In a world where information is constantly thrown in our way, it becomes almost impossible to stay connected to what is important and relevant.
For content marketers, for example, keeping an eye on what their competitors and foreign referrals are sharing is essential.
But how do you stay on top of all this?
That’s where Google Alerts comes in!
With this tool, a little underrated, you will be well-informed about the issues you consider relevant.
In addition, it is an incredible tool for getting content ideas, competitor research, and customer visions, among others.
After reading this article, I’m sure you’re going to run to schedule your alerts.
So here we go!
What is Google Alerts?
Google Alerts allows you to monitor content related to the terms or phrases you define.
This way, you can keep track of the most important topics and simply and efficiently spot the content your competitors are posting and what people have been saying about your business, just to name a few of the apps.
Any tool created by Google has as its main goal to make the user’s life easier, whether it is to perform a search and find what they are looking for, or for those who are looking for a better ranking of their pages.
And Google Alerts is no different.
Amid so much content and material on the internet, it’s not always easy, or even possible, to keep up with topics, mentions about your business, or use of certain keywords.
To simplify this, you can use Google Alerts and get everything that matters most to your inbox.
The free feature is fully customizable, always keeping the user experience in mind.
Therefore, you can choose not only the terms or words you want to track, but also the timing of warnings, content types, fonts, languages, and even the location of what has been posted.
This way, you can be well-informed about the key topics that you consider relevant.
In addition, Google Alerts is an amazing tool for getting content ideas, researching competitors, finding out what customers think, and even knowing what they say about a product or service for your business.
How does Google Alerts work?
Google Alerts is a tool that detects content related to the phrases or terms that users choose.
Daily, the tool sends you an email with a list of relevant content that appeared on the Internet with the selected terms.
For example, if you select the term “WpSuggest” whenever some news, blog posts, scientific studies, or other types of content are published on the Internet, you will receive a notification email.
Unbelievable, isn’t it?
What are the advantages of using this tool?
Google Alerts provides the means to track, for example, what they say about your business.
Thus, you can stay on top of the most important topics for the success of your Digital Marketing strategies without having to research each one.
The main advantage of Google Alerts, therefore, is its practicality in bringing news on chosen topics directly to the user.
This way, you can better understand how the public sees your business and, consequently, what marketing actions can be most effective in impacting it.
So, for those who work with a small team, have a tighter marketing budget, or don’t even have a lot of time on their hands, Google Alerts serves as a secretary, compiling all the news on the most interesting topics for the success of your business.
At a time when it is increasingly important to conduct a competitive analysis of who is vying for consumers’ attention and resources, Google Alerts is emerging as an extremely efficient tool.
With the right use, you’ll always be well-informed about your segment.
What are the possible applications of Google Alerts?
Any marketing analyst, whether digital or traditional, needs to keep an eye on what’s happening in their market.
But how to apply Google Alerts features in a Content Marketing strategy?
Here are the main ways to put the tool into practice in your professional routine:
Get Post Ideas and References
Google Alerts is an amazing source of post ideas.
You can find out what people are talking about a certain topic on forums, blogs, and social media, and know what foreign blogs are addressing.
Here at WpSuggest for example, we use a lot of foreign references to create the content of our blog and the use of Google Alerts helps a lot in this task!
Define content for social media
Sometimes we run out of ideas on what to share on social media, right?
A great alternative is to take a look at the lists of content that Google Alerts sent that may be interesting to you.
Monitor your brand
You can place alarms with your brand name, your URL, and even the name of the company.
With that, the opportunity to miss out on what your customers and prospects are talking about your company online is very difficult.
Whether it’s good or bad things.
Enabling a quick response to any complaints and preserving your brand’s reputation!
Analyze the competition
Just like keeping an eye on what people are talking about you online, Google Alerts is great for monitoring your competition’s activity.
So you’ll be able to see what they’re posting or not posting and also what the audience is talking about them.
Attract more visitors
One of the main goals of Content Marketing is to attract leads more naturally to your pages and, therefore, increase the chances of conversion.
With Google Alerts, you can identify the topics that appeal most to users right now, such as questions, problems, and trivia.
This tool allows you to deliver content that is of public interest, increasing the effectiveness of your actions, whether through paid ads or blog posts.
To attract more visitors, the focus should always be on providing a more personalized experience that fits the user’s interests.
How to set up Google Alerts
Now that you know how valuable the Google Alerts tool is for digital marketing, I’m going to show you how to set it up so you don’t miss any relevant content.
Let’s go.
Choosing your keywords
After accessing the Google Alerts dashboard, the first thing you’ll need to do is select which terms you want the GA to alert you.
Enter the term in the search box:
Set up an email
If you’re not signed up for a Google account, you’ll need to set up which email you want alerts to be sent to, and that’s super easy!
Just enter your email address in the “write email” box
By clicking on the “more options” button, you will be able to better configure your alerts.
With these settings, you can determine how often you’ll receive alerts, sources, languages, regions, and whether you want to see all existing results or just the best ones.
After choosing the settings, just click on “create an alert”!
Learn more about keywords and SEO and always stay first in search engines:
Recent News
Even when setting up the alerts, it is now possible to see the latest news about the search term.
Receiving Alerts
Once you’ve set up your alerts, you’ll start receiving emails with lists of content found on the internet according to the terms you’ve specified.
If you’ve selected a lot of keywords and your inbox is getting a little full, you can create a filter for [email protected] email.
With that, all Google Alert emails will be redirected to that filter and you can keep your inbox clean!
What are the alternatives to Google Alerts?
Despite being free and produced by Google itself, the dominant search engine on the internet, Google Alerts has some very efficient competitors in the task of monitoring.
So, in order not to limit your options to a single tool, we’ve separated a few alternatives.
1. Moz
Moz is one of the most efficient tools when it comes to SEO.
In addition to performing a full audit of your pages, this solution allows you to track keyword usage in search engines, giving you several options to further target your marketing efforts.
2. SEMrush
One of the most comprehensive options to help any digital marketer is SEMrush.
From paid advertising strategies to content production, you can find it all in this tool.
In addition, it offers information to increase traffic based on the exhaustive analysis of the most talked about and relevant topics of the moment.
Therefore, Google Alerts can be a very effective tool to make your Content Marketing strategy even more complete and accurate.
After all, monitoring, whether they’re talking about your brand or certain keywords, is critical for better performance.
Now that you’ve learned about one of Google’s many free and powerful tools that can be very useful for your Digital Marketing actions, how about some other options to make your everyday life easier?
Conclusion
I hope this article has helped you stay on top of your market trends and competitors.
Now that you’ve learned about one of Google’s many free and powerful tools that can be very useful for your Digital Marketing actions.
Thanks for Reading.