Do you want to be aware of what is happening in your sector?
What is said about your brand online?
From the actions of your competitors?
Know if you are being plagiarized or look for content ideas.
Well, for all this and much more, Google Alerts has the answers.
Today I am going to tell you what Google alerts are, and how to configure this service.
And take advantage of all its functionalities to enhance your marketing strategies, in general, and SEO positioning, in particular.
Let’s dive into it.
What is Google Alerts?
Google Alerts is a free tool that crawls the Internet and notifies you of the queries you specify: the name of your brand or your person, essential keywords in your sector, or names of competitors.
In short, you can program specific alerts with the keywords that you are interested in monitoring and receive them periodically by email or to your RSS Feed.
Depending on your needs and goals, configure notifications to arrive daily, weekly, or punctually.
You also have the option to set the exact time the alerts are sent to your inbox.
At the same time, specify additional parameters by clicking the “Show options” button when creating an alert.
Along with the “How often” filter, you can use filters like:
- Sources (with the help of this filter, you can limit the sources you want to track to official news sources, blogs, general web content, videos, forums, etc.)
- Language
- Region (this filter offers the ability to monitor content from a specific country)
- Quantity (“all results” or “only the best results”
- Send to (your email or your RSS Feed)
Most companies use or have used this service at some point, as it provides several significant advantages.
Google Alerts can save you a lot of time by automatically monitoring topics of interest that move around the web.
At the same time, many businesses are missing out on valuable opportunities by not taking full advantage of Google Alerts.
Let’s now look at several use cases of this tool. Maybe some will surprise you…
Google Alert features can benefit your project
Taking into account that each Internet user can make up to 1,000 alerts per Gmail account, you have at your disposal a very powerful tool that will help you boost the growth of your business.
Discover now everything that Google Alerts can do for you.
1. Online reputation management
In the digital age, online reputation management has become a vital part of any business marketing strategy.
Proactively monitoring the name of your brand and your most high-profile employees is an excellent way to take care of your online reputation.
And this is what Google Alerts are designed for.
Wp Suggest OR WpSuggest OR wpsuggest.in OR https://wpsuggest.in/
Simply go to the alerts tool, enter your company name or the names of people on your team (or yours), configure the necessary filters, and monitor all mentions that match your parameters.
Google Reviews
Additionally, Google Alerts will make it easier for you to track Google reviews, both positive and negative.
Spotting negative reviews allows you to react quickly by contacting the customer and addressing the issue.
Likewise, positive reviews work in your favor and you can use them to boost social proof.
All you have to do to stay on top of customer reviews is enter:
[your brand name] + intitle:review
And similar combinations in the search terms window.
2. Protect your content from plagiarism with Google Alerts
Lately, the problem of plagiarism has reached epidemic proportions in many areas.
There is nothing easier than copying someone’s online content and spreading it as if it were your own.
Thanks to Google Alerts, finding and reporting stolen content is no longer a problem.
Create an alert with a verbatim excerpt of your main content.
Once the tool identifies the copied content, you will receive an alert message from Google in your inbox with detailed information about the offending website.
This way, you can automate the plagiarism detection process.
3. Monitoring the competition
Monitoring the competition is as important as active listening and monitoring your brand.
Valuable information about your market is provided to you by monitoring your competitors, you are prevented from potential threats, and you are allowed to stay one step ahead.
For example, what content they create:
site:wpsuggest.in/blog
Or how they work on a specific topic:
seo checklist + site:wpsuggest.in/blog
By knowing the strengths and weaknesses of your “neighbors,” you can grow your business in several ways, including:
- Developing better content than them
- Optimizing SEO results
- Improving segmentation
- Perfecting conversions
- Presenting services that your competitors have recently offered
- Anticipating the movements of your competitors
4. Monitoring of your sector
Customers tend to opt for companies that continually update and improve.
To meet the expectations of your target audience, you can also use Google Alerts.
For example, if you have a sustainable travel business, set your alerts to detect content with the term “SEO checklist.”
Thanks to this monitoring, you will be up to date on aspects of your business that are obtaining greater—or lesser—recognition.
Additionally, Google Alerts helps you detect potential threats that may affect your business, allowing you to prepare and develop an effective “counterstrategy.”
5. Link building
Backlinks continue to be one of the main positioning factors.
With Google Alerts you can work on your link building and, therefore, improve your SEO strategy.
All you have to do is contact the owners of the sites where your brand is mentioned and ask them to insert a link to your website.
