Staying on the cutting edge
Staying ahead of the story line in your niche can be very beneficial for your traffic. As an example I picked up on the story of Six Apart supporting some WordPress plugins for their proprietary items. It was a big story because Six Apart is the owner of the Typepad blogging platform and is a competitor of WordPress.
The key though is that by being among the first I have gotten some good backlinks and traffic from others referring to my story.
Here is a simple way to keep abreast with whatever is hot in your niche. Google news is constantly updating by keyword. They also have an rss feed for any keyword search you make.
This allows me to monitor any topic for the latest stories easily. Take your topic and go to Google News and do a search.
Click on the RSS icon and go get the url for the feed. The next step is to add the feed to your reader of choice (in my case I stick with Google and use Google reader but any feed reader will work).
Click the add a subscription button and fill in the feed url. You will get a box that looks like this.
Click add and then each time you open the reader you will see all the new items that Google has found on your topic. You can follow the same format to add any leading bloggers in your niche, other topics you want to follow or any other feed that you find helpful.
For me I check the reader a couple times a day and get the latest items all in one place allowing me to stay current, know which blogs I might want to go comment on or any other item that will allow me to be a cutting edge resource.
After all anything that saves me time and allows me to keep up to date with a minimal time investment is something I want to do. What about you?
Mike Paetzold
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Disclaimer: Some of the links mentioned within this post or posts it may lead to are my affiliate links and in such case I will get compensated for recommending those products. However, I will never recommend something that I don’t personally believe in and I welcome your questions and feedback.
9 comments
Doug Champigny
Twitter: CaptnAffiliate
on May 19, 2009 at 10:51 am
You got it, Mike – any automation that let’s us do more in less time is ALWAYS worth checking out! Remind me to check your laptop and see what keywords you’re following next time we’re at JVAlert together…
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Joel Osborne
Twitter: JoelOsborne
on May 19, 2009 at 11:38 am
Very cool tip. In a big/popular niche, it’s important to stay up on news about that topic for the exact reason you mentioned… you can get some nice traffic if you are one of the first to talk about it.
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Fred Lotgering on May 19, 2009 at 11:48 am
It is a great FREE service from Google and now limits on this service either.
Good description how easy it is to setup a subscription.
Thanks Mike!
Fred
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Earl Netwal
Twitter: EarlNetwal
on May 19, 2009 at 5:32 pm
I’ve been using the reader to follow blogs, but hadn’t given a lot of thought to news. Great way to keep on top of things.
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Andre Arnett on May 19, 2009 at 5:58 pm
Really good idea Mike as you can really find some good stuff in there. I also use Google alerts and I still do not use it the way I should be. Thanks for the reminder as there is gold in them thar hills.
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Ray Burton on May 19, 2009 at 6:08 pm
Thanks Mike, It looks like a good way to stay ahead. Do you think it’s better than Google Alerts?
Ray
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Lonnie Minton on May 19, 2009 at 6:15 pm
Thanks for taking the time to stay on top of things and then passing the info along to us. It’s nearly impossible to keep up. Good explanation on how to use this tool.
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Brett McEllhiney on May 19, 2009 at 10:39 pm
This is a great idea Mike and one I agree with 100%. Using feeds along with Google reader is the best way I have found to keep up to date with everything going on in the niches that I am working in.
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baba on May 20, 2009 at 2:51 am
thanks for shring the wonderful experience. it is really a very informative for the newbie like me
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