Right now, billions of data exhanges are happening online. New information is continually being published on news, blogs, and social media networks, and some of that information is related to subjects that interest you.
Wouldn’t it be great if there was a simple and easy way to find out 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
(You can monitor the web for new content with Google Alerts)
With Google Alerts, Google will send you free alerts whenever your business is mentioned online, so you can keep up to date on blogs, news, and social media conversations.
Google Alerts is not only only a great tool for helping you manage your reputation online, but also for automatically gathering the latest news about people, companies, and any other topic you are following.
With Google Alerts, you subscribe to a keyword or topic and you’re done. Whenever Google’s bots index a new web site, news update, press release, blog post, a tweet, video, or any other indexable content related to that topic, you will automatically receive an email or RSS update.
How To Set Up Google Alerts - 3 Simple And Easy Steps
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 just one username and password. If you use Gmail, post videos to YouTube, run 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 Google alerts)
You can still set up Google Alerts without a 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 here:
Step 2 – Set Up An Alert
Set up alerts for every topic, business name, person or website you would like to track. You can track brands, names of employees, competitors, influencers, investors, celebrities, etc. There is no limit to the number of alerts you can set up.
(Set up 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 sent 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 the source of your alerts, just select an option from the drop-down menu …
(Google Alerts – sources)
You can also specify alert delivery times in your settings, and if you want to receive all alerts as a single email …
(Google Alerts – settings)
You can change these settings at anytime.
You should 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
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 ‘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 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, you can configure rules in your email application to automatically redirect all alerts to one or more email folders. This helps to keep your alerts organized and easier to track and sort through.
If you choose to receive alerts 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 your alerts, you can track information about keywords, businesses, competitors, etc., or start creating web content about the latest news and updates in your chosen topic.
How To Repost News Items From Google Alerts On Your Site
You can repost news items directly from Google Alerts on your WordPress your WordPress 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 display 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 post has been useful. To learn more about using social management tools to monitor social signals, see this article: WordPress And Social Media Measurement
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