Google Alerts and Google Reader as a link building tool
Monday, May 11th, 2009I’m still sort of shocked when I mention Google Reader or Google Alerts to people and they don’t have any idea what I’m talking about. If you’re doing SEO, utilizing these tools can go a long way to making sure that you’re getting every link possible.
A lot of SEOs will tell you that it makes sense to go out and hunt down sites that mention your company and either ask for a link if they didn’t already include one, or ask that the webmaster optimize the anchor text for your SEO purposes. Of course, these are good ideas, but a lot of times it can be difficult to get someone to care enough to make these changes, particularly if the page has been up for a while. Experience tells me that the fresher content is, the easier it is to have someone adjust or add a link.
So while many people think of Google Alerts as a tool to simply monitor mentions of your brand(s) and may tie it into Google Reader to organize their daily intake of information, you can also use these mentions to make sure that every mention is followed up on for SEO purposes. As we come up on our one year anniversary, I’m hoping some of the press we get turns into solid linking opportunities, and I start every morning with a quick glance at Google Reader to see what opportunities opportunities have presented themselves that day, and I recommend you do, too.
