Colorado Web Solutions

Use Google Alerts to help understand your Yahoo! Store

Posted on June 22nd, 2010 by Matt Sampson - Colorado Web Solutions

If you’re not using Google Alerts yet – you should be.

Google Alerts is a content monitoring service offered by Google. If you’re a Yahoo store owner – this service can be invaluable for keeping track of your competitors, your site’s performance and any related content that you feel would be helpful in tracking your products and your industry. Track product lines, track your competitions newest pages that have been indexed, and follow your own indexing. If you are actively blogging – Google Alerts can also be a great way to determine how quickly your posts are being picked up by google and indexed. Once you’ve signed up and selected  your various alert matches and preferences, you’ll be notified automatically, once a day or once a week if those terms are served via web content, blogs or video’s.

Currently the following alert types are available:

• Comprehensive
• News
• Web
• Blogs
• Video
• Groups

It’s very easy to sign up. Here’s what you’ll do:

Be sure you are logged into your google account. Head to: http://www.google.com/alerts . You will see a text box where you can enter various terms you’re interested in. You’ll then need to enter in the following:

Search Terms
Type of Alert you Want
When you would like to be Alerted (Daily, Weekly or Automatically)
Your Email Address

To start off with we would suggest the following search:

Search term: YourDomainName.com (change it to your Yahoo Stores domain)
Type: Everything
How Often: As It Happens
Number: Up to you
Email: Up to you

This will provide you with an email every single time google indexes a new page within your site. An invaluable resource to understand and see.

Once you’ve completed those steps you’re finished. You can set up as many alerts as like. Get Creative, you can always delete them if the content isn’t what you were expecting. It’s worth the time and effort to track terms related to your industry. Knowing is half the battle and Google Alerts is a great step in gathering detailed information pertaining directly to your site and products.

Read the Full Post