Many times even the best of SEO tactics do not give you the desired results. You are perplexed and confused trying to analyze as to what went wrong, but are still clueless on the whole thing. If this is the scenario you are constantly facing, then you are definitely ignoring one of the most important components of doing any business. This aspect is competition.

You cannot afford to ignore your competitor in any business you do. Here also, whatever you must be doing in scoring high on search engines, if your competitor is out doing you, all your attempts will be futile. So keeping a track of your adversary is critical at every aspect of your business no matter what his size and strength is.

The first step starts with identifying your challenger. You ought to know who all are the people trying to outdo you in your niche segment. This is easy when you have an offline business, but in an online business, you need to do a Google search on your target keywords and finding out the sites which rank high on these.

Now when you know who all your competitors are, do a proper patrolling of their websites from time to time. A website can give you the complete information of the strengths and weaknesses of your competitor which will help you in taking them head on.

SEO success is all a game of keywords. So you need to track them, which is obviously not easy. But the least you can do is to check whether they are using your keywords or not. Website Keyword Suggestion tool can also be used effectively to identify many keywords which you might have ignored and start optimizing them for your site. The keyword density of your competitors can also be checked through Keyword Density Cloud. But along with that, also keep a tab on how and where your competitor is using the keywords, whether they are in meta-tabs, URLs, headings or anywhere else.

Back-links also score well for a good SEO ranking. Interestingly there is a tool for everything on Google. Back-link Anchor Text Analysis, Back-link Summary, etc are some of them which help you track the back-links used by your competitor and identify many popular sites which you didn't even think ever existed. Then, you can also access his Page Ranks on Yahoo and Bing.

Social Media is all effervescent when it comes to getting high SEO ranks. Facebook and twitter are a religion today attracting huge traffic. If you use these platforms judiciously, this traffic can easily be diverted to your website. Check your competitors' profiles on these channels and try to get a feel of what they are doing. You can also use social bookmarking sites to check your antagonists' gimmicks there.

Another way you can optimize your SEO is through PPC drives which, is not only cheaper, but also helpful in making you rank high in organic search results. You can use the Analyze Competition tool in Google AdWords which gives you an insight into how your PPC is faring as compared to that of your competition.

Remember, getting a good SEO is all about using the right tactics, at the right time and in the right way. And, this is a continuous task. Perpetual efforts on your side are required to beat your competitor. Remember that the good old business mantra still says: "Never consider your competitor to be a dark horse."

Khemchand Joshi is working with A3Logics as Business Head of Web and Mobile division, He is expert in search engine marketing and providing services all over the globe.please visit A3Logics Web to know more about SEO offering, we offer Professional SEO Services, PPC Consultant Services and SEO Consultant Services.