Right now, millions of social interactions are happening online. New content is continually being published on blogs, social streams, and news media, 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 find out what is happening in your industry or niche that could save you time doing research? Well, there is, and it’s called …
Google Alerts
(Google Alerts – free web monitoring service)
Google Alerts is one of the simplest and most useful online tools available for keeping up with the latest news and information about all kinds of topics, staying informed about people and companies, and tracking what other people are saying about you and your business online. It’s also free.
Google Alerts is not only useful for managing your reputation online, but also for automatically sourcing news about people, 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 bots (Googlebot) crawl a new web site, blog post, press release, news update, a video, tweet, or any other content related to that topic, you will automatically receive an email or RSS update.
How To Set Up Google Alerts
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 many 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 have 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 gives you fewer configuration 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 Your Alerts
You can set up an alert for every topic, business name, person or web address you would like to track. This service lets you keep track of brands, names of employees, celebrities, influencers, competitors, investors, 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 – Set Up Your Preferences
You can specify the keyword or keywords you want alerts sent 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)
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 as a single email …
(Google alert settings)
You can change these settings 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 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)
This brings you to the Google Alerts screen. 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.
Deleting Google Alerts
You can stop receiving alerts by deleting them from your account …
(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 no longer receive alert emails on the topic from Google after unsubscribing.
If you choose 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 email folders. This helps 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 view the information on your smartphone or mobile device.
Once your alerts are set up, you can track information about topics, brands, competitors, etc., or create content in your chosen topic.
How To Publish News Items From Google Alerts On Your Site
You can display 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 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 helpful. To learn more about using social management tools to improve your business online, see this article: Social Media Tools For WordPress Users
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"I have used the tutorials to teach all of my clients and it has probably never been so easy for everyone to learn WordPress ... Now I don't need to buy all these very expensive video courses that often don't deliver what they promise." - Stefan Wendt, Internet Marketing Success Group
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