Sometimes our jobs as marketers means we need to look beyond the obvious. Google, for example, offers their Google Alerts service. At first glance, this may seem most useful to companies who want to track certain searches within their industry, or to hobbyists who want to stay on top of changes in their topics of interest.

But Internet marketers can also use Google Alerts to help keep track of what's going on around the net, and even to keep tabs on their direct competition for that matter. Google Alerts, which are email notifications, can be created based on the top 10 Google news stories, but more helpful to marketers is the possibility of creating alerts for the top 20 Google web search results.

By setting up alerts for your competitor's company, web site, brand, or product name, you can monitor search results for changes. Some results may indicate a new product launch, or perhaps a publicity campaign, and you will be able to make appropriate adjustments in your own business.

If you want to market an affiliate product through SEO, you can monitor the top 20 results for a search on that product. You will know if and when your site breaks into the top 20 results, and can watch it as it hopefully continues climbing to that first position.

There are other uses as well. SEO firms can monitor clients' results. Niche marketers can easily monitor both industry news and niche search results. You can even monitor search results for your best keywords and your own high ranking pages.

Google Alerts, though free, can provide valuable marketing intelligence to online entrepreneurs who take advantage of it.