Twitter Facebook LinkedIn Flipboard 0 Right now, billions of social transactions are happening online. New content is constantly being published on social media streams, websites, and news sites, and some of that information is related to subjects you are interested in. Wouldn’t it be great if there was a free, easy and simple way to access information about 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, and it’s called … Google Alerts (Google Alerts lets you monitor the web for new content) Google Alerts is a free intelligence service that will send you an email when there are new results for your searches. Google Alerts is not only great for helping you manage your reputation online, but also for sourcing news about people, companies, and any topic you want to know about. With Google Alerts, you subscribe to a keyword or topic and you’re done. Whenever Google’s indexing robots crawl a new web site, blog post, press release, news update, a tweet, video, or any other content related to the topic you’ve subscribed to, it will automatically send you an email or RSS update. How To Set Up A Google Alert Let’s go over the 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 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 to set up your 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: https://www.google.com/alerts Step 2 – Set Up Your Alerts You can set up alerts for every topic, business, person or web address you want to receive updates about. You can keep track of product brands, employees, celebrities, competitors, influencers, investors, etc. There are no limits to the number of alerts you can set up. (Google Alerts lets you create as many alerts as you like) Step 3 – Configure Your Preferences You can 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) If you want to narrow where Google sources the information for your alerts, select the source from the drop-down menu … (Google Alerts – sources) You can also specify alert delivery times 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 can also delete any alerts you no longer want to receive … (Google Alerts – settings) You will begin receiving alerts as set in your preferences … (Receive alerts via email or RSS) If you want Google to send our alerts via email, you can configure rules in your email program to redirect alerts automatically to one or more email folders. This will help to keep your alerts organized and easier to 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 you have set up your alerts, you can track information about topics, names, competitors, etc., or create content|web content on the latest news in your chosen topic. Twitter Tweet Facebook Share Email This article originally appeared on Renee Shupe and has been republished with permission.Find out how to syndicate your content with B2C Author: Connor Brooke Connor is a Scottish financial expert, specialising in wealth management and equity investing. Based in Glasgow, Connor writes full-time for a wide selection of financial websites, whilst also providing startup consulting to small businesses. Holding a Bachelor’s degree in Finance, and a Master’s degree in Investment Fund Management, Connor has … View full profile ›More by this author:ACH Crypto Price Prediction 2022 – Is it a Buy?Lucky Block Partners with Dillian Whyte ahead of Heavyweight Showdown with Tyson FuryNFT Pixel Art – The Best NFT Collections for 2022