Is social media a better investment than SEO?

I found this sign on a wall at a Cal University.


Is social media a better investment than SEO?


Please read the article linked here:
http://www.problogger.net/archives/2010/11/08/why-social-media-is-a-better-investment-than-seo/


Then read some of the comments. An contentious article like this gets lots of comments. Reading those gives you some idea of the total tonnage of BS, disguised as fact, floating around the Internet.


 The author of the article, Gary Arndt, operates an intriguing travel blog. The gist of his SEO vs social media article is that Google makes so many changes that it is not dependable any more. 


I understand Gary's angst about Google but a simple statement does not necessarily negate Google's value to the millions of little bloggers around the world. We must be careful not to turn opinions into fact and make important decisions based on what we read. 


So, I give Gary credit for a nice try. But ask anyone who has posted their blog link at Twitter or Facebook and I think you will probably get different opinions. 


We need some hard case studies, not just educated guesses. I want numbers based on significant time frames and not just anecdotal evidence. 


Do any exist? I can't find them. So, before you spend hundreds of hours on the yellow brick road of social media, I suggest you pause and reassess the value of the road you want to take.


Social media is like stepping in quicksand. 


Greg Cryns
Work At Home Profiles
Wahm Search Engine 
.

What would Google do?

I see a lot of people promoting bookmarking sites and article directories as a way to get one-way links to their website.

Well, I have no problem with that as it is not entirely spammy, if you know what I mean.

But when I look for ways to make Google more friendly toward my website, then I try to give Google what it asks for in its guidelines. Google is pretty much saying this: give our customers, the people who search the web, what they are looking for. You can almost hear the "or else" in the words.

If you ran Google, what would you do if you knew that people were trying to bend the rules by getting linkbacks they did not earn? Do ya think you might discount those links?

Think about it.

What is a Nurse Practitioner?

Sewing Machine Report

SEO is just one piece of the online success puzzle

If you build a good website, one which provides your visitors with information they want to read or see in video, chances are that in time you will gain respect from the search engines and your rank will rise. You may even get some top rankings for some key phrases.

I advise my clients to obtain good basic SEO advice from experienced professionals. I also encourage my clients to use the existing resources of smart people within their company to do much of the legwork and continue the SEO work done by your professional advisor. Read more in this fine Guest Post.

Finding Balance Between SEO and Non-SEO Traffic Generation
Copyright (c) 2009 Kurt D. Lynn
KLynn Inc
http://www.klynn.ca/

So much SEO.

You might think, from all the buzz about search engine
optimization - SEO - that it offers a cure for all the world's
business ills. Somehow, SEO has been propelled from the
backwaters of Internet geekdom into the forefront of modern
business marketing. For example, if Google's own search results
are any indication, the interest in SEO yields almost 50% of the
interest in general advertising. That level of interest seems way
out of proportion to the realities of business advertising.

So Why All The Hubbub?

The excitement seems to be around the notion that SEO means
"free advertising", that it means, if you do it right, millions
of people will be clicking through to your site willy-nilly
having found you on some search engine and then will immediately
do business with you. And behind all that excitement are
thousands of overnight SEO "experts" that, variously, all claim
to ... (pick one)

* Have SEO secrets that will help you get an unfair advantage
over the next guy;

* Guarantee you a first-page listing for an incredibly low
monthly rate;

* Provide hundreds of high page rank sites that will link to
your site;

* Give you 5/10/20 quick tips to immediately improve your
rankings;

* Tell you what Google/MSN/Yahoo doesn't want you to know about
SEO;

* Tell you that whatever SEO you're doing is all wrong; or

* Some other variant of the above.

To some extent, this notion of "free advertising" is not
altogether inaccurate. SEO can result in your site being found -
free of charge - and it can result in traffic to your site that
may, in fact, result in new business. But the reality of SEO is
not quite that simple.

SEO Is Far From "FREE".

