At any given point in time, millions of transactions are taking place online. New information is constantly being published on social networks, blogs, and news, and some of that information is related to subjects that interest you.
Is there a free and simple way to access information about what is going on in your niche or industry that can save you time doing research? Yes, there is. It’s called …
Google Alerts
(You can monitor the web for new content with Google Alerts)
Google Alerts is a free, simple and useful tool for keeping up-to-date with the latest news about all kinds of topics, staying informed about people and companies, and tracking what other people are saying about you and your business online.
Google Alerts is not only great for managing your reputation online, but also for automatically receiving information about people, companies, and any subject you want to know about.
With Google Alerts, you subscribe to a keyword or topic and you’re done. Whenever Google’s indexing bots crawl a new web page, press release, blog post, news update, 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 A Google Alert – A Tutorial
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.
(A Google account lets you access great services like Google 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’t receive Google Alerts via RSS, only email).
Once you have logged into your Google Account, access the Google Alerts tool by entering the following URL into your browser:
Step 2 – Set Up Your Alerts
Set up an alert for every topic, business name, person, brand or website address you want to receive updates about. You can track brands, employees, investors, celebrities, competitors, influencers, etc. There are no limits to how many alerts you can set up.
(Google Alerts lets you create as many alerts as you like)
Step 3 – Set Up Your Preferences
Google Alerts lets you specify the keyword(s) 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)
To narrow the source of your alerts, just select an option from the drop-down menu …
(Google Alerts – sources)
You can also specify the delivery time of your alerts in your settings, and if you want to receive all alerts in a single email …
(Google alert 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 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)
Type in 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 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 send all alerts 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 view the information on your smartphone or mobile device.
Once you have set up alerts, you can monitor information about keywords, your business, the competition, etc., or start creating web content about the latest news in your topic of choice.
How To Repost News Items From Google Alerts On Your WordPress Blog
You can display 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 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 publish 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 using social media monitoring tools to monitor social signals, see this article: Social Media Tracking Tools For WordPress
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