At any given point, millions of social exchanges are taking place online. New information is continually being published on news sites, blogs, and social streams, and some of that information is related to subjects you are interested in.
Is there a simple and easy (and free) way to know what is happening in your industry or niche that can save you a massive amount of time doing research? Yes, there is. It’s called …
Google Alerts
(Google Alerts – free web monitoring service)
Google sends a notification whenever your brand gets mentioned online, so you can monitor social conversations, news, and websites.
Google Alerts is not only useful for helping you manage your reputation online, but also for sourcing the latest news about people, companies, or any other topic you want to know about.
With Google Alerts, you just subscribe to a keyword or topic and you’re done. Whenever Google’s indexing robots crawl a new web page, blog post, news update, press release, 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
Let’s go over the 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. Google lets you access loads of free services with one username and password. If you use Gmail, post videos to YouTube, run a pay-per-click advertising campaign with Adwords or own 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 a Google Account, but this gives you fewer configuration options (e.g. you can only receive email alerts, not alerts via RSS).
After logging into 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 every topic, business name, person or website address you want to receive updates about. You can keep track of brands, names of employees, investors, influencers, competitors, celebrities, etc. There is no limit to how many alerts you can set up.
(Google Alerts lets you set up as many alerts as you like)
Step 3 – Set Your Preferences
Google Alerts lets you specify the keyword or keywords 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)
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 if you want to receive all alerts as a single email …
(Google alert settings)
All of these settings can be changed anytime you like.
You will begin receiving alerts as set 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)
This brings you to the Google Alerts screen. 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.
How To Delete 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 from Google after unsubscribing.
If you choose to receive alerts via email, you can configure rules in your email program to automatically send all alerts to one or more 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 access the information on your smart phone or mobile device.
Once your alerts are set up, you can track information about keywords, names, competitors, etc., or start creating web content on the latest news and updates in your niche/industry.
How To Publish News Items From Google Alerts On Your WordPress Site
You can republish news items directly from Google Alerts on your WordPress your 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, this information has been useful. To learn more about integrating social media with WordPress, see this article: 30 Social Media Tracking Resources For WordPress
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"These tutorials have so much information and are easy to understand. If you use WordPress or plan to in the future these will help you with everything you need to know." - Valisa (Mesa, Arizona)
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