Search Engine Optimization

Google Alerts is a free tool that allows you to monitor Google search results containing predefined keyword phrases. Businesses commonly utilize Google Alerts to find out what’s being said about their brand online. You can choose to have the results emailed to you on a daily or weekly basis.

Not only is Google Alerts an effective reputation management tool, it can also be used to get content development ideas, build relationships, and keep up with important industry news. Google Alerts is also a great addition to your SEO toolbox because it is a wonderful source of potential link-building opportunities. The following are 7 ways to build links to your site with the help of Google Alerts.

1. Find relevant blog posts on which to comment

When you are alerted of blog posts related to your industry and feel that you could contribute to the conversation, leave a comment with a link back to your site.

2. Build relationships

Google Alerts makes it easier for you to find other people in your niche, so it’s an effective relationship-building tool. In the world of internet marketing, relationships = links. By keeping up with who’s who in your industry and forging connections with the webmasters/bloggers you encounter via Google Alerts, you will be able to build valuable, relevant links back to your site.

3. Find relevant references and link to them

Writing an article for your website? Use Google Alerts to find relevant references to link to within your article. The webmasters you link to may even link back to your article if they think it would be beneficial to their readership.

4. Find videos to share with your audience

Use Google Alerts to find relevant videos about your industry. When you find a great video, you can embed it in one of your articles and share it with your audience. Videos are great because they allow you to increase the value of your content quickly and easily. Furthermore, you may even get a link back from the producer of the video.

5. Spy on the competition

Want to know where your competitors are getting mentions and links? Use your competitors’ company names as keywords and keep track of them with Google Alerts, so you can determine where they get their links and whether it would be feasible for you to get links from the same sites.

6. Keep track of sites that are picking up articles and press releases you publish

Whenever you distribute articles or press releases, keep track of their exact titles using Google Alerts. You will be notified anytime one of your articles/press releases is picked up by another site. Contact the sites that pick up your article/press releases and offer to provide them with original content in the future. You can embed a link back to your site within the content.

7. Get links from people who are already talking about you

Keep tabs on your company’s name with Google Alerts so you can find out which sites are mentioning your brand online. Doing this will help you spot the best link building opportunities, since someone who’s already mentioned your brand favorably is more likely to provide you with a link than someone who’s never heard of you before.

Websites are becoming more complex than ever before. Many sites are packed with a wealth of information, so it can be difficult for visitors to find specifically what they seek. Installing a site search box on your website will help visitors find what they’re looking for more quickly.

Not only will internal site search improve the usability of your site, it will also help you improve your website’s conversions and sales by providing you with important marketing data. The following are 5 things you can do with the information gleaned from internal site search analytics.

1. Create New Products and Services

Have you noticed from analyzing internal site search data that many people are searching for a product or service on your site that you don’t yet offer? If so, you may want to consider offering that product or service in order to fill a need. Analyzing internal site search data is a great way to get ideas for new products/services because it allows you to determine exactly what your target audience is looking for when they visit your site.

2. Get Content Creation Ideas

You’ll never have trouble determining what to write about or what type of content to produce for your site if you pay attention to internal site search data. By seeing what topics people are searching for on your site, you can get tons of content creation ideas. From whitepapers and articles to videos and glossaries, there are many different types of content your target audience may be looking for on your site.

3. Discover New Keywords

If you’ve discovered that many people are searching for the same keyword phrases when they use your site’s internal search function, consider targeting those keywords in your search marketing campaign. By incorporating these new keywords into your search marketing campaign, you will be able to better meet your target market’s needs, widen your audience, and increase search engine traffic for keywords you hadn’t considered before.

4. Tweak Your Site Based on Performance Metrics

Track your site’s performance using internal site search and then tweak your site based on your findings. Some key performance metrics that you should keep in mind include the bounce rate of visitors who use internal site search, your site’s conversion rate, the percentage of search query refinement, and the percentage of search exits. Looking at performance metrics across multiple site visitors will give you a good idea about which areas of your site need updating or expansion.

5. Get to Know Your Target Audience More Intimately So You Can Better Serve Them

By analyzing the keyword phrases that people search for when they use the internal site search function on your site, you’ll have a better understanding of the types of people who are using your site. Getting to know your audience more intimately will help you create content that is targeted to their needs.

In sum, don’t overlook the power of internal site search. You can learn a lot more about your site visitors and what they want by tracking their activity using internal site search analytics. If you haven’t already, you can set up Google Site Search at an affordable price. To track Google Site Search through Google Analytics, follow the instructions here.

You’ve spent countless hours crafting original, informative articles for your site. You feel proud publishing the freshly minted content on your site because it’s superior to what your competition’s got and you know that your target audience is going to love it. A few weeks later, you search for your target keywords in Google to see how your content is performing and it’s been outranked… by a website that has totally ripped off your content!

