At any given moment, there are billions of interactions taking place online. New information is constantly being published on blogs, social networks, and news media, and some of that information is related to topics you are interested in.
Wouldn’t it be great if there was a free, simple and easy way to find out what is going on in your industry or niche that could save you time doing research? Well, there is. It’s called …
Google Alerts
(Google Alerts lets you monitor the web for new content)
Get an email when your keyword gets mentioned online, so you can monitor news, social media conversations, and websites without having to visit loads of social media and news sites for the latest information.
Google Alerts is not only great for helping you manage your reputation online, but also for automatically gathering news about people, companies, and any other topic you are following.
With Google Alerts, you subscribe to a keyword or topic and you’re done. Whenever Google’s robots crawl a new web site, press release, news update, blog post, a video, tweet, or any other content related to the topic you’ve subscribed to, it will automatically send you an email or RSS update.
How To Create A Google Alert
Basically, there are only three simple steps required to start using Google Alerts:
Step 1 – Log Into Your Google Account
If you don’t have a Google account, create one. A Google account lets you access loads of free services with just one username and password. If you use Gmail, post videos to YouTube, run a pay-per-click advertising campaign with Adwords or have a GooglePlus page, then you should already have a Google account set up.
(Log into your Google Account to set up your alerts)
You can still set up Google Alerts without accessing your Google Account, but this gives you fewer options (e.g. you can’t receive Google Alerts via RSS, only email).
After logging into into your Google Account, access the Google Alerts tool by entering the following URL into your browser:
Step 2 – Set Up Your Alerts
You can set up alerts for every topic, business, person, brand or web address you want to track. This service lets you track brands, names of employees, competitors, celebrities, influencers, investors, etc. There is no limit to how many alerts you can set up.
(Create as many alerts as you like with Google Alerts)
Step 3 – Configure Your Preferences
Google Alerts lets you specify the keyword(s) you want to receive alerts for, how often alerts should be sent (as it happens, once a day, once a week), sources (e.g. automatic, news, blogs, web, videos, discussions, etc.), language, region, how many (all results, only the best results), and how to receive alerts (via email or RSS feed) …
(Google alert preferences)
If you want to narrow where Google sources the information for your alerts, just select an option from the drop-down menu …
(Google Alerts – sources)
You can also specify the delivery time of your alerts in your settings, and whether these should be sent in a single email …
(Google alert settings)
All of these settings can be changed anytime you want.
You will begin receiving alerts as per your preferences …
(Google alerts – email alert)
Note that at the bottom of your email notification, you are given various options, including:
- See more results
- Edit the alert
- Unsubscribe (stop receiving the alert)
- View all your alerts
- Receive the alert as RSS feed
How To Set Up Google Alerts While Browsing Google
You can easily set up Google Alerts while browsing the web. Here’s how:
Go to Google News and type in your search term …
(Enter a search term in Google News)
Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click on ‘Create Alert’ …
(Google News – Create Alert)
This brings you to the Google Alerts screen. Enter your email address and click on ‘Create Alert’ …
(Google Alerts screen)
If you elect to receive alerts via email, you will be asked to verify your Google Alert request …
(Verify your Google Alert request)
After confirming your request, your Google Alert will be set up and you will begin to receive alert notifications via email.
(Your Google Alert has been successfully verified)
You can return to the Google Alerts home page and create as many alerts as you want.
How To Delete Google Alerts
You can stop receiving alerts by deleting them from your account …
(Google Alerts – settings)
You can also stop receiving alerts by clicking on the ‘Unsubscribe’ link at the bottom of your emails …
(Click the Unsubscribe link at the bottom of the email)
Confirm that you want to unsubscribe from your Google Alert …
(Click unsubscribe to stop receiving Google Alerts)
Your Google Alert will be cancelled …
(Google Alert cancelled)
You will stop receiving alert emails on the topic after unsubscribing.
If you want Google to deliver alerts to your inbox via email, you can configure rules in your email program to automatically redirect all alerts to one or more email folders. This helps keep your alerts organized and easier to sort through.
If you choose to receive alerts via RSS feed, you can use a feed reader to view the information on your smart phone or mobile device.
Once your alerts are set up, you can track information about keywords, names, the competition, etc., or create content for your business blog in your topic of choice.
How To Repost News Items From Google Alerts On Your Website
You can repost news items directly from Google Alerts on your WordPress your WordPress site as blog posts or as a ‘widgetized’ item on your sidebar.
Let’s take a look at both methods:
Publish Google Alerts News Items As A Blog Post
To display news items from Google Alerts as a blog post, do the following:
Set up your site to post by email …
(Post to WordPress by email)
If you need help with this step, see this tutorial:
Next, set up your Google Alert to send to the email address you have set up …
(Create Alert and send to email)
Alerts will now be posted to your site, or come in as ‘drafts’ that you can review and publish.
Publish Google Alerts News Items On Your Sidebar
To display news items from Google Alerts as a as a ‘widgetized’ item on your sidebar, all you need to do is set up to receive your alerts as an RSS feed as described earlier …
(Receive alerts as an RSS feed)
Next, copy the RSS feed link to your clipboard …
(Copy RSS link address)
And add the RSS feed to an RSS widget as described in this tutorial:
Your alert will display as a ‘widgetized’ item on your sidebar and the feed will update regularly as Google sources new items …
(RSS Widget with Google Alert feed)
Hopefully, this article has been useful. If you would like to know more about using social media monitoring tools to improve user engagement, see this article: WordPress Tools For Media Monitoring
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"I have used the tutorials to teach all of my clients and it has probably never been so easy for everyone to learn WordPress ... Now I don't need to buy all these very expensive video courses that often don't deliver what they promise." - Stefan Wendt, Internet Marketing Success Group
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