Right now, billions of social interactions are taking place online. New content is continually being published on news, social streams, and blogs, and some of that information is related to subjects you are interested in.
Wouldn’t it be great if there was a simple and easy way to find out what is new in your niche or industry so that you are not wasting a huge amount of time doing research? Well, there is. It’s called …
Google Alerts
(Google Alerts lets you monitor the web for new content)
Google Alerts is simple, useful and free tool from Google that lets you keep up-to-date with news about all kinds of topics, stay informed about people, brands and companies, and track what is being said online about you and your business.
Google Alerts is not only useful for helping you manage your reputation online, but also for automatically sourcing the latest news about people, brands, companies, or any other subject you are interested in.
With Google Alerts, you subscribe to a keyword or topic and you’re done. Whenever Google’s bots (Googlebot) crawl a new web page, news update, blog post, press release, a tweet, video, 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
Let’s go over the 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. Google lets you access many free services with just one username and password. If you use Gmail, post videos to YouTube, run an Adwords campaign 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 accessing your 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 here:
Step 2 – Set Up Your Alerts
You can set up an alert for every topic, business, person or website you would like to receive updates about. You can keep track of product brands, employees, investors, influencers, celebrities, competitors, etc. There are no limits to how many alerts you can set up.
(Set up as many alerts as you like with Google Alerts)
Step 3 – Set Up Your Preferences And Save
Google Alerts lets you specify the keyword or keywords you want to receive 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 alert preferences)
To narrow the source of your alerts, just select an option 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 want.
You will begin receiving alerts as specified in 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 News
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)
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 alert 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 no longer receive alert emails on the topic after unsubscribing.
If you want to receive alerts sent to your inbox via email, you can configure rules in your email application to automatically redirect all alerts to one or more folders. This will help to 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 you have set up alerts, you can monitor information about keywords, brands, competitors, etc., or start creating web content about the latest news in your chosen topic.
How To Display News Items From Google Alerts On Your Website
You can republish 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 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 site, 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 post has been useful. If you would like to know more about using social media management tools, see this article: WordPress And Social Media Tracking
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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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