At any given moment in time, millions of interactions are happening online. New information is constantly being published on blogs, news sites, and social media streams, and some of that information is related to subjects that interest you.
Wouldn’t it be great if there was a free, simple and easy way to know what is happening in your niche or industry so that you are not wasting a huge amount of time doing research? Well, there is, and it’s called …
Google Alerts
(Google Alerts lets you monitor the web for new content)
Google Alerts is a free Google tool that delivers Google search queries to your inbox.
Google Alerts is not only only a useful social media monitoring tool for managing your reputation online, but also for automatically receiving information about people, companies, and any other subject you need to know about.
With Google Alerts, you just subscribe to a keyword or topic and you’re done. Whenever Google’s indexing robots (Googlebot) crawl a new web site, press release, blog post, news update, a video, tweet, or any other indexable content related to the topic you’ve subscribed to, you will automatically receive an email or RSS update.
How To Set Up A Google Alert – A Simple & Easy Step-By-Step Tutorial
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 one username and password. If you use Gmail, post videos to YouTube, run an Adwords campaign or own a GooglePlus page, then you should already have a Google account set up.
(A Google account lets you access great services like Google Alerts)
You can still set up Google Alerts without a Google Account, but this gives you fewer configuration options (e.g. you can’t receive Google Alerts via RSS, only email).
Once you have logged into your Google Account, access the Google Alerts tool by entering the following URL into your web browser:
Step 2 – Set Up Your Alerts
Set up an alert for any topic, business name, person or web address you want to track. You can track brands, employees, celebrities, competitors, investors, influencers, etc. There are no limits to the number of alerts you can set up.
(Create as many alerts as you like with Google Alerts)
Step 3 – Set Up Your Preferences & Save
Google Alerts lets you specify the keyword or keywords you want 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, select the source from the drop-down menu …
(Google alert sources)
You can also specify the delivery time of your alerts in your settings, and if you want to receive all alerts in a single email …
(Google Alerts – settings)
You can change these settings anytime you like.
You will begin receiving alerts as specified in your preferences …
(Receive alerts via email or RSS)
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)
Enter your email address and click on the ‘Create Alert’ button …
(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.
Deleting Google Alerts
You can delete any alerts you no longer want to receive …
(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 would like alerts to be delivered via email to your inbox, you can configure rules in your email application to automatically send all alerts to one or more email folders. This will help keep your alerts organized and easier to sort through.
If your alerts are sent out via RSS feed, you can use a feed reader to view the information on your smartphone or mobile device.
Once you have set up alerts, you can track information about topics, your business, competitors, etc., or start creating web content on the latest news and updates in your topic of choice.
How To Repost News Items From Google Alerts On Your WordPress Blog
You can display news items directly from Google Alerts on your WordPress your WordPress website 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 publish 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, create an Alert to send to the email address you have set up …
(Create Alert and send to email)
Alerts will now be posted to your blog, or come in as ‘drafts’ that you can review and publish.
Publish Google Alerts News Items On Your Sidebar
To republish 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, you have found this tutorial helpful. If you would like to know more about using social monitoring tools, see this article: Social Media Tracking Resources For WordPress
***
"This is AMAZING! I had learnt about how to use WordPress previously, but this covers absolutely everything and more!! Incredible value! Thank you!" - Monique, Warrior Forum
***