Link building is crucial to your website’s SEO. Increasing the amount of links to your page will raise your page rank, and help the chances of someone coming across your site. It is important to make sure outside websites aren’t simply mentioning your page, but linking to it. There are several tools available to help you check on this.
Google Alerts: This free tool offered by Google works by gathering any links that mention your choice keyword. Using it is very simple. You select a keyword to search for, select what type of results you would like to see (such as all pages, blogs, or news), enter how often you want to receive alerts, and filter whether you want only the best results, or all available results. You receive the alerts via email based on whatever regularity you select.
Fresh Web Explorer: This program is similar to Google Alerts; however, it is only available for a fee. You manually search for a selected keyword, and are presented with results instantly. The results are available in a graph which shows you the number of recent mentions, as well as a list of sites that mention your search. Both forms of data are exportable to a CSV.
Each tool has its pros and cons. Google Alerts is free and regularly sends you results without you requiring any action on your part, making it more convenient. Fresh Web Explorer has a fee and requires more manual effort, but produces your results instantaneously. The results provided by Fresh Web Explorer tend to be more relevant as well. Selecting which tool is right for your business depends mostly on your resources, such as funds and time.
The key to successfully using either of these programs lies in selecting your keyword that you are going to search for. You should make sure that you are searching for any and all keywords that are likely to show up when a site mentions your company or website. Do not settle for just one keyword; explore multiple options to optimize your search results. Clearly defining your brand will help you select the ideal keywords.
These tools make it easy and painless to use links to help your SEO. For other link building tips, regularly check our blog, or visit our SEO service page .