Undiscovered Tip - Set Up a Google Alert For Your Shop

Hi Team Discovery! This is Kam of Campfire Chic here to share with you a really useful (and free!) tool that should be in your crafty toolbox.

Adventure Bound Mini Notebook from CampfireChic

A little background: In November, I hosted a series of posts I called SEO Week/Optimizing Your Online Presence. Some of the posts are down for maintenance, but one of the posts I think is the most helpful is the one I'm sharing with you today.

Who is Talking About You? Setting Up a Google Alert

My boyfriend (an SEO Specialist) calls this "Brand Reputation Management". He says it is a good tool to use if you want to follow a news story like a natural disaster, or find out what is being said about you and your brand.

How is this related to SEO? It goes along with building links. You may not know when you are "talked about" on another blog, so this will give you a heads up so you can check out the resource. Sometimes I only find out an item of mine was featured on a blog because I notice a significant amount of traffic coming from the source in my Google Analytics. With a Google Alert, I will know right away... or at least on a weekly basis... if an item is featured (and somebody mentions my keyword).

I liken this to a more well-rounded and less messy version of checking your backlinks. From what I can tell so far, unlike backlink reports, Google Alerts does not report when you leave a comment on somebody's blog or website.

Why do I care? Think about all the blog comments we leave every day, heck for one giveaway I may leave 5 comments! I don't want an alert for each time I comment on a blog... I know I left a comment there. So Google Alert isn't looking for your hyperlink, it is looking for your search term. Nice.

Now that you know what Google Alerts offer, get the step-by-step directions and additional commentary by heading over to the original post on the Campfire Chic blog.

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Kam is a twenty-something-year-old living in Southern California with her boyfriend and many animals. She blogs about her outdoor adventures and love for crafts on Campfire Chic and sells camping-themed items in an online shop of the same name. She enjoys hiking, camping, reading, and eating tacos.