you pay for what you use instead of getting on a subscription model. This helps for those of us who have small businesses or don't have much research to do. This can be a bit of a backfire for anyone with extremely large businesses who have hundreds of competition. Good news is that the results are really easy to read, and downloading them is not a hassle like it can be with other tools.

In the end, there are plenty of different tools that you may be able to use to check out what your competition is doing, but these 5 have already proven to be a valuable asset to a lot of businesses. If you still can't decide or you are just learning about SEO, don't worry because you have time and these tools are not going anywhere. Once you start your campaign you will realize how important it is to have tools such as these and you will check it out again. Just remember that SEO takes a long time to see results, so don't expect to get ranked #1 a few days after using these tools.