Actualaffiliate.com - affiliate marketing news, tools & tips

Google Alerts are e-mail updates sent to you whenever Google finds news, webpages, search results or newsgroups that mention the keywords you entered. This handy service can be put to work in affiliate marketing in several ways.

1. Get to know your merchants

Like in any business it's important in affiliate marketing to know your partners. Use Google Alerts to monitor your merchants. Are they popular enough ? Are they getting positive comments ? The alerts will also tell you if maybe some specific product is more popular than the one you are promoting.

2. Join the conversation

If you know which keywords are important for your offers, use these keywords for the alerts. Whenever someone mentions your keywords on a blog, a newsgroup, a forum or some other online discussion, join in and start commenting. The links your provide next to all these keyword will drive traffic to your website. On the one hand coming directly from the discussions, on the other hand from the better search results your site will have regarding the keywords.

3. Use specific queries

If you just enter any keyword in Google Alerts, your inbox will soon overflow with useless information. You should use very selective, long-tail keywords and search strings. You can also use [Exact Search] or "Phrase Search", by surrounding your search string by either [ ] or " ".

4. Become a specialist

By commenting an discussing the topics of your choice, you will become a specialist regarding those topics. This can help you in your relations with other publishers and merchants. But don't just plug your site. Instead you should really make an effort to help people with their questions.

5. Keep your content up-to-date

If you offer content on your website or blog, Google alerts is a great way of getting the latest news about the subjects that interest you. With this information you can keep your website up-to-date, and never miss an opportunity for a great piece of content. Your website will get referenced as a relevant content source for your self chosen subjects.