Coming up with new content week after week is always a challenge. Whether it’s blog post ideas, or social media content, how does one consistently think of new things to write about and share?
Enter Google Alerts.
Google Alerts are an easy way to monitor what’s going on in your niche. This information can provide you with valuable insights into industry news, events, updates, and resources to share, as well as give you lots of new ideas for future blog topics, which is what I find really valuable.
Here’s how it works:
Go to Google Alerts. Here you will be asked to type in a particular search term that you’re interested in. For example, if you’re a horse trainer, you might type in your specific niche of training, i.e “barrel racing”. You can select what type of information you’re interested in (i.e. blogs, video, news, etc.), how often you’d like to receive alerts and what email address they should be sent to. You can do this for as many search terms as you’d like.
I’ve already been using Google Alerts for years now. The keywords that I’ve chosen to monitor are –
- graphic design
- graphic designer
- website design
- web designer
- Theresa Sheridan
- Cowgirl Media
- marketing
- equine marketing
- branding
- web design tips
- seo
- search engine optimization
…you get the idea.
{{ TIP }} Getting alerts for your own name and your business name, can help to monitor your online reputation, and I don’t need to tell you the value of that.
You can set the alerts to come as often as you like (I get them daily), and the info is invaluable to create new content as well as find content to share on your social media channels.
Additionally, the alerts I get that relate to my brand have shown me that once I post something on my blog Google is crawling it within 24 hours, sometimes sooner! This is just more evidence that changing your content is key to better rankings in the search engines and vital to your success!
Have you been using alerts to monitor what’s going on in your online world? If so, what are you using and how’s it working for you?
