Google Alerts – what it is and how to set it up

Want to know everywhere on the internet your company is mentioned? Or your product? Some particular subject? Google Alerts is one of the most popular free business tools available online, and it lets you do exactly that.

Google describes it as "a content change detection and notification service offered by the search engine company Google. The service sends emails to the user when it finds new results — such as web pages, newspaper articles, blogs or scientific research — that match the user's search term."

Why use Google Alerts?

It allows simple keyword monitoring. You will be able to track any keyword across the sources Google monitors. That means blogs, forums, news sites and the wider web. It covers YouTube too, since Google owns the platform.

Google Alerts sends every mention of those keywords to your email inbox. You can also view them at any time at google.com/alerts.

Google lets you choose how often you receive them. One option is to get them as they happen. As soon as your keywords appear online, you will be told about it (by email). You can also choose to receive all your mentions once a day or once a week.

What, unfortunately, Google Alerts does not offer

You will not get results from social media. If you want to know what is being said on social networks, you will need another tool for that. And given how important social media marketing is, that may matter to you a good deal.

Alerts will show you no analytics or reports. Alerts are far simpler and there is no platform or app to sign into. Which is fine for basic campaigns, or if all you need is to see where you were mentioned.

It is not ideal, though, if you want to know how often you are talked about, whether that number is rising, or if you want a whole range of other interesting monitoring analytics.

How to set up Google Alerts

Creating useful Google alerts is very simple. It works like this:

1. Go to google.com/alerts. Make sure you are signed in with the Google account you want to use.
2. Choose your keywords and try to make them unique. Then click "Show options"
   
3. Choose the frequency. Here the real choice is "in real time or when I have the time?" To receive alerts almost in real time, choose "As-it-happens".
4. Choose your sources. Google Alerts does not cover social media, but you can choose whether to follow news, blogs, video or even books.
5. Choose the language. If only one particular language matters to you, you have the option of picking it.
   
6. Choose the region. Useful if your brand is present only in particular countries, or if you are expanding into new markets.
7. Choose the number of results. You can choose whether you want all results or want Google to pick the most important ones.
8. Choose the email address the alerts should go to.
9. Press Create Alert and you are done!

One of the key advantages of Google Alerts is precisely how simple they are to create. As you can see, it is a few clicks and you are finished!