It’s been a very busy week and hence, I’m keeping today’s post short but very sweet Today were going to look at how we can use the new Google features to deliver customised lists of great link opportunities.

What Are The New Google Features?
We discussed one of the new Google features, the wonder wheel, earlier on this year. Most of these new features are geared around offering the browser the ability to filter their search results as they require. Click on ‘more’ and ‘more search tools’ (as below) to view.

How To Use Search Tools To Deliver Link Opportunity Lists
You’ll notice that I searched for ‘cheap shoes’ on Google.co.uk – as shown in the image above. Likewise, perform a search for one of your main keyword targets. Google will return its results initially in it’s default manner. Now, click on ‘more’ first and filter results to show only ‘Blogs’, underneath now select ‘past month’ as below.

You now have a list of blogs already indexed by Google, topic relevant and active within the last month – great places to visit, place a comment and of course, a link back to your own website. Next, change ‘Blogs’ to ‘Discussions’ and you now have a list of forums and Q&A sites discussing your topic area within the last month. Again great places to contribute and place a link back to your website.

Finally, alter ‘Discussions’ to ‘Everything’ and now scroll down and select ‘fewer shopping sites’. This filter will give you a mix of blogs, forums, Q&A’s and many more kinds of websites where you may be able to place a link. Because we have selected to remove shopping sites, most of your direct competition, and hence places you are highly unlikely to gain a link, are removed. Your left with an interesting list of topic relevant places to visit and ‘link hunt’.

There you have three simple ways to use Google’s Search Tools to generate lists of new link opportunities. Playing with the search tools and clicking on different combinations of the filter settings will undoubtedly uncover many more, so play away and do let me know what you find!