For many web marketers it is a dream to look on competitors and get information about their results.

 Let me explain how you can legaly get data about:

• Website backlinks.
• Incoming traffic.
• Clicks from search engines.
• Sales information.
• PPC earnings.
• PPC spendings.
• Targeted customers.
• Google Analytics reports.
• Copy from PayPal accounts.
• StatCounter information.
• Affiliate commissions.

 … and everything else you can imagine.

  You don’t want to hack and violate any laws, you just want competitor to show you everything. The only way to do it is to find similar website which are currently on sale and look on information competitor provide in marketplace. You can even contact him pretending that you are a customer and ask for more information as proof of profits.

 Good place to do it is SitePoint Marketplace where sellers attach all types of information as an image.

 For example: Today I found someone who is trying to sell his web store (health and beauty products). Seller attached copy of his Google Adsense account, affiliate sales, AwStat copy, information how keywords rank.

Right sidebar where sellers attach website perfomance information:

 As you see from screenshot above, it is easy to take a look on earnings, traffic, positions, soundings.

 Having this information you can manage your own website, take ideas, open new (copycat) websites. Believe or not, sometimes money could be in the niche you never thought about.

 $2 billion stock photo industry are getting more popular and more new networks appear online. Designers can sell their pictures and artwork to people who want’s to improve their websites and projects. Cheap price attract more customers, average picture cost about $1-2. About half of market share controlled by “big three”: Getty Images Inc, Corbis Corporation, and  JupiterMedia Corporation.

 “Big three” and their websites:

 Getty Images:

• http://www.gettyimages.com
• http://www.istockphoto.com
• http://www.istockpro.com

 Corbis Corporation:

• http://pro.corbis.com

 JupiterMedia Corporation

• http://www.ablestock.com/en/
• http://www.bananastock.com
• http://www.clipart.com
• http://www.comstock.com
• http://www.jupiterimages.com
• http://www.liquidlibrary.com/en/
• http://www.photoobjects.net/en/
• http://www.photos.com
• http://www.picturequest.com
• http://www.stockxpert.com
• http://www.thinkstock.com

 Smaller Players:

• http://www.bigstockphoto.com
• http://www.shotshopper.com - website belongs to TechWeb Media
• http://www.purestockx.com
• http://www.superstock.com
• http://www.agefotostock.com
• http://www.artlifeimages.com
• http://www.estockphoto.com

 Sources: http://www.photosecrets.com/links.stock.html ,  http://www.anna-om-line.com/english.htm

  Every year it is getting harder to find good domain names which can satisfy you and will be easy to remember. Many webmasters keep asking themself the same question: “Why I missed it back in 1995?”

  Here some hot domain names which was waisted in the past 14 years:

•  Technology.com - parked domain with useless links. Just use your imagination and think what yould you do if you have this domain.
•  Consulting.com - Yahoo Answers could be out of business if good website is running under this domain. For right now it is just another parked domain.
•  Kitchen.com - even affiliate store under this domain name could make you a fortune.
•  Grunge.com - in 1995 grunge music was #1 music style, in 2000 fans became little older, by the year 2008 this type of music became a history. Soon people will forget about this music style.
•  Booked.com - domain like this is enough to create your own Hilton empire… but for right now it is parked page.
•  BuyViagra.com - Wow! #1 spam industry can’t get domain of their dream.
•  Computer.com - regular parked page.
•  Girl.com - another parked site on a dream domain.
•  Tools.com - can you imagine your own store running under this domain?
•  Joke.com - it is not funny to see parked domain name there.
•  Punk.com - website does not exist. Only Sex Pistols sold over 10 millions albums in US. Take The Clash, Ramones, The Exploited, Green Day and you can create 100 million online army of fans. Can you imagine to run your own blog with this domain?
•  Gadgets.com - I already see millions in front of me if I have this domain.
•  PayPerClick.com - in 2010 PPC will be $75 billion industry… 
•  Design.com - another example how good domain name was waisted.
•  USA.com - it is really sad that even US goverment doesn’t care about this domain name. Type any other country with .com and you will see some quality website.
•  Kids.com - I feel bad for little kids click spammy links on parked website.  
•  Home.com - even with crisis in real estate you can still create some good website there.
•  Cool.com - just imagine big 3: MySpace - FaceBook - Cool
•  Singles.com - parked domain which kind of look like a real website.
•  Sale.com - there is no way to fail with domain name like this.