SEO takes work... often, hard work. For those that aren't
familiar with what's involved in SEO, below is a list of some of
the typical activities that (as the CREST commercials used to
say) "when applied in a conscientious program of regular
professional care" will result in higher search engine rankings.

* Researching and selecting keywords that are truly relevant to
your desired audience;

* Researching competition for desired keywords;

* Researching and analyzing competitive websites;

* Re-writing and restructuring your website to address desired
keywords, to be more accessible by search engine "crawlers", to
appropriate label meta tags, headings, and inter-page links;

* Create a program to build links to your site from other sites
(directories, exchanged links,article marketing, etc.)

* Create a program to keep content on your site regularly
refreshed and synchronized with all the above.

* Regularly (daily or weekly) monitor all the search engines and
your competitors positions

SEO Is Not Easy.

Doesn't quite sound as easy as some people suggest does it?
That's because it's not. And it's all the more complicated
when you realize that every site on that first page, and on the
second and third, is trying to do the same thing - but against
you! You boost your rank above them. They go to work and boost
their site back above yours. And so on and so on... It's a war
and the SEO "experts" are the arms dealers.

Your Goals And Those Of The Search Engine May Be Different.

If you're going to pay good money for SEO, it may also be
worthwhile to keep in mind that search engines don't necessarily
have a goal of making you the most findable site on the web. The
bottom line for them is making sure that their users finds what
they are looking for. Satisfying that requirement may mean that
you don't and should not come up first. Google is the number one
search engine for a reason: Google users get results they want.
Those may not be the results you want.

Short Term and Long Term.

In the short run, there may be some serious benefits from
investing in SEO to boost your search engine rankings. In the
long run, however, there's probably not much you can do beyond a
certain point. Frankly, if you have a finite budget, altering the
basic nature of your site and trying to boost how valuable your
site is to others (as represented by links to your site) can only
be taken so far. After a point, the perfect market
characteristics of the search engine will prevail.

Balance SEO With Other Forms Of Traffic Generation.

What this means is: yes, do make sure you do the essential SEO
necessary to optimize your rankings in search engines. But do it
in the context of an overall marketing program. Definitely use
SEO to ensure that you get a fair and accurate appraisal by
search engines. But also invest in other non-SEO lead-generation
methods to bring traffic to your site and business to your table.

Above all, measure the results of your SEO and non-SEO activities
carefully and frequently. When SEO reaches the point of
diminishing returns, cut the rate in which you invest in it and
boost your reliance on non-SEO marketing to reach your goals. In
the long run, traditional non-SEO marketing may just be the most
reliable and consistent way to boost traffic to your site.

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Kurt D. Lynn has been a founder, cofounder, or senior executive
of half a dozen enterprises in both the U.S. and Canada.
Currently Kurt provides consulting and communication services
focused on the needs of emerging and growing businesses. His
consulting firm, KLynn Inc, offers an assortment of proven
services for the development of sound marketing strategies,
tactics, and project execution. His communication services,
while more diverse, are focused on optimizing sales and
marketing effectiveness: http://www.klynn.ca/


I add that social networking may be an important aspect of your online success. Article marketing could be another. Blogging yet another. There is much more you can do on your own to improve your targeted visitor count. Keep that in mind. You need targeted visitors, not plain vanilla visitors who leave as fast as the arrive to your website.

Greg Cryns
The Mighty Mo Website Design and SEO Promotion
.

Backlink schemes are unhealthy for your website

Since backlinks appear to be one of the strongest parts of the Google algorithm, it is not surprising that cottage industries are offering "solutions" to your need for backlinks. Beware. What is good for the spammer is not necessarily good for you.

This morning I received this SPAM email from some dorks who want to manipulate Google.

Seems they have some powerful websites and they want me to share in the "juicy backlinks" from those websites, for a fee, of course.

<>

Do You Need Better Rankings at Google, Yahoo, MSN and all other Search Engines?

