In today’s world it is impossible to keep up with the flood of news in any given industry. A free tool we use to filter the news and stay informed about current trends in our local seo work is Google Alerts. With Google Alerts we can enter in keyword phrases of interest, and when those keywords appear in an article or blog post we receive an automated alert with a direct link to the newly published content on the web.
This fresh content can provide us not only with the latest information but also with great ideas for content for our own site. If it is new research, then we can quickly write an article that will be timely and attract visitors. We can also write a response type article and link to the original article. This can serve to build credibility in the field.
Another way to use Google Alerts is to find new blog posts that are relevant to our sites and leave comments on them. Let’s say you’re an attorney and you want to rank for the keyword “criminal defense lawyer”. When google flags a new blog post with that phrase, you can be immediately notified, and then can be one of the first to leave a timely comment with a link back to your site.
Not only does this create a great backlink, which helps with SEO, it may also start a conversation with another professional in your line of work, and gives readers of that blog a chance to see an intelligent comment and perhaps visit your site as well.
How you can set up an alert
Setting up an alert is quite easy. To start, go to http://www.google.com/alerts
Here you will need to login to google and then enter some basic information. For your keyword phrase, be sure to include it in quotation marks so only exact phrase matches come back, for example “criminal defense lawyer”.
If you would like to leave comments on others articles, select “blogs” in the type field.
For the how often field you can decide if you want to receive alerts right away or on a daily or weekly basis. If you choose a popular phrase and select “as it happens” you may receive a lot of email! Usually once a day or even once a week is enough to keep current.
Some people prefer to receive updates in an rss feed instead of by email. You can set this up after you create an alert, by clicking on “manage your alerts”, selecting the edit button for each alert, and in the “deliver to” field selecting feed instead of your email address.
That’s it, you will now start receiving alerts in your email or rss feed reader. This is a great way to keep current in your field, build relationships with others, and improve your search rankings all at the same time!