 As we all know, Google doesn’t tolerate when webmasters buy and sell links. Many paid directories were punished recently and Google removed many of them from index or decreased Pagerank. It is hard to tell which directory are going to be penalized… We can tell for sure that Google are not going to do anything with 3 of them and their power will remain the same:

1.  Yahoo Directory - only because it is Yahoo! Google count Yahoo Directory as business / marketplace and the fact that Yahoo charge for submission doesn’t even matter because it is a fee for advertising, submission review, approval process.
2. Business.com is another quality directory for companies and small businesses. Domain name tells everything.
3. BOTW - from 1994 this guys work with their directory to make sure that only quality websites appear their. Google doesn’t really want to destroy 14 years of experience and authority which BOTW gained.

 We always suggest our clients to add links in this directories.

 Why not others? Simply because 99% of paid directories don’t really care who they approve as long as webmaster pays money. Most of them is money making machine for people who wants to sit at home and click approve button once a week.

 Benefit of being listed in Yahoo, Business, and BOTW is incredible. Many webmasters use this directories to copy links and put on their websites when they provide resources. Listing could increase link popularity and website rankings in major search engines. Moreover, links from this directories pass pagerank and can increase Pagerank of your site as well.

 Just 2 days ago I wrote a bad post about guys which I thought spam me through statistic pages providing fake clicks. Today I would like to take my words back. My blog readers and guys who work for AdGridWork explained to me that it was some mistake and they are not responsible for information on my statistic pages.

 Adgridwork - rocks!

  Many online stores use the same manufacture descriptions to sell products online. By adding manufacture descriptions store owners automatically loose any chance for success because the same descriptions use hundreds other webmasters. Google filter duplicate content and don’t even index new online stores.

 Let’s test how Google and Yahoo index online stores with duplicate content. As example I am going to type manufacture description of fire escape ladder:

“This 2 story, 13 foot, tangle free, escape ladder is easy to use and quickly attaches to any window. Fully assembled. Compact design for easy storage”"

 Google Results:

 Google indexed 13 online stores which provide the same information about fire escape ladders they sell. Only 2 of them Google show in results and the rest 11 appear in “omitted results”.

 At the same time Yahoo index 40 websites with the same descriptions (Yahoo result). It mean that Google don’t even look on other 27 websites with manufacture descriptions.

 By writing unique content for each product in your catalog you automatically become higher than all competitors who use manufacture descriptions. You can also rewrite custom descriptions by replacing words and adding extra content.

 Manufacture description:

This 2 story, 13 foot, tangle free, escape ladder is easy to use and quickly attaches to any window. Fully assembled. Compact design for easy storage

 How you can rewrite: 

This is tangle free, 2 story, and 13 foot ladder. It is easy to use and you can attach it quickly to any window in your house. Fully assembled with compact design for easy storage. It is something you always need in case of emergency or fire.

 Google and other search engines index second description like unique content and website appear higher than competitors.

Many companies use Abbey Road cover to reach customers and increase brand recognition. We decided to find ads when big companies use Beatles 1969 idea. Here what we have:

>Click To Enlarge<

I would like to inform that TechWeb Media launched directory of SEO resources to help companies find quality SEO services, companies, and resources.

If you have SEO related website please free to submit your url.

We approve:

• established SEO websites (at least 3 month online).
• SEO companies which provide quality services for clients. Before we submit commercial sites we review your client list, buzz in blogosphere, web presence.
• SEO resources with regular updates.

We reject:

• Affiliate websites.
• SEO resources with poor content.
• SEO companies which hide their promotional strategies and clients they work with.
• “Get rich fast” , “Make money at home” etc.
• Spammy SEO websites.

P.S. We would like to inform that we approved our first submission: Neuro SEO Services. Thank you!

  Best Of The Web (BOTW) is an old paid directory. In the 90s it used to be a network to rank websites which moved into paid directory business. In 2005-2006 amount of paid directories began to grow creating thousands paid directories which did not care who to approve as long money was paid. BOTW was the only directory providing fair services by rejecting websites with poor content. 

BOTW logos

 As example I can tell that in 2006 I was trying to submit my blog called MyWebHit and BOTW rejected my submission because I didn’t manage my blog enough. I was quite impressed that my submission was not approved and I respect BOTW decision a lot, moreover… blog I was trying to submit is no longer online and it gives extra credit to BOTW stuff who realized right away that I wasn’t serious about my old site. 

 During Pagerank update in October, 2007 Google punished most paid directories by decreasing Pagerank or bringing it down to Pagerank 0. BOTW was the only popular directory at this time which survived. Google strict policy about paid links helped BOTW to get rid from competitors and become a leader in directory industry.

