At any given moment in time, billions of conversations are happening online. New content is constantly being published on news, social streams, and websites, and some of that information is related to subjects that interest you.
Is there a free, easy and simple way to know what is going on in your niche or industry that will save you time doing research? Yes, there is. It’s called …
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Google Alerts
(Google Alerts lets you monitor the web for new content)
Get free alerts when there are new results for your searches, so you can keep up to date on social conversations, news, and websites.
Google Alerts is not only great for managing your reputation online, but also for automatically receiving information about people, companies, and any other topic you are interested in.
With Google Alerts, you subscribe to a keyword or topic and you’re done. Whenever Google’s robots crawl a new web site, news update, press release, blog post, a video, tweet, or any other content related to the topic you’ve subscribed to, you will automatically receive an email or RSS update.
A Simple Guide On Setting Up 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 haven’t got 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 Adwords or have a GooglePlus page, then you should already have a Google account.
(Log into your Google Account)
You can still set up Google Alerts without a Google Account, but this will give 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 here:
Step 2 – Set Up Your Alerts
You can set up alerts for every topic, business name, person or website you want to receive updates about. This service lets you track product brands, names of employees, influencers, competitors, celebrities, investors, etc. There are no limits 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 alerts for, how often alerts should be sent out (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 Alerts – preferences)
If you want to narrow the source of your alerts, just select an option from the drop-down menu …
(Google alert sources)
You can also specify alert delivery times 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 can also stop receiving alerts by deleting them from your account …
(Google Alerts – settings)
You should begin receiving alerts as set in your preferences …
(Google alerts – email alert)
How To Set Up Google Alerts While Searching On 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)
Type in your email address and click on ‘Create Alert’ …
(Google Alerts screen)
Your Google Alert for this topic will be set up.
If you want alerts to be delivered via email to your inbox, you can configure rules in your email program to automatically send all alerts to one or more 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 smartphone or mobile device.
Once you have set up your alerts, you can monitor information about topics, brands, the competition, etc., or create content|web content on the latest news in your topic of choice.
Hopefully, you have found this tutorial helpful. To learn more about using social management tools to monitor social signals, see this article: Top Media Measurement Tools That Can Help Grow Your Business Online
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