There is a difference between ideal competition and true competition and I get this question asked a lot by clients. When I meet with a new business, I ask them who they feel their direct competitors are. Some give me incredibly unrealistic websites such as Facebook or YouTube. And some give me their localized competitors down the street.

For potential investors and general in house team knowledge, these are known as ideal competitors, simply because they are who you ideally want to compete with. Who doesn't want to be a direct competitor to Facebook?

In regards to SEO, this list of competitors is going to dramatically shift and you're going to discover that there is a world full of websites that are targeting the exact key phrases you are, whether they are in the same field of business or not. They are your true competitors.

The next section is a list of tools you'll need to have handy in order to build this database and some competition friendly websites that you want to consider using, depending on your budget.