Our database of TOP SITES FOR JUICY BACKLINKS is the ANSWER you've been looking for! Join us TODAY and you will have them all linking to your website! Send us an email or a reply to (scam email link) if you are interested! Best Wishes, The Top Links DB team

< /snip >

How often do we receive junk email like this? How many times do we need to remind everyone that Google hates this type of black hat strategy and that we will get penalized sooner or later.

How often do we need to tell people that what they need is simply good, solid content and a desire to enhance the experience of our visitors?

How often do you wake up in the morning to find your website on page 2 or nowhere after being on page one of the search engines?

These spammers remind me of the people who rule Wall St. They are willing to do whatever enriches themselves even if the know their tactics will destroy us.

Photo by: OoHysteriaoO

Greg Cryns
Wahm Searh Engine - affordable advertising

How (and Why) to Dominate Google News

Guest post by Marcia Yudkin



How (and Why) to Dominate Google News
Search engine marketing efforts usually focus on improving the extent to which a
site shows up in Google searches. However, there are distinct methods and
advantages to showing up in Google News searches (http://news.google.com).

Show up there, and you're in the elite company of stories from famous-name news
organizations worldwide. Google News aggregates headlines, leads and stories
from thousands of legitimate news organizations around the world – and luckily
for publicity seekers, it displays news releases (also called press releases or
media releases) as well.

One day when I was celebrating my visibility in Google News, someone asked me,
"What's the big deal? What' so great about getting a news release into
Google News?"

Here's why. First, in Google News you're more likely to get found by media
people looking for what colleagues have recently written about a topic. Ditto
for web-savvy, influential bloggers and others researching this week's take on
news and trends.

Second, because of your inclusion in Google News, you appear in news alerts
received by experts, reporters, columnists and others who have requested
notifications of all news items containing certain words, names or phrases.

And third, from Google News, you usually show up more quickly in regular Google
searches, too.

These reasons add up to visibility that tends to bring you more visibility.
It's a terrific and cost-effective way to get your business, product, event or
cause in front of people who not only might visit your site and become customers
but also spread the word about what you're up to, to their sphere of
influence.

Two methods get you into Google News: 1)Getting quoted in a news story and
2)Issuing a news release which may of course lead to getting quoted in a
news story. In case you aren't familiar with news releases, they are 300-400
word documents in a very particular format and style that you can learn by
Googling “sample press release and following the models you find.

Key to a proper news release is a journalistic tone – relatively objective and
factual, rather than sales-y. Your news release has to come across as if a
reporter, not an advertising expert, wrote it. In the headline and body of the
release, strategically include the words and phrases by which you want to be
found.

After writing the news release, use a distribution service to get it into Google
News. These services include established, expensive ones like PRNewswire and
Businesswire as well as more affordable newcomers like PRWeb and Emailwire. A
few free news release sites, such as pr-usa.net and shepress.com, also get their
contents into Google News.

Posting the release on your own site is also a good idea, but it's not what
gets your material into Google News.

From what I've observed, Google News keeps stories and releases live for 2-4
weeks. To get found in Google News, twice a month would therefore be the
minimum frequency for distributing news releases. Do it more often if you have
a variety of keywords by which you’d like to be found.

Did I convince you to crank up your news release efforts?

Publicity expert Marcia Yudkin is the author of 6 Steps to Free Publicity, third
edition, and 10 other books. She has engineered coverage for herself or her
company in the Wall Street Journal, Entrepreneur, Success, Women in Business and
dozens of newspapers around the world. Get free access to a one-hour audio recording in which she answers the most common questions about getting media coverage at http://www.yudkin.com/publicityideas.htm .

Greg Cryns
Freelancing Report
The Mighty Mo Website Design and Website Promotion

PPC - what are negative keywords?

If you've ever used Google Adwords to sell your products using Pay Per Click you've probably seen a section on their site called "negative keywords." Do you know what "negative keywords" are? Let me explain.

