Who’s Talking About You and Your Sites?

Wouldn’t it be great to know when others are talking about you or your web sites? Sure, blogs have pingbacks, but unless there is a link, you won’t know about it. Thanks to Google Alerts you can get a daily update whenever your personal name, business or site url is mentioned anyway. I’ve been using Google Alerts for quite a while now, and I’m sure many of you already know about it, but for those who don’t, read on.

Here’s a quick look at Google Alerts and how easy it is to setup

Search Terms: Whatever search term or web site you want to monitor, just fill it in this area.

Type: Comprehensive covers all areas, but you can change this to just target news, blogs, video etc.

How often and Deliver to are self explanatory. You can schedule alerts in real time, daily or weekly.

Once you have an alert setup, you’ll receive email alerts like the following. A link back to https://zacjohnson.com was featured in a post by Jonathan Volk, so I was sent an alert with the url and post title.

It’s Not Just About You!
Sure, Google Alerts works great to find out information about yourself and what others are saying, but it can also be used as a marketing tool. If you are looking to start a new web site or want to keep an eye on the competition, setup alerts and see how they are getting new backlinks and traffic to their web sites.

There’s no limit to how many reports you can setup, and it’s very easy to remove/add new alerts. If you haven’t already, give Google Alerts a try.

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30 Comments

  1. I've been using Google Alerts for over 2 years now, and I absolutely love how powerful it is =D although.. the only bad thing is.. depending what you are monitoring your inbox can get overwhelming if you don't stay on top of the updates, hehe.

    Till then,

    Jean

  2. Google alert is Ok for daily news only some time google alert send you useless links

  5. If they're talking about you then that would be so great..

    You can now consider yourself as a famous…

  6. I'm going to see if this is cool for marketing. Thanks for the heads up on Google Alerts.

  7. Google alerts are also a great way to track rumors about new products in your niche. For example, you know the "Tranbow 6000" is going to be released soon, and you want to blog about any news or rumors. Google Alerts can tell you any time the Tranbow 6000 is mentioned on the web as it is posted (or at least, indexed by Google).

  8. The alerts come to you much like Search Engine results with URL’s and their meta data so you can quickly scan an email and see if you need to further investigate any of the results.With Google Alerts, you can receive email alerts based on any search terms you choose and save yourself valuable time normally spent searching.

  10. This can be used to monitoring competitor backlink and news, nice trick!

    Thank for the idea.

  11. Google alerts is definitely a very powerful tool, whether to “spy” on the opposition, or to be alerted when “people are talking about you”

    There just isn’t any “privacy” in cyberspace, is there now? Hahahah!

  12. I have known about Google Alerts for a while, but I never bothered trying it out. I simply did not see a practical reason for me to use it. Keeping track of when my name or site is mentioned sounds like a great idea. Things like this could easily fall through the cracks if left unmanaged.

  13. I really feel like I am dropping the ball by not taking advantage of Google alerts. I tell myself that I don't want to waste time going through unimportant alerts, but I am missing great link opportunities and valuable insight.

  15. Zac, you should check out Adam Green, He attends my BostonSEO.org affiliate marketing Meetups and started a google alert feature to help you track beyond your brand but for potential sales leads & link partners etc at alertrank.com.

  17. Its overwhelming if a lot of people talks about you specially on your sites. Its good that Google has this kind of alerts.

  18. Another cool tool to keep an eye on competitors is https://www.watchthatpage.com/. This site allows you to see whenever a competitor has changed the content of his page and emails you the changes. For example, put it on your competitor's blog and you are notified by email whenever she adds a new post.

  19. Used Tires, I agree that Google Alerts "can get overwhelming if you don’t stay on top of the updates." However, keep in mind that you can set Google Alerts to email you once per week rather than every day. That can help reduce the emails you receive.

  20. I have several informative websites on various topics. I use google alerts for ideas for new posts on blogs and for new articles on my sites. I don't copy, of course!! It just helps me to get to news stories I can research for future posts.

  21. I have come acorss first time with google alerts and it does sound very good. Its great that it can set for getting email once per week.

  23. I've used google alerts a lot to keep up with news in my blogging "areas" but it often gets overwhelming. Every day I'll open my inbox to another 20 some google alerts emails lol. They can be useful but I definitely recommend using them in ration.

  24. If you are working on any niche than believe me this Google Alert will rock you by providing latest information on your niche and your keywords.

    Combination of Google reader and Google alert is really killing one.

  27. I have come acorss first time with google alerts and it does sound very good. Its great that it can set for getting email once per week.

  28. wow, this is a nice list, very comprehensive, I haven’t start any mailing list yet, but if I do someday I will make sure I use one of your 16 ideas to capture leads and subscriber.

  30. Excellent i've heard of Google Alerts before and i'm of to create my own. How much coverage does it tend to capture??
    My recent post Santander PPI claims

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