Chances are, most of the alerts you receive already contain a link to your site.
Even so, you will surely have the option to scratch some quality backlinks on more than one occasion.
6. Content creation
Creating content is not easy and a little inspiration never hurts.
If you always want to have something interesting to write about in your portfolio, start by monitoring your competitors’ blogs.
Likewise, create alerts with the main topics of your business to be aware of what others publish about it.
For example, if you want to be informed about new articles on the WpSuggest blog, all you need to do is create a Google Alert as follows:
site:wpsuggest.in/blog
Be very careful: we are not talking about plagiarism, but about inspiring yourself and from there, creating something new and unique.
7. Avoid spam
You can create an alert with typical spam keywords.
To do this you can use the search operator: site and OR
site:wpsuggest.in + “seo” OR “backlink”
8. Guest posting opportunities
Find sites that accept guest posting, using the most common keywords.
[topic] + intitle:”guest author”
9. Participate in forums where a topic related to your niche is discussed
By answering your users’ questions, you will be able to position yourself as a reference and who knows if you will gain new followers…
[topic] + site:[google.com] + intitle:(who|what|when|where|how)
If you have the forums in your sector under control, great. If not, turn to sites like Quora or Reddit.
10. Defend your local positioning
Control the entry of new competitors in your area and protect your local SEO strategy.
location:Darbhanga “Travel agency” OR “Tourism agency”
Essential Google Alerts You Should Set Up Right Now
Let’s get to the point.
These are the basic alerts that I recommend you schedule.
1. Alerts related to your brand and your products
If you monitor your brand and your products, you will instantly know both the good and the bad of what is being talked about on the Internet:
So it’s no surprise that people are increasingly using Google Alerts to conduct a brand audit to ensure their marketing efforts are successfully driving conversions, mentions, and links.
The point is that reviews about the quality of your services or the brand, in general, can be published anywhere, making it impossible to keep track of all of it.
Additionally, around 77% of consumers “always” or “regularly” read reviews when looking for a specific service or product, so it’s worth keeping an eye on this.
Ultimately, using Google Alerts is a great way to keep the competition at bay, appease customers with quick responses, and incorporate positive feedback when necessary.
2. Alerts related to mentions of a company’s competitors
Monitoring everything that happens with your brand is not enough to grow your business.
It is also essential that you keep track of your competitors.
Let’s say you launch a new product and Google Alerts tells you that one of your competitors is planning to launch something similar next month.
You can use this information as a great benefit for your business.
As?
In this case, you can accelerate the launch date to become the main player in a certain market area.
3. Google Alerts for mentions of your company’s employees
Google Alerts informs you every time someone mentions your company’s most high-profile employees.
As a result, you will know what they say about your brand and your team.
This way, you will have the opportunity to identify any gaps that need to be addressed.
For example, if someone on your team is mentioned on a website with a negative connotation, you can contact the site owner to give your point of view.
In this way, you improve the reputation of the entire company and minimize possible misunderstandings with the audience.
When Google Alerts may NOT work
Unfortunately, Google Alerts may miss some occurrences of your chosen query that appear in the Google index.
These are the three most common cases:
1. Social media results
Google Alerts is a perfect option for monitoring web pages, but the same does not apply in the case of social networks.
This tool does not monitor Social Media platforms.
Considering that around 72% of the public regularly uses some type of social network, you may miss out on a lot of information necessary for your business.
Therefore, to practice active listening on networks, you must use specialized tools.
2. Low volume of queries
Google Alerts may be governed by an algorithm that doesn’t work very well below a certain search volume threshold.
As a result, you may not receive alerts if the search volume is low.
3. The “best results only” filter
When you set up Google Alerts, you’re asked if you want to receive alerts for “all results” or “only the best results.”
If you select the “best results only” filter, you will receive information about the mentions that Google considers most relevant to your query.
As for the “all results” filter, users have the opportunity to receive information about all mentions of the search query that Google identifies.
By using the “all results” option, you have access to all content.
Monitor this filter so you don’t miss any important information.
Conclusion
Using Google Alerts in your project is a perfect way to improve the quality of the services provided and, therefore, increase customer satisfaction.
After all, this tool not only satisfies the curiosity of tracking your name, but also allows you to monitor your main competitors, monitor mentions of your brand, identify plagiarism, and improve your link-building strategy.
Now that you know what Google Alerts is and how they can help you with your project, it’s time to get to work.
Thanks for Reading.