Google Alerts is one of the best free tools that helps you in keeping track of new content on the web, and send you the email updates. Most of the bloggers ignore this tool. Properly leveraging this tool can do wonders.
Google Alerts sends you the email notifications whenever new content gets indexed in the Google related to your query.
In this post, I'll explain you to set up Google alerts and how to set it up for increasing your traffic, getting backlinks, building your brand. A single tool can do all these things.
Seems cool right?
How to setup Google Alerts?
Go to Google Alerts. Sign in with the email address for which you want to get updates on.
While creating an alert, click on the advanced options to the right. A drop down menu like above will appear.
I suggest you to keep the above configurations. By keeping the sources to the 'web', you are covering all the sources.
You can also use the search operators as keywords.
Like,
Akshay Hallur OR GoBloggingTips
How to leverage Google Alerts for blogging?
Google Alerts is meant for Google users to remain updated on their interested content across the web.
It helps a lot in monitoring the content across the web.
Nevertheless, Bloggers can make use of this free tool, to improve their blog and adopt new strategies.
In this section, I'll get you know how to use Google alerts for the maximum blogging benefit.
Traffic generation
Commenting on leading blogs
When a piece of new content is published on your favorite blog, and you want to be the first commenter, you can use Google Alerts for it.
Just use the query,
site:www.example.com
This notifies you via email, whenever the new post from your favorite blog gets indexed. Posts of the majority of popular blogs get indexed within some minutes.
If you want only alerts of the blogs, in which there are no comments, then try something like this.
site:www.example.com "Leave a Comment" OR site:www.example.com "No comments"
Whenever a new post gets indexed in Google without any comment, you'll get an alert.
You'll be the first commenter. WOW!
Monitor discussions
Forums are the gold mines. You can find new ideas and as well as drive great traffic from forums.
Suppose you have a great article on infographics for backlink building in your niche, then you may want to monitor the discussions about infographics in forums.
Create an alert query like,
site:warriorforum.com OR site:sitepoint.com OR site:digitalpoint.com infographics backlinks
Include your niche forums.
Whenever there is a discussion going on about infographics, you can dive into the discussion, interact, and drive some traffic and hopefully a backlink to your site.
You can also select the sources as discussions.
However, I found the first method effective in terms of accuracy.
Track comments of influencers
There are some of the bloggers who drive good traffic, by leaving comments strategically on some of the popular blogs.
Knowing where they comment would be a great thing to do, to improve your traffic by blog commenting.
"Akshay Hallur recently posted" OR "Akshay Hallur says" OR "Akshay Hallur" + "Leave a reply"
The above query returns all the comments made by me on various blogs. With this you can easily spy upon the other good bloggers who are driving good traffic via commenting.
Whenever the new comment is made, you'll receive an alert.
Set alerts for competitor names
Setting a name of competitors is like spying on them.
For example,
"John Doe" OR johndoe.com -site:johndoe.com
The above example alerts you whenever your competitor John is mentioned on the web, except on his own site.
By this, you can determine the blog promotional methods he is using, and you can replicate his steps. You can also set the title of his recent blog posts, to see what are all the places where he promotes the blog posts.
Backlink building
Guest post opportunities
If you want to know about the new guest posts by other bloggers,
Put the part of their guest post bio in Google Alerts.
"Anil Agarwal is the man behind BloggersPassion.com"
With the above query, I get to know the new guest posts by my Friend, Anil.
Rather than creating separate alerts for different people, you just need to enter their guest bios and join them with "OR".
You can also monitor any new guest post openings by blogs in your niche.
"Write for us" niche + "submit guest post" niche + "become an author" niche
Interview opportunities
Many of the bloggers regularly publish interviews of other bloggers in their blogs.
You may need to build relations with such bloggers.
Here is the search query to helps you keep updated about the recent interviews.
"interview with" Blogging + SEO
You'll receive a mail whenever a new interview is published in your niche.
You can try the same for monitoring roundup and expert posts.
Your brand
Monitoring blog mentions
Monitor the mentions of your brand, name, and others.
I've setup the query for monitoring like this.
"GoBloggingTips" OR "Go Blogging Tips" OR "gobloggingtips.com" -site:gobloggingtips.com
I receive notifications whenever my blog is mentioned in any of the above variations. Except on my blog.
Name mentions
Wouldn't you like to know what other people are talking about you?
I've set like this.
"Akshay Hallur" -site:gobloggingtips.com
Whenever I'm mentioned anywhere on the web, I'll get alerts.
Post mentions
If any of your blog posts has gone popular, you can monitor their mentions on the web.
For example,
Citation Flow and Trust Flow Everything You Should Know OR http://www.gobloggingtips.com/citation-and-trust-flow-metrics/
Whenever the post is mentioned I'll get an alert. For the above query, I'll get alerts mainly from SEO forums.
Get alert when your new post gets indexed
For this, you just need to enter the below query.
site:www.gobloggingtips.com
Whenever you new blog post is indexed in Google, you'll get an alert.
I have a detailed blog post on the same.
Other smart tips
You can use the Google alerts also for the following. Just create an alert.
- As a plagiarism checker. Insert a phrase from your article, you'll get alerts when someone copies your content.
- Spy on your competitors in every aspect.
- For your social media strategies. Notice that the some posts from Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google Plus get indexed in Google.
- Set alerts for any new product releases in your niche.
- Set alerts for any new product reviews in your niche by your competitors.
- Know if your blog or site is hacked by monitoring the spam keywords on your blog.
- If you are buying any gadget, set a price drop alert to save money.
- Get a ping when your credit or debit card number has been posted the web.
- You can also set the alerts for your passwords. Hackers usually hack the accounts and post the passwords on the web.
- Monitor your favorite topics.
Sometimes these Google Alerts emails flood your inbox. So, for the low priority alerts, just set alerts for weekly or daily once. Or select 'best results'.
You can also create Gmail filter so that all the Google Alerts emails group under one folder.
Final words
You can just brainstorm and combine the above strategies to create more traffic generation alerts. Above are just a few.
If you are struggling to put alerts for any of the above, drop a comment. Don't forget to share this post.
This is how you can use Google alerts for the improvement of your blog and marketing.
The post How to Use Google Alerts for Blogging in Every Possible Way appeared first on GoBloggingTips.