Search Engine Optimization (SEO) can be complicated when you don’t know the right way to use this feature for directing traffic to your website. There are many tools available, yet considering Google is the search engine used more frequently, the information will be regarding the aspects of the tools used within Google.

The benefit of using Google Webmaster Tools helps website owners the in the ability to generate larger amounts of traffic to their website. Google Webmaster Tools is a free service for internet users. There is an extremely large amount of information available to you after you have verified your website with Google.

Here are some of the features of Google Webmaster Tools.

Google Webmaster Tools will show you all the errors on your site, which this process includes showing any broken links on the website and all the links driving the internet traffic to the website where there might not be a valid page. The tools also include telling the site owner of possible restrictions they may have placed on the site that will limit access to the site visitors.

There is the ability to set the geographic target of the site such as if you want the www. to appear on the listing of the site. You can select if you want to show images within Google when the search has been performed by internet users. This process is called Google Image Labeler.

Google Webmaster Tools will provide a list of URLs that have duplicate title tags or meta description. The information will let you know if the pages are too short or too long. This helps to correct any problems with the website and lowers the traffic flow.

Top search queries are shown with the Google Webmaster Tools. It provides information regarding what the webs searches are and how the internet users are seeking information on the internet. This information helps to increase the flow of traffic to the website. The provided information breaks down the results by web, image and country.

Managing the site links for your website is very important. Most people desire to have additional information listed in the search results with their website. Google Webmaster Tools provide the option of setting the information you want listed under your website in the search results. You can only let Google know if you don’t want a site link listed, and you are not able to tell them what pages to add.

Google will provide a bit of JavaScript about your site on a 404 error page that will offer your site as an option for the internet user seeking certain information. This is a great way to direct traffic to your site.

Using Google Webmaster Tools helps to promote higher traffic flow to your website. It is a free service you cannot afford to pass up when wanting to generate higher hits on your website.

One of the recent services launched by Google is the Google Reader, which is available at reader.google.com. The Google Reader will allow Internet users to search for relevant RSS feeds and manage them too. As a result, Internet users will be able to benefit from the updated information and current news articles or snippets on various topics of their choice.

In the recent past, we have noticed an increase in the popularity and use of blogs as well as RSS and this increase is going to be there in the near future. One of the primary reasons for the popularity of RSS feeds can be contributed to the availability of updated information in a systemized manner and accessible to almost anyone. For the average Internet user, the launch of the Google Reader is being seen as one giant step. It is a powerful tool that is easy to use.

Using the Google Reader

For first timers, using RSS or downloading and configuring the RSS reader can be quite a cumbersome process especially when you can visit your favorite web site and use their advanced search features to look for new articles or topic specific articles/news. There is another breed of people who wouldn’t even try the task of understanding how a new process like RSS feed will work as they have a pre-conceived notion that it might be complicated. This pre-conceived notion gets most of its strength due to the availability of other options.

The Google reader has been hence created to make the pre-conceived notions disappear and to make searching for the latest news on RSS simple and easy. To use the Google Reader, you need to follow 4 easy/baby steps:

? Visit reader.google.com to open Google Reader
? Type your topic of interest in the search box
? You will get a list of results related to your topic of interest. Find the one you want.
? Click “Subscribe”

Did you ever think it could have been so easy? Well! That’s all you have to do to sign up for your favorite feed and the good part is that you can sign up for more than one topic/feed.

What you need to do is click to go back to the Google Reader homepage. On the homepage, you will find a list of feeds displayed on the left-hand side. This is the list that you have subscribed. If you choose any specific feed from the left hand side then you will see all the new posts added on to that particular feed on the right hand side. You don’t even have to search for new or updated feeds!

Hailed as one of the best products from Google, the Google Reader has a high usability and hence will make your life a little more comfortable in a world where knowledge rules supreme; where knowledge is the difference between success and failure.

Is the Google Reader for you?

Since the Google Reader is easy to use and is considered a powerful tool; it will be helpful for anyone and everyone who wants to keep themselves updated on any kind of news from forest fires in the tropical rainforest to Premier league soccer scores. Although the service is meant for every one but the people who will really benefit from it will be the researchers, business professionals, reporters, consultants, analysts etc.

The Features

The Google Reader comes with some value added advanced features, which include:

GMail This: Through this, you will be able to advertise your website or services to others on Gmail. All you need is a Gmail account.

Blog This: This feature will be helpful for those who already have an account on blogger. If you click on “Blog This” then it will open your blog account and you can insert the link on your blog as a reference.

It’s impact on SEO

The Google Reader will ensure that RSS and blogs become an integral component of any Internet Marketing strategy. Since the reader is being targeted at getting more users hence the feeds will soon become more SEO friendly and keyword/key phrase driven.

Standing in the present, it seems that the Google Reader is all set to take on the future!

As some of you know, I’m the highly introverted (INFP) who is also a Sales and Marketing director for a company that sells both nationally and internationally.
 
