Short Guide on How To Set Up and Use Google Alerts

For the longest time, Google has been ruling the search, indexing and advertising markets. It has, for the most part, laid out all tips and tricks for businesses to rank first in its search engine. From Google Ads to Google Alerts, Google has so many tools to help you boost your online presence – thus boosting your business.

Google Alerts is the ultimate way to know when somebody uses your or your business’s name to search or acknowledge any particular product, service or information. With Google Alerts, these searches reach the business owner, enabling them to understand their target audience and also the related audiences who search their brand name for other purposes.

Google Alerts has several benefits, and I am going to explain how they could impact your business. These tactics will require you to invest some time into research because every business is different and requires a different approach.

I will first assist you in how to set up Google Alerts and then discuss its usage and importance. Let’s begin!

1. Go to Google.com/alerts.
2. Type the search term and Google will give you a preview of the results.

3. Then, click on “Show Options.” This will give you filters for the settings of the alerts you want to receive in your mail.

These filters address things like the frequency with which you want to receive alerts (for example, as it happens, once every week or once a day), and this will depend on your business. If you think people will search it often, you might go for the “as it happens” option. Otherwise, you might opt for once daily.

Then comes the “Sources” options. These can be chosen according to your business. You will figure out where your keyword is going to appear the most, but you can also leave it as automatic if you are unsure.

Choose your language and the region accordingly, then choose between “only the best results” or “all results.” Lastly, provide the email address you want to receive your alerts to.

4. Click “Create Alert.”

Setting up is as simple as could be, and this service from Google is absolutely free. Make as much use of it as you need to track down your name, product and service searches on the internet.

The “Search Keyword” section is where you can experiment. You can search for syntaxes of Google Alerts on the web, and these will guide you on how Google Alerts can find so many things related to you and your profession. This tiny search box can do more than you can imagine. Plus, the service is entirely free, so why not use it to its full benefit?

Now that you know how to set up Google Alerts for yourself, let’s look at the Google Alerts feature and its benefits more closely.

Monitor Your Mentions on Other Pages

When your brand stands out, people tend to cite you as an example in their articles, blogs, or anywhere else on the web. You could use Google Alerts to be made aware of this, and get valuable insight into the people using your name. 

Also, you should make sure that, when your name is used online, it is linked to your website or respective sources. This will boost your rankings, as you will get organic backlinks to your website. 

So, when Google alerts you to the usage of your keyword, you could track down whether your link is present or not. If not, you could request the creator to add your links in the present article and in future ones, too. This can be done by sending a request mail and making your existence on the web known.

Keep Track of Negative Reviews

You have an enormous crowd to please but the harsh truth is that you cannot please everyone. Chances are high that you have a couple of negative reviews written out there written about you. Often, these reviews are useful to improve your business, but sometimes they are not. 

Google reviews are still the most trusted reviews on the internet. Google authenticates before posting the review. So, if you can monitor these reviews, Google can help you authenticate them and, thus, you can have some control over your online reviews.

When you set up Google Alerts, it will pick up any mentions of your name. So, when you receive a mail alert, try to find the root of the keyword usage and determine whether it could be attached to a negative review. If it is, you can respond to it to protect your online reputation, or report it if it turns out to be a fake review.

Get Into the Competition

You can spy on your competitors and see what they are doing to stay ahead in your race. When you set up Google Alerts for your products/services keywords, you will receive alerts for your competitors as well. Analyze those links and see what you can do to boost your business. It may be a small event like just changing SEO words or targeting the right audiences, but the main point is that you will almost certainly learn something useful from them. 

These reverse searches will also let you find out if, when your competitors mention their competitors, they are mentioning you. This helps you know how your presence is perceived in the real-world market. You can also find out whether the market thinks of you as a threat or not, and learn what you can do to get in the competition.

Avoid Spam and Website Hacks

Spam and website hacks are enormous trouble these days. Often, people randomly inject sites with spammy keywords or links. If these things go unnoticed, they can be a great security threat to your website, so it is better to get rid of them immediately.

Google Alerts can be set to protect your site from malicious links and SEOs. This can be done easily by setting a Google Alert for the words that you think promote spam or wrong SEO words. You could browse the internet for the list of those words, and then set Google alerts to “only for your site.” This will help you in getting information when any malicious hacker attacks your site.

Answer Questions Related to Your Business

Set up a Google Alert for something like this:

[topic] + site: [forumname.com] + intitle:(who|what|when|where|how)

This way, you can find out the questions people are asking and answer them on your website, raising your rankings and increasing your web presence. When you answer your target audience, they learn to believe in you. Even Google acknowledges this by giving you a boost in rankings.

So, answer the queries of your prospects and invite customers to your page by providing the right links. You could even try to ask customers to come down to your office if they have complicated queries. This customer relationship will take you a long way ahead of the competition.

Read Blogs Related to Your Topics

Bloggers are trending and are becoming excellent influencers. You could track down blogs written on your business topics and ask the bloggers to link your page in the relevant articles. You’re a business, and promotion is the best way to boost your sales. What better way to do it than by having relevant people recommend it? You could include a site name and “blog” as the keyword, or your own keyword plus “blog” to get a list of blogs on your niche.

You can also be cited in these blogs by letting people know of your existence. Also, participate in forums that are related to your niche. Google Alerts are letting you know where your presence is needed, so just go there and show yourself!

Avoid Theft

Yes, Google alerts can help you avoid threats and theft to your website, especially if your website is an eCommerce one. 

For example:

[Use brand] + “product name” + (download|torrent) -site: yourdomain.com. 

This will help you track down if your site or its products are linked in any other suspicious way. 

Once you track the page down, you can report it or disavow the link that is pointing to your site or products. The right action at the right time can save you from major mishappenings.

To conclude

Everything listed above is just some of the benefits that you can get from Google Alerts. You can definitely play around with keywords and settings to get even more out of it. 

With time, you may find some limitations with Google Alerts, but at the very least it will give you an idea of where your business stands in its industry. If you use the complete Google Suite, there is nothing that can stop you. 

Of course, these things take time but, in the end, your efforts will pay off. Being ranked first on the first page by Google is like winning an Oscar – and Google provides you with all the tips and tricks necessary to get in that top spot. All you have to do is learn how these tools work.

Google Alerts have been proven beneficial for many businesses, chiefly because of its ability to help you track your competitors. Don’t waste this opportunity – use Google Alerts as another way to grow your business and see your profits soar.