At any given moment in time, millions of transactions are happening online. New content is continually being published on blogs, news, and social media streams, 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 industry or niche that can save you time doing research? Yes, there is, and it’s called …
Google Alerts
(Google Alerts lets you monitor the web for new content)
With Google Alerts, Google will send you free alerts when there are new results for your searches, so you can keep up to date on news, websites, and social media conversations.
Google Alerts is not only great for managing your reputation online, but also for sourcing information about people, companies, or 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 bots crawl a new web page, press release, news update, blog post, 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 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)
You can still set up Google Alerts without accessing your Google Account, but this will give you fewer 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
You can set up alerts for every topic, business, person or website you would like to receive updates about. This service lets you keep track of brands, names of employees, influencers, investors, celebrities, competitors, etc. There are no limits to the number of alerts you can set up.
(Set up as many alerts as you like with Google Alerts)
Step 3 – Set Your Preferences
You can 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 Alerts – 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 alert delivery times in your settings, and whether these should be sent in a single email …
(Google Alerts – settings)
You can change these settings at anytime.
You should begin receiving alerts as per 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 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)
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 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 alerts to be delivered via email, you can configure rules in your email application to redirect alerts automatically 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 smart phone or mobile device.
Once you have set up alerts, you can monitor information about topics, your business, competitors, etc., or create content for your business blog in your topic of choice.
How To Republish News Items From Google Alerts On Your WordPress Website
You can publish news items directly from Google Alerts on your WordPress your blog 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, 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 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 useful. If you would like to know more about integrating social media with WordPress, see this article: WordPress And Media Tracking
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