  BOTW wasn’t punished by Google because:

• BOTW is the only directory which takes money not for submission but for labour they use to evaluate submitted website.
• BOTW approves only quality websites. 
• BOTW rejects all spammy websites with poor content.
• BOTW works to provide all benefits for quality submissions.
• BOTW has the best affiliate program. Company shares most profit with publishers. 
• BOTW is the best Business directory which share market with Business.com and Yahoo Directory.
• BOTW is the best organized paid directory.

 Back in a days I had a chance to talk with  Greg Hartnett who owns BOTW and here what he said:

2007 has been a banner year for us - our best year ever. Every month of 2007 was stronger than the previous month (if you’re judging by the amount of submissions coming in).

We continue to do what we do - provide users with relevant resources for their topic of interest. We will continue on our mission and let the chips fall where they may.

Regarding the Alexa rank - we must have seen a shift in our users over the last handful of months from a webmaster centric crowd to a more general internet user. I say that because even though our traffic numbers are up, our Alexa rank is moving the other way. Which leads me to believe that more and more of our visitors don’t have the Alexa toolbar installed

 Submission in BOTW could benefit business with high Pagerank link, extra traffic, and web visibility. Google and other search engines find new links on BOTW really fast and index them right away.

BOTW gang at NYC Web Marketing SES 2007 party. Picture source: Jim Boykin

  Domain power and quality search engine optimization could help your website to rank well on Google and other search engines with most content pages and large amount of keywords. New pages on quality websites can reach top positions almost instantly especially if it is a blog post or news page. For less powerfull websites it takes a time to get indexed and deserve at least some good spots with less popular key phrases.

  Sometimes you need to promote single page with product website sells, service you provide, or content you want people to read. Current positions could be lower than you expectations and additional promotion of this page / pages should be applied.

  It is harder to get deep backlinks, for example… directory owners like to approve only homepage. If you decide to exchange links, it is also hard to find partners who would like to provide deep link.

Social networks is the most popular place where webmasters promote their news pages and blog posts. 

Picture source: Dennis M. Smith blog.

  Promotion of news page or blog post.  

 Provide internal links from different pages of your site by telling that it is the most popular or the best post. Make sure that this link located on top, make some internal links from other pages in the middle of the content. Don’t place this link in the footer.

•  Submission of RSS feeds will make your new post to appear in news networks where search engine spiders can discover your link with post name as anchor text.
•  Use social sites to share this link. Many social networks don’t like when site owners submit their own pages, in this case you should ask your friend or regular reader to submit for you.
•  Use trackback services more by linking other blogs and news sites. Try to find friends in blogosphere who would love to link your articles.
•  You can use old type of promotion by submission in directories which approve deep links.
•  Article submission is another way to promote your single page.
•  Forums and discussion boards. If you submit your link by yourself it will look spammy, but you can always ask your friend who are regular poster in some forums. His / her reputation in specific message board could help to avoid removal or penalty from moderator.
•  Press releases is another way to find some backlinks for single page. 

 Promotion of single page with service you provide.

 If you provide some service it is good if you put this link on the every single page of your website. Internal links will point to Google that it is important page on a website. Try to use short url with keywords inside this url. Add this page as high as possible in your sitemap.

• Press releases is exactly about services companies provide or they are planning to provide.
• Contact people / companies who already your client. Ask if they can give feedback for yor service from their pages.
• Some social sites like LinkedIn allow business owners to link services your company offer.
• Use marketplaces and classfields. Even if submission cost money you can pay because Google doesn’t count marketplaces as link market.
• Article submission is a good way to promote single page with service you provide.
• The same way like with news pages you can use web directories which accept deep links.
• Local sites and portals which provide information about business is a good way to list your page with service.
• Try niche and business directories.

 Promotion of the page with product or item to sell.

 Many webmasters don’t like to link commercial websites (especially single page with specific product). Create good design and take professional pictures of this product. Use powerfull slogan, make it look more like product which could go viral.

•  Old promotional strategies like submission in deep directories, article submission, and niche networks might work.
•  Find social shopping sites where people share what they bought.
•  Find related websites and check their backlinks for deep pages. Type on Yahoo link:www.competitor-domain.com/product123 to find if someone link there. Submit your link in the same places where you find competitors.
•  Make bloggers to review your stuff. Offer them free product for good review. Don’t pay for reviews if you don’t want punishment from Google.
•  Ask your customers to give feedback from their websites.