Pat Flynn of SmartPassiveIncome.com has a good video on how to research competitors to grow your audience. The video is long so watch at double speed. He shows how to use Google Alerts to monitor mentions of a keyword. UberSuggest to see popular pages on any site, what their backlinks are, and what keywords the site is ranking for. SimilarWeb to find competing websites. More importantly, Pat Flynn shows how he uses this information to build relationships with people online. Networking is a key success factor to building your audience.