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Competitors: How do you protect your business? Any DO's and DON'Ts? Tools?

by WGarden
4 replies
Hi guys,

First, I am almost sure that I am not going to be a competitor to any of you guys - what I work with offline is special (some would probably say boring...) and not related to most of the things you talk about on this forum. I am now trying to offer my service online so all about creating webpages/marketing is new to me.

One concern I have is how to protect my business from competitors so that they don't follow every step I make? It seems to me that every move you make on the internet is being recorded and can be traced - IP address, who you link to, ingoing links, what pages you visit etc. etc. All this makes me paranoid because I don't want my competitors to see the mistakes I will make in the beginning and I don't want them to copy/prevent my next moves.

Are there any good (preferably free) tools that I should know about? Also what is important to know regarding cPanel, WordPress - do I need to protect or pay attention to something special?

I have searched, but there is just too much information and products... I really need to know the very basic steps including DO's and DON'Ts (e.g. don't visit your competitors websites because they can use a cookie to record information... so make sure that... etc. etc.).

Thanks very much - hope you understood what I just wrote!
#business #competitors #donts #protect #tools
  • Profile picture of the author RichKent
    I wouldn't worry about competitors. This is one of the biggest things that my clients worry about, and it's a complete waste of time. Yes they can see the things you do - but if they're paying that much attention to what you're doing, then they're not doing anything themselves. Don't worry about getting copied - focus more on being productive and you'll beat them out every time!

    Wordpress is relatively secure. I'd recommend that your administrator account NOT use the default 'admin' as username for best security, and make sure to install a backup plugin (and use it) but other than that I wouldn't worry too much.

    Again, the biggest DO is take lots of consistent action!

    Good luck.
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  • Profile picture of the author WGarden
    Thanks for your reply RichKent and sorry for my late response!

    Sure I don't want to/should use a lot of time on competitors but I was hoping for some simple DO's and DON'Ts - I don't want to ruin my chances right from the start.

    Anyone else who wants to address my concerns about the above topics?
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  • Profile picture of the author profitsforall
    You are ruining your chances by worrying too much about your competition and not getting started.

    Get your domain and hosting setup. Get your website built, get links coming in to your domain. The same information you are worrying your competitors might get, is the same information you can get about them so do some competitive analysis. See everything they are doing, and do more.

    A lot of the information they get will be a snapshot in time - they'll be aiming to get backlinks from all the places you did - in the meantime you are building more and more.
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  • Profile picture of the author WGarden
    Also thanks to you profitsforall. You are right - I am probably just worrying too much... I will try to focus on my website instead of my competitors although it will be hard.
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