Just like you’re concerned about getting the right kind of traffic, you should be just as concerned about getting the wrong kind of traffic. You, of course, want to avoid paying for ads that don't convert. That’s why you should make use of the negative keyword tools in your PPC engine. When you enter these, your ad will not show when your negative terms are searched for.

For instance, let's say that you are selling a topical acne treatment (a cream).

You might then choose to use "supplement," "pill," and related keywords as negative keywords so that your ad does not appear during searches that are done by people looking for an acne pill treatment (capsule).

This will save you a lot of money, which will allow you to focus on the words you really care about.

Knowledge is power! He or she who knows the rules, wins.

Photo credit: Mark Z

Greg Cryns

Wahm Search Engine - great advertising values

The Mighty Mo Website Design and Seo Promotion
.

.

15 Nifty SEO Google Alert Tips

You may know that you can get the latest news headline links using Google alerts. Simply go to http://www.news.google.com and put in a search for something you want to know more about.

For instance, I may want to get updates on news about "search engine marketing". After you get the results on that page, drag down to the bottom. In the middle you will see New! Get the latest news on search engine marketing with Google Alerts. Click the link to got to the Alerts page.

On the Alerts page you can tell Google how often you want to receive the alerts (I always choose "once a day" and to which email account you want to receive the alerts (some people have many email accounts to choose from). Then hit the "Create Alert" button and you will start receiving the alerts for the term you searched. Easy enough unless you are lazy like me. See, I never thought to investigate the "Type" of search result I was looking for so I was getting just news. I could also have been getting blog, web, video and groups alerts, You also have the option to receive "Comprehensive" alerts. Now I select that option. You can subscribe to alerts in multiple languages.

You can receive up to 1,000 alerts. Woot!

Here are some ideas about how you can use Google Alerts.

1. monitor your competitors - new products, ideas, financial changes - competitive intelligence
2. monitor your customers and prospects - It would be nice to send them a card when they do something newsworthy
3. track your name and your business name - put quotes around the phrases like "Joe Jones" or "Pete's Pies" - what are people saying about you or your company in the blogs?
4. in the "Advanced Search" page you can narrow you search by geographical location, date and other parameters.
5. Track news about new software releases or version upgrades
6. local news - track the subject and the newspaper
7. Want to know when someone links to your website or blog? Search link:myblogname.com
8. authors - get ideas for a new article
9. niches - more ideas and what is happening in your niche
10. job seekers - think of the many ways to use this to learn more about the job market
11. when is a new page from you blog included in Google? type in a unique line from your article
12. cache- what a page looked like earlier cache:compleatmother.com
13. site: get results from just one website
14. related: what does Google think is related to the site - related:www.wahmsearchengine.com
15. inurl: search for the page URLs - inurl:seo Leave your good Google alert tips in the comments.

Greg Cryns

Today's hot SEO news and links

Search Engine Land has a nice article today: What Results Can I Expect From My Social Media Campaign?

Exposure and buzz - post interesting stories, links, annecdotes
Branding - reinforce credibility, boost customer loyalty, boost your brand
Reputation management - work directly with customers, smoothe ruffled feathersS ales and new business - promote new products, current specials, free offers
Potential negative results - may look like SPAM if not careful

* Google's new Ajax-powered search results breaks search keyword tracking
* Adding Google News to Your Site
* True Live Blogging at SMX West 09 I think this could be interesting. Barry Schwartz, the editor of the Search Engine Roundtable and Keri Morget of Morgret Designs with be providing live coverage.

Other links
* http://www.yudkin.com/teleteach.htm . Teleseminar smarts hosted by Marcia Yudkin
* http://www.iElectrify.com - Sherice Jacobs has a very informative web design site

Greg Cryns
The Mighty Mo web design and promotion
Get your FREE report Find out if FREELANCING is for you!

Local Search Marketing overview

Do you know what is meant by "local search marketing"?

Essentially, this term refers to using the search engines to make sure that people who are searching for local businesses will find your information as a local business.