So, this tells us that I really, really, really dislike sales prospecting – at least in the stereotypical ‘pick up the phone and cold call’ ’sales hunter’ way. I’m always looking for ways to find prospects in unorthodox ways.
 
One of these is spelled out in my article Cold Calling for Introverts where I detail a means of using the phone that won’t cause an introvert to want to lie down and die.
 
I found another one yesterday – it’s called Google Alerts, and as with most Google tools, it’s simple to understand and use.
 
In a nutshell (”Look, I’m in a nutshell!”) you add some relevant search terms, tell it how often you’d want to be alerted and enter your email address. Poof! A Google-formatted email appears in your inbox full of relevant goodness!
 
Now you may be saying, “Thank God Almighty! I see the light!” and others may be saying “So?”
 
Let’s give some examples. Let’s say you work in state and local government sales in water purification. You depend on RFPs (Requests for Proposal) so in the Google Alert box, enter government, RFP, water, purification – from that moment, you will receive everything Google finds that references those terms.
 
Or if you sell large equipment to transportation companies, create an alert with the words heavy, equipment, fortune 500 or whatever makes sense to you.
 
Be careful not to fill the alert with too many words or you may miss opportunities because you’ve been overly specific. Keep it general – it may be better to create more than one alert that covers different aspects of your field and customers.
 
Now you may get immediate gratification and you may not – but it’s a lot quicker and easier than hunting for these manually. Let me know how this works for you by commenting or sending me an email.
 
Copyright 2008 Hal Warfield

At times it seems that Google releases more new products and services than we can keep track of. From Google Calendar and Google Video, to Google Base, Google Finance, and Google Trends, it can be overwhelming just to remember what each one does. One of the oft overlooked hidden gems in Google’s enormous offering is Google Alerts. Within minutes, one can be signed up for email alerts that can give them and their business a leg up on the competition. Alerts can be used to spy on competitors, keep track of what people are saying about your business, or follow an important news story.

How Does It Work

Google Alerts sends you an email each time a new page for your chosen term makes it in the top twenty results on Google’s web search. You can also have the alert check Google News and/or Google Groups. To sign up for a Google Alert, all that you need to do is visit the Google Alerts homepage (http://www.google.com/alerts), enter the search term, type of alert (search Google News, Google Groups, or the web), frequency of emails (daily, as it happens, or weekly), and your email address. You can set up alerts for as many terms as you like using a Google Account. So why would you want an unlimited amount of alerts? Because as a business owner, you have a lot to keep track of and very limited time to do it.

Spy on Your Competitors

Every business has a competitor. More likely, you have several direct competitors and several more indirect competitors. While regularly checking out their websites is an important part of the process, it doesn’t paint the whole picture. A competitor’s website is very much crafted to the image that they want to portray to their customers. This is great if you want to know what their latest sale is or how much their new product costs, but it isn’t likely to feature a negative review in last Sunday’s newspaper.

That’s where Google Alerts comes in. By simply setting up a News, Groups, and search alert for each of your competitors, you will know what other people are saying about your competition – both the media and consumers, both good and bad.

Keep Up To Date on Your Industry

Equally as important as what people are saying about your competition is what people are saying about your industry in general. If there’s a negative PR swing against violent video games, and you just happen to run a video game store, you will probably be affected. By receiving alerts on important key words related to your industry, you can be on top of any sudden changes and react accordingly. By the time your competition realizes what’s happening they will be scrambling to catch up to you.

Track Yourself and Your Business

It goes without saying, if it’s important to know what people are saying about your competitors and about your industry, it would stand to reason that it’s important to know what people are saying about you. I have Google Alerts on both my name and my businesses name. I know that they go hand in hand – if one is getting slandered you better bet it will hurt the other. By receiving alerts, you can be on top of anything negative relating to you or your business, and hopefully nip any problem in the bud before it grows too large. On the flip side, there’s nothing better than receiving an alert where someone praises your business. Those are the types of things that you want to make sure are on the PR page of your businesses website.

Get News Stories for Your Site or Blog

I own a site where I do weekly news updates about what’s going on in the industry. Some weeks, there are tons of news items to choose from, other weeks it’s hard to find anything. In addition to the regular industry news sites that I check to get information, I have Google Alerts set up for each of the key terms. You’d be surprised how frequently a unique story from a local newspaper pops up in Google News. Many times these stories haven’t been seen by my competitors and I am able to “break” the news to the online community. This works well for blogs too – if you have a daily blog about being an entrepreneur, having an alert for the word “entrepreneur” can fetch you several quality stories each day to help inspire fresh posts.

In this increasingly competitive business world, you need each and every leg up on your competition that you can get. Used properly, Google Alerts can be an extremely efficient way to track what’s going on across the web. The alternative would be to search each term every day for new updates. Who has time for that? Spending less time researching enables you to spend more time on the things important to your business.