How to gather competitive online data(Identify your competition)

(this data is taken from www.examiner.com)As with any other competitive research project, you need to first decide what competitors you’ll track online. Limiting your list to five competitors will keep the results focused and easier to analyze. Make sure you record your findings, then repeat the process every month or so to see how the rankings compare. Since search engine optimization (SEO) is an organic process, the results will vary over time. Your goal is to keep rising higher in search engine results.
Your most serious competition may be an entire company or specific products or services competitive companies offer. The first step is to do a search for your competition and record the organic results for each as well as what web page or pages are ranking highest. How does your organic ranking compare to the competition?
We’re not looking at paid placements right now, but if you see a competitor has a paid listing, make a note of it.