Simple? Not exactly.

Google took a step a while back to make sure that people who were looking for a local business found just that at the top or near the top of the first search result page. Since then, Yahoo and MSN created their own local search results. There are quite a few hoops you need to jump through to get your business listed on the first page.

Let's say you searched in Google for "website design in Minneapolis" because you want your new website to be built by someone you can easily meet with and discuss the project in person. It is good to know your website person personally, right?

If you did that search today, 2.3.09, you would see what is shown on the picture above on the first page of Google search results page (SERP).

Go ahead. Type your own search for your business. Be aware that Google local results are not found for every search.

Now search for "insurance in paso robles". Do you see the Google balloons that indicate the locations of various insurance agencies? That is Google Local.

I will do a series of articles on Google Local. Stay tuned. It is important for the future success of your business.

Greg Cryns
The Complete Guide to Freelance Riches
The Mighty Mo Website Design and Promotion

Google is not God!

Google Is Everything! Or Is It?
Copyright (c) 2008 Bill Platt
the Phantom Writers
http://thePhantomWriters.com



As an article marketer, I say things that I believe will help
other people accomplish their goals. As a widely published
article writer, I am often criticized for the words I write. ;-)

In July of 2008, I wrote an article about meta-search engines
called, "Look Beyond Google: Meta-Search Engines Can Help Online
Marketers" (http://www.sitepronews.com/archives/2008/jul/23.html)
In this article, the basic concept I was trying to share was that
Internet Marketers should look beyond the presence of Google, to
find more ways to drive traffic to their websites.

The Google Religion

This article apparently struck a chord of truth with a lot of
people, as its reprint results are much larger than even I
expected.

The article was also reprinted on the Link Referral website by
someone who seems to have appreciated the article:
http://www.linkreferral.com/forumlist.pl?cat_id=10&topic_id=25690

The first response to the post at the Link Referral website read
as follows: "Thanks for the useless post. Google is everything.
If you cannot be found on Google, pray for MSN and Yahoo.
Anything else will give you 1 hit in 100 years. Link exchanging
and buying ads would be so much more effective than buying into
that article."

Now, don't get me wrong. I am not the least bit annoyed that
someone criticized my article. The fact that someone criticized
the article is only a testimony to the fact that my words touched
the nerve of someone who worships the Google religion. I don't
want to offend anyone's religion... That would be wrong...

Of course, this is not the first time I have offended those who
preach the tenets of the Google religion. I also wrote about this
subject in an article about Creating Page Rank, which can be read
at: http://www.keywordtext.com/pudding/28.html This article also
drew criticism by those who mocked my assertion that people can
truly generate substantial traffic from sources other than Google
and that Google PageRank is not as important as many claim.

Answering My Critics

I will admit that if a website is not listed in Google, the task
of trying to make money online is made more difficult.

But if a website is not ranked in Google, and it is does not
possess links to it from anywhere else either, then you might as
well be working at McDonald's for extra money, as opposed to
trying to make money online.

Honestly, Google is only "everything" when you have "nothing
but Google" on the table.

The Proof Is In The Pudding

This is not just an opinion I hold. I can back up what I am
saying with real data, from a real website that does not rely
upon Google for its salvation... The statistics shown here are
from my primary website: http://thephantomwriters.com

Even though I do not rely on Google for traffic, Google delivers
a great deal of traffic to my website. I actually do quite well
in the Google game. I get lots of Google Love for my website, as
described here:
http://article-blog.thephantomwriters.com/google-love/2008/08/09

Nothing But The Facts

The following data reflects the traffic for The Phantom Writers
for both 2007 and 2008 (through Aug 15th):

Total Unique Visitors
* 2007: 244,000+
* 2008: 169,000+

Total Page Views
* 2007: 1.2+ million
* 2008: 1.0+ million+

Unique Clicks from All Search Engines (59 in 2007; 58 in 2008)
* 2007: 119,309
* 2008: 129,749

Unique Clicks from Google
* 2007: 61,923
* 2008: 75,750

Unique Clicks from Yahoo, Windows Live, Ask, and MSN Search
* 2007: 49,291
* 2008: 50,148

Unique Clicks from Other 54/53 Search Engines
* 2007: 8,095
* 2008: 3,851

Important Data Analysis

In 2007, with 244,000+ total visitors and 61,923 visitors from
Google, I would have had to turn away 182,077 visitors or 74.6%
of my traffic in 2007, if I had relied solely upon Google to
drive traffic to my website.

