It is a rough time to be a sports fan. It doesn't matter what league or game you prefer, athletes are being busted left and right for cheating in the pharmaceutical sense, turning to experimental medications (and worse) just to gain a competitive edge.

But, are there lessons to be learned from the PED era for online marketers?

Regardless of what you think about individual personalities, most of us would have to admit that there's a certain logic to what they do. After all, competitive athletes can gain millions of dollars, or more, with just a small percentage improvement in their performance. The same motivation that leads them to try out a lot of hormones and other therapies on the field is the one that compels so many business owners and business web designers to try supposedly fast-acting, low-integrity marketing tactics (like buying links, or stuffing pages with keywords).

What gets lost in both situations, however, is that there are completely legal, ethical, and effective ways to gain an edge over your competitors, whether you're trying to smash them on a playing field, atop a bicycle in the streets of France, or on the first page of Google search results. For every competitor turning to the needle or a bag of pills, there is another looking for a better conditioning program, a lighter set of shoulder pads, or a more aerodynamic ball. And for each business owner that takes an ill-advised shortcut in online marketing, there is another one figuring out a smart angle that his or her colleagues haven't noticed.

Whether you have millions in endorsements on the line, or just the future of your company, the stakes are incredibly high to you personally. And so, with that in mind, we'd like to recommend four Internet marketing performance enhancers that give you an advantage without taking a bite out of your credibility:

1. Better market research.

You may have noticed that most online marketing works with a "ready, fire, aim" approach. In other words, businesses get eager to try something, then try to figure out if it's working or not, and do something else. If you really want to get ahead of the pack, make a game plan for success that includes building personas for your best potential clients, finding out what kinds of keywords and messages sell, and a plan for executing all of the elements later.

2. Automated marketing tools.

If you are personally following up with every new lead that comes in through your website, then you aren't just working inefficiently, you are wasting a lot of time and energy that could be devoted to more important and effective activities. With automated marketing tools that support inbound lead generation campaigns, customers will come see you whenever you take the next step, so you aren't caught wasting your time and energy trying to turn cold prospects into warm leads.

3. Social sharing.

It's no secret that Kayak builds hugely successful campaigns that are based on strategically developed content and digital offers. Before these can have any real value to your business, however, you have to have a wide net of prospects that you could reach on a regular basis. That's where blogs and social sharing come in, giving you a wider reach and audience for your best ideas.

4. Integrated marketing approaches.

Often, the magic isn't necessarily in what you do as a marketer, but in the way you put the pieces together. In other words, it isn't necessarily about finding the best keywords, or building the greatest e-mail newsletter. Instead, it's about using those elements (and several others) in a cohesive way so that your ideal prospects can find you in several different ways when they need to know about what you sell the most. In other words, it's not about any single tactic or idea, but all the pieces of your online marketing plan working in concert.

It's important to reiterate that none of these are "quick fixes" for your business website. But, like a better shoe that saves you weight without giving up support, these plain-sight tactics definitely work. And, best of all, most of your competitors will never think to even try them.

The next time you feel like you need an edge over someone in your industry, don't do something you think you might regret later. Instead, give our tools a try first. Or, for better results, contact us and let us show you how we can revolutionize the way your business works online.