Apr. 2, 2008 - Keep tabs on the Competition

Keeping tabs on the competition, tracking your own reputation - it is a necessary exercise in today's online world. In class I speak about setting up a Google Alert on your name or your business. All you do it set up your search term, say how often you want to receive them and enter the email address where you want them sent. Google scours the internet and wherever your name shows up it finds it and sends you an email. You can set up a similar free search with Yahoo. I get alerts when people mention that they had a class with me or if they link to my blog. I always go to their site and post on their comments a thank you for mentioning my name and classes.

There are three other sites that will bring this search to the next step. Andiamo Systems tracks your business's online reputation by scanning blogs, message boards, forums, social netowrks and mainstream media sites. You will know who is saying what and whether its good or bad for your business. Pricing starts at $275 per month. The second is Elixir Systems. This site assesses your online repulation and compes up with a plan to manage it. There is also Watch360. This site keeps an eye on your competitor's websites with a free version of Watch360. You enter in the pages you want watched and they rpogram does a daily scan and sends you an email report of what it finds. They will do more sites for $195 a year.

The power of the internet is the information it creates. If you can keep tabs on who is visiting your website, why not keep track of your online reputation? Definitely set up Google and Yahoo Alerts to get started!