In 2008, with 169,000+ total visitors and only 75,750 of those
visitors coming from Google, I would have had to turn away 93,250
visitors or 55% of my traffic, if I relied solely upon Google to
deliver visitors to my website.

With 61,923 visitors from Google in 2007 and 93,250 visitors from
Google so far in 2008, it is sure that Google is important.

I wonder how many of my critics are actually seeing 61,923
visitors per year? I suspect that many of those who claim that my
advice is bad would be tickled pink to see my Google traffic to
their websites. And I bet they would be shocked to realize that
non-Google sources account for more traffic for my website than
their Google God does.

Beyond Google

In 2007, my website received 119,309 total visitors from all of
the search engines combined, but only 61,923 of those people came
from Google. That leaves 57,386 people who arrived on my website
from the 58 search engines that are not Google. In the search
category, Google accounted for only 51.9% of my total search
traffic.

The top five search engines accounted for 93.2% of my search
traffic.

Had I ignored the those unknown search engines, as my critics
suggest others should, I would have been forced to turn away a
full 8,095 people or 3% of all of my visitors in 2007. That is a
far cry from "one hit in 100 years".

So far in 2008, Google has accounted for 58% of my total search
traffic and only 45% of my global traffic.

The top five search engines have accounted for 95% of my search
traffic. Those itty-bitty search engines have delivered 3,851
visitors to my website so far this year, accounting for 2.96% of
all of my gross traffic in '08.

Itty-bitty is historically worth at least 3% of my yearly
traffic. If you want to ignore that 3%, then that is your
business. But myself, I am happy to receive traffic from anywhere
that I can gain that traffic.

Beyond The Search Engines

As the owner of a professional article marketing company, who
practices what he preaches, 90% of my advertising budget is spent
on article marketing alone.

This is where the following two pieces of data comes into play:

Unique Non-Search URL's Sending Traffic
* 2007: 9,036
* 2008: 5,811

Unique Visitors from Non-Search URL's
* 2007: 27,397
* 2008: 23,907

The remainder of my website's traffic comes from articles
published in newsletters and on other websites, recommendations
by other websites, bookmarks and name recognition.

In 2007, my website received 27,397 visitors from 9,036
verifiable links to my website from articles that we wrote or
from recommendations people made for my website. Of course, I
am willing to bet that many of the 97,294 visitors who were
untrackable in 2007 were the result of the many articles of mine
that were published in newsletters.

In 2008, my website has so far pulled 23,907 visitors from 5,811
verifiable external URLs. There have so far been another 15,344
visitors that I received from untrackable sources, many of which
were probably from the articles that we have successfully had
published in newsletters.

The article marketing that we do provides a lot of verifiable
traffic to our website, and potentially a lot of our untrackable
traffic was also derived from the article marketing we do.

In the end, we credit article marketing for our great search
engine placement, for hundreds of keywords, and our substantial
search traffic as well.

One Quarter Million Reasons Why Google Is Not God

If I believed the poster who said that "Google is everything",
and I had followed his advice for the last several years, then I
would have had to turn away 275,327 additional visitors to my
website in the past 20 months!

OMG!!! To think that I could have turned away a quarter million
visitors or 67% of all of my websites' traffic, if I had simply
followed the advice of my critics.

Wow! Some of my critics are absolute idiots!

Yes, Google is important. But, is Google really "everything"?
Only if you want to fail...






