How to Use Google Alerts to Monitor Your Company's Online Presence

Google offers a free service called "Google Alerts" that marketing professionals can use to monitor the presence of their company online. The services emails you when new web pages are published that are relevant to the search you enter for the alert. It will not catch every single new web page, but it does catch a lot of them, especially the ones from better known websites. For a huge company with a global brand, this service might not work well, since there is probably a lot of content created using your company or brand name. But for a smaller company with fewer mentions or coverage, it works great.

How to Use Google Alerts for Marketing

1. Visit Google Alerts and Complete the Form. At http://www.google.com/alerts there is a simple form you can fill out to get alerts emailed to you about new results for different search terms. Start by putting in your company name, selecting "Comprehensive", "as-it-happens" and your email.


2. Confirm Your Email. Google will send an email to the address you used for the alert. Click on the link in the email to confirm you want the alert.
3. Repeat for More Alerts. You can repeat this process to set up additional alerts. See below for some ideas for different alerts to set up.
4. Create a Google Account to Manage Your Alerts. This step is optional, but recommended. By creating a Google Account you can see all of your alerts on one screen, and can add more alerts, edit your alerts or delete them easily.
Now that you know how to set it up, here are some tips to use Google Alerts like an Expert.