So you run a lovely boarding kennel for cats in Shropshire. You do a Google search to find out who your competitors are. Great.
But how will you know when anyone new comes on the scene?
Will you miss the blog post where someone is bemoaning the fact they desperately need 5 star accommodation for their cats and can’t find it, even though they are only in the next town?
Enter Google Alerts.
Google Alerts will let you set up any number of alerts for any words or phrase that you can think of. Then when fresh content appears on the web, you will be notified.
You can choose to be emailed or to have the links sent to your Feed Reader (see “So much information, so little time“). And there you are, up to date with all the latest news on your specific topic area.
Or, are people talking about you? Put in an alert for your own name as well and make sure the information out there on the web is up to date.
You can even select whether you just want to target blogs. So if you are creating a new product, set up an alert for keywords around that product and target blogs. Then hopefully you might get chance to comment on the blog and leave your link.
There are paid alert systems too but Google Alerts will give you a good first start at keeping tabs on things you are interested in.