---------------------------------------------------------------------
As the owner of http://www.thephantomwriters.com, Bill Platt has
been providing article ghost writing and article distribution
services since 2001. In recent weeks, Bill overhauled his website
format, in a way that improved navigation and simplified the
process of finding the highest ranked authors and most popular
articles on his website. You will also find a lot of great
information in Bill's article marketing blog, which can be
seen at: http://article-blog.thephantomwriters.com/

See you next time!

Greg Cryns
http://www.ziparticles.com
http://www.wahmsearchengine.com
http://www.allaboutpasorobles.com

Google Alerts - how to use them for your blog or website

by Greg Cryns

Google Alerts can be one of your most valuable tools if you are a blogger or a website owner. Once you sign on, you will receive instant email notification when something happens in your niche or on any topic that interests you. Simply, you get alerts when you subscribe through Google's News, Blog or Groups programs.

To begin receiving the Google Alerts you just sign up at the Google Alerts home page. If you do not have a Google general account, you will need to set one up there. Then, you tell Google the TYPE of alert you are looking for (News, Blog or Groups). Then you click the "Create Alert" button. Google then starts the ball rolling when new items appear in its system. You can also tell Google how often to send the new results. (daily or "as it happens").

Pick a topic that reflects your blog or website. There is almost no limit to topics. More popular topics include news items, medical and technology advances, celebrity, entertainment and sports. You could even choose to monitor the activity of your competitors.

Once you get rolling you can tweak your results by asking for topics using different keywords. For example, if you are promoting recipes, you could ask for "pizza recipes" or "sauce recipes". Try more specific or more general keywords and watch the results.

Try Google's Advanced Search page to refine your results. If you find the result you are looking for there, copy and paste that result into the main search page.

If you find you have too many results coming into your email box, just delete a few. It's easy through the interface on the Google site.

You are allowed to make up to 10 Google Alerts at a time. But you can log out and come back immediately to enter more alerts. The maximum you can have is 1,000. Trust me, if you have over 100, you have too many going at once unless you can set up another email account for that purpose only.

Another nice feature of Google Alerts is that you can set your language preferences.

Other ways to use Google Alerts: monitoring a developing news story; competitive intelligence; learning about celebrity activity;sporting events.

Tips

You can refine your searches to pick up new and useful information from specific magazines like Time Magazine, for example.
google source:time

Let's say you want to know when another blog links to your blog:
link:gregcryns.com

To track your personal or business name, just put your name in quotes. i.e. "Tom Jones" or "Speedy Typos"

If you are working on a project or sector, use the quotes technique if you want a narrow search.

Be specific -- If you can use many words to describe what you are looking for, try it out. You could improve the relevance of the results. For example, if you want job descriptions in Chicago, use "Chicago legal jobs" instead of just "jobs" or even "law jobs".

I own a website about Chihuahua dogs. I am subscribed to Google Alerts to find interesting and often funny stories about that breed. When one pops throught that I like I just copy and paste the link into my website. I also own a website for "work at home" people. I look specifically for "work at home" because I know that is the most often used key phrase in my niche. I will often turn up interesting news about business start-ups and bankruptcies.

Are you concerned about plagiarism from your website? Copy a short and unique sentence from your story into Google Alerts. If that sentence is used, it should turn up quickly.

Be creative. For example, try "Uncle Sam" to find briefs for local and federal government cases.

Experiment. Try putting "Top 10" or "selling" into an alert. You might be surprised and enlightened by the results.

Remember, Google covers 5,000 news sources. You could put the names of your clients and friends into Google Alerts and be notified of an important event for them. This will help you become an unforgettable person in their lives.

About the Author

'Greg Cryns is the owner of many marketing websites including:
Wahm Search Engine: http://www.wahmsearchengine.com
Social Network Marketing for smart people! http://www.squidoo.com/goaffiliate
Work At Home Profiles: http://www.workathomeprofiles.com