As you read this, there are millions of interactions taking place online. New information is continually being published on blogs, news, and social media streams, and some of that information is related to topics you are interested in.
Wouldn’t it be great if there was a free, easy and simple way to know what is going on in your industry or niche so that you are not wasting a huge amount of time doing research? Well, there is. It’s called …
Google Alerts
(Google Alerts – free web monitoring service)
Google Alerts lets you monitor the web when your company is mentioned online.
Google Alerts is not only great for helping you manage your reputation online, but also for automatically gathering the latest news about people, brands, companies, and any other subject 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 crawl a new web page, press release, news update, blog post, a video, tweet, or any other content related to the topic you’ve subscribed to, you will automatically receive an email or RSS update.
How To Create A Google Alert
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. Google 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 own a GooglePlus page, then you should already have a Google account set up.
(Use your Google Account to access dozens of services like 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 by entering the following URL into your web browser:
Step 2 – Set Up An Alert
Set up alerts for every topic, business, person or website you want to track. You can track brands, employees, influencers, competitors, investors, celebrities, etc. There are no limits to how many alerts you can set up.
(Create as many alerts as you like with Google Alerts)
Step 3 – Set Your Preferences And Save
You can specify the keyword or keywords you want 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 alert preferences)
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 the delivery time of your alerts in your settings, and whether these should be sent as a single email …
(Google Alerts – settings)
All of these settings can be changed 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
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 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 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 want alerts to be delivered via email to your inbox, you can configure rules in your email application to automatically redirect all alerts to one or more folders. This will help 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 alerts, you can monitor information about keywords, your business, competitors, etc., or start creating content for your blog in your chosen topic.
How To Publish News Items From Google Alerts On Your Blog
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 repost news items from Google Alerts as a blog post, do the following:
Configure 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 display 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. To learn more about integrating social media with WordPress, see this article: 25+ Social Media Measurement Tools For Business Owners
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