If your competitor is receiving tons of traffic, has 1000s of backlinks and is making lots of sales it would be wise to study them and use that information for building traffic to your own web site.

1. Find the top 10 competing web sites in Google

Enter your main keyword in Google to view the top 10 web sites in your niche then dissect them to see why they rank well.

2. Find the main keywords they are using

Visit your competitor's web site and do a view-source in your web browser to view the main keywords they are using in their meta tags. Observe where those keywords are repeated in the text. You may want to use a few of the same keywords for your own web site.

3. Do a backlink check

Enter the URL of your competitor in Yahoo explorer to view how many links are pointing back to their website. The number and quality of backlinks determine rankings. Contact the same web sites to get backlinks to your own site.

4. Check traffic levels

Enter the URL of your competitor in Alexa dot com. It will display the monthly traffic history graph for that site. Offer to write an article or provide free software in exchange for a link to your own site. A link on a high traffic site will boost your own traffic levels.

5. Study the content

Well written content will have high conversion rates. By studying your competitor's content you can get ideas how to improve your own.

6. Subscribe to their newsletter

Subscribe to several competitors' newsletters to see what they are offering to their customers and how they write their copy. If you're going to sell products through your newsletter you need to write compelling content.

7. Visit and contribute to their blog or forum

Engaging in communication with your competitors will help you to keep up with recent news, articles and tap into the minds of their customers.