Content theft is unfortunately very common online, and doing nothing about it can have a negative impact on your site. If you want to be recognized as an authority in your industry, it’s essential that you address content theft right away. Otherwise, people will find the same content on other people’s sites and be unsure about who wrote it first. Furthermore, your website’s profits will suffer if someone steals your content and uses it to sell to the same audience.

What’s more, you may discover that the content thief’s website is outranking your site with the stolen content because their site is more established and has more backlinks. If the search engines assume that you stole the content instead of the other way around, they may flag your site as being low quality and penalize it, which can have dire consequences for your online presence.

How to Check for Content Theft

In order to prevent all of these horrible things from happening to your site, you have to check to see if people are stealing your content so you can address the problem right away. Content theft is ILLEGAL. Even if the content thief isn’t selling something with your stolen content or there’s no copyright notice on your site, it’s still against the law.

You can check for content theft at no cost by entering your site’s URL on Copyscape’s homepage. You can also search for the titles or excerpts of your site’s most important articles in Google to see if anyone’s copied your work.

Contact the Content Thief Directly

If you catch somebody stealing your content, send a polite email to the webmaster, asking him/her to remove the content in question. In some cases, webmasters are simply ignorant about the fact that cutting and pasting content is illegal and will remove the content right away if you ask them to do so.

If that doesn’t do the trick, contact the webmaster’s hosting company. You can find out who the content thief’s host is by searching for their URL on Whois. You can ask to have the individual webpage or the entire site removed.

If you have an account with Google Webmaster Tools, request to have the duplicate content removed from Google’s search results by filing a Spam Report. You can also report copyright infringement to Google Legal Support because under the United States Digital Millennium Copyright Act, it is Google’s responsibility to respond to notices of copyright infringement.

The next step would be to send a “cease and desist” letter to the culprit via registered mail. If the webmaster doesn’t remove the content after receiving the letter, send another one to the hosting company. Unless the webmaster can prove that the content is theirs, the hosting company will be obligated to remove it. If all else fails, you can call a lawyer and sue the webmaster to have the content removed.

Prevention Is the Best Medicine

As the old saying goes, prevention is the best medicine. Rather than waiting till someone steals your content to do something, do your best to prevent it from happening in the first place by putting a copyright notice on the footer of your website. You may also want to consider adding a Copyscape badge to your site to discourage potential content thieves from doing the dirty deed.

Choosing the right keywords for your SEO campaign is critical to you website’s success. You could rank #1 for “free web hosting” but it won’t matter much if you sell paid web hosting because people searching for free hosting are obviously not interested in forking out cash for the service.

Think Relevant and Popular

It’s essential to select keywords that are relevant and popular if you want your website to succeed in search. Keywords that are relevant to what you’re selling will help to drive targeted traffic to your site.

The popularity of the keywords you choose is also important, however. Even if you target a highly relevant keyword in your SEO campaign, it won’t bring you the results you seek unless it actually gets searched for on a regular basis. Doing keyword research to determine which keywords are popular is imperative. Generally speaking, keywords that receive around 1,500 to 20,000 searches per month are worth targeting because they get searched for often but are not overly competitive.

Avoid Generic Keywords

Generic keywords may bring you a lot of traffic, but they won’t help you increase sales. For example, if you are a web designer in St. Louis, ranking for “web design” won’t help you as much as ranking for a more specific phrase like, “web designer in St. Louis.” The key is to find keywords that have the greatest likelihood of converting into sales.

Use Geo-Targeted Keywords

Is your business local or regional? If so, be sure to use geo-targeted keywords. Include your city and state name when you’re using a keyword tool to find relevant, geo-targeted keywords in your industry.

Select Keywords That Represent Your Most Profitable Products/Services

What are your best-selling products/services? It makes sense to select keywords that represent those products/services since they are your bread and butter.

Check out the Competition

What keywords are your top-ranking competitors using? Researching the competition is a great way to get keyword ideas. You can check their content, as well as their meta tags, to determine what search terms they’re targeting.

Install Web Analytics

Another great way to find keywords to target is by installing a web analytics program and analyzing incoming traffic. An analytics program like Google Analytics will enable you to determine what terms people are using to find your site, what search engines they’re using, etc.

Target Common Misspellings

When you’re doing keyword research, you’ll notice that many people misspell popular search terms. In some instances, you can significantly increase sales by optimizing the content on your site for common misspellings. For example, rather than optimizing your site for “top dating sites,” you could optimize it for “top dateing sites.”

Use Purchase Modifiers

Use purchase modifiers in your keyword phrases to attract searchers who are in buying mode. Purchase modifiers include “buy,” “compare,” “shop,” and “reviews.” People who search for products/services using purchase modifiers are more likely to click on the “buy now” button when they get to your site since they’re already serious about making a purchase.

Use PPC to Test Keywords for SEO

Prior to targeting keywords in your content for SEO, consider testing them out first by using PPC, or Pay-Per-Click Advertising. You can analyze the results of your PPC campaign to determine which keywords bring your site the most traffic and sales and then use the top-performing keywords in your SEO campaign.