As you read this, billions of data exhanges are happening online. New content is constantly being published on websites, social networks, and news sites, and some of that information is related to topics that interest you.
Wouldn’t it be great if there was a free, simple and easy way to access information about what is going on in your niche or industry that could save you time doing research? Well, there is, and it’s called …
Google Alerts
(You can monitor the web for new content with Google Alerts)
Get a notification when your business is mentioned online, so you can keep up to date on news, social media updates, and websites without having to visit loads of social media and news sites for the latest information.
Google Alerts is not only only a great tool for managing your reputation online, but also for gathering the latest news about people, brands, 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 site, news update, press release, blog post, a video, tweet, or any other indexable content related to that topic, you will automatically receive an email or RSS update.
How To Set Up A Google Alert - Three Simple And Easy Steps
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 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 set up.
(Log into your Google Account to set up your alerts)
You can still set up Google Alerts without accessing your Google Account, but this will give you fewer configuration options (e.g. you can only receive email alerts, not alerts via RSS).
Once you have logged 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, brand or website you would like to receive updates about. You can keep track of product brands, employees, celebrities, investors, competitors, influencers, etc. There is no limit to the number of alerts you can set up.
(Google Alerts lets you set up as many alerts as you like)
Step 3 – Configure Your Preferences And Save
You can specify the keyword or keywords 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 Alerts – 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 like.
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 ‘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.
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 stop receiving alert emails on the topic after unsubscribing.
If you choose to receive alerts via email, you can configure rules in your email application to redirect alerts automatically to one or more email folders. This helps to keep your alerts organized and easier to track and 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 your alerts, you can track information about keywords, brands, competitors, etc., or create web content on the latest news in your topic of choice.
How To Publish News Items From Google Alerts On Your Website
You can republish 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 repost 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 repost 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 helpful. To learn more about using social media monitoring tools to improve your business online, see this article: WordPress And Social Media – Useful Social Tracking Tools
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"If you're new to WordPress, this can stand on its own as a training course and will stay with you as you progress from beginner to advanced and even guru status." - Bruce (Columbus, Ohio)
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