What is Google Alerts?
Google Alerts is one the handiest free tools online for a small business. It has been called an online automated PR system by some, because of what Google Alerts does. Google Alerts are e-mails that are sent to you when Google finds results that match your search terms you have it monitoring. Whether it finds it on websites, blogs, news sites, Google will tell you where your search term was found. You can use to it monitor anything you want on the internet. Some examples of what you can use Google Alerts for are:
- Find out what’s being said yourself or your business
- Keep track of what others are saying about your business or services
- Track keywords
- Track your competitors
- Stay updated on the latest news stories that you’re interested in
- Keep up to date with your favorite sports teams
How Google Alerts Works
When you enter your search terms that you want to receive alerts on, Google will monitor and search for those search terms. You can create up to 1000 alerts for Google Alerts to monitor and search. It will check on a regular basis to see if there are any new results for you. If new results appear, Google Alerts will send the results to you in an e-mail. For some of your search terms, your might not get e-mails every day, this just means no new results have appeared on the internet. It has its basic features to set up your account and there is also an advanced section to help you fine tune your search terms.
The process of setting up Google Alerts can give you valuable insight into popular online content – what people are reading, watching and talking about. If you’re wondering what marketing content you should create to submit to customers, get noticed …
Setting Up Your Google Alerts Account
There are 5 easy steps to begin your Google Alerts account. Once you have done this, you can go in and fine tune your search terms in the advanced options section. The advanced options allow you to choose the delivery rate, set the volume, choose between specific sources, and manage alerts for more than one e-mail address. You have the option of receiving the alerts in regular text format or in HTML. You can even receive alerts in multiple languages if you choose. Below are the 5 simple steps to setting up your Google Alerts.
- Go to: http://www.google.com/alerts
- Search Query: – (Search term) put the search terms you want to have monitored.
- Result Type: – Choose where you want Google Alerts to search
- How Often: – Decide when you want to receive alerts
- How Many: – You can choose all results or only the best results.
- Deliver to: – Choose the email address you want the results sent too.
To learn more about Google Alerts and advanced options visit Google Alerts Getting Started Guide!