If you're not familiar with Google Alerts or haven't used them before, we'll introduce you to the wonderful benefits of this tool from the search giant. It allows you to find mentions of your name or product on the internet and receive notifications about them via Email.
Google Alerts: The Magic Tool for Every Individual, Marketer and Content Writer
Google Alerts is a powerful and highly useful tool in the fields of digital marketing and content writing. You can leverage it in several ways to enhance your performance. In this article, we will explain this free tool from Google, how it works, and how it can assist you in performing various tasks.
What are Google Alerts?
Google Alerts is a free tool from Google that functions as a personal online monitor, working around the clock. You simply notify it of a keyword of interest, and it will send everything published on the internet about that keyword or phrase to your email.
How to Use Google Alerts:
Easily, you can visit the link Google.com/alerts, then sign in with your Google account, and type the alert you want in the provided box.
How do I create a Google alerts?
You can enter your name or anything you want to receive notifications about when searched for online or on a specific website.
Google Alerts helps you monitor news, blogs, web notifications, videos, books, and financial news. It can send valuable alerts to your email or via RSS.
No doubt, many ideas are circulating in your mind right now. This simple tool can literally provide assistance and deliver outstanding results, enabling you to outperform your competitors.
When was Google Alerts launched?
This tool was launched in 2003, and since then, it has become essential in many fields. There are many websites and companies trying to compete with it using similar tools, whether free or paid, such as Ahrefs' Alerts tool.
Although this tool was initially used by professionals in the field of journalism, over time, marketers and content writers discovered its value and began relying on it extensively. This tool was not specifically launched for any particular category.
What are Google Alerts and how do they work?
Google Alerts works easily by tracking the keywords you specify and notifying you via email according to the schedule you choose, and the wonderful thing is that it's free.
How can you benefit from Google Alerts in your work as a digital marketer or in SEO?
Despite the simplicity of how this tool works and understanding it, the secret lies in how to use it effectively. This service plays a crucial role in the success of your social media strategy, provides strong support for your marketing strategy, and offers new content ideas.
It also helps you monitor your competitors and provides an opportunity to improve your website's ranking in Search Engine Results, among many other benefits.
The most important uses of the Google Alerts tool:
Certainly, there are numerous uses for Google Alerts, and compiling them all into one article is extremely difficult, if not impossible. So, in this article, we will highlight the uses we consider most important and impactful for us as digital marketers, content writers, or website owners.
1. Monitoring New Content Relevant to Your Target Keywords
This is one of our top priorities and a crucial use case. By setting up alerts for keywords that matter to you, or fall under your specific niche, you can keep track of the latest trends and topics of interest to your audience.
For example, we focus on keywords like digital marketing, online profit, entrepreneurship, or even your personal name. By activating alerts for these keywords, we can stay informed about the latest developments in these areas.
For instance, how to phrase it:
- "What is the best [product name]?"
- "I need [product]"
- "I need [product]"
- "What [product] do I need?"
- "What is a good [product]?"
- "What is a cheap [product]?"
- "What is the cheapest [product]?"
- "What is the best [product]?"
- "Where should I buy [product]?"
- "Where can I get a good [product]?"
- "Where should I purchase [product]?"
- "What are some great [products]?"
- "What is the top [product]?"
Problem-solving query sets for products:
- "How do I/you"
- "How can I/you"
- "I need a"
2. Monitoring Competitors and Understanding Their Strategies
It is crucial for website owners and business professionals to monitor their competitors' activities in order to outperform them and avoid being outperformed. The competitive environment has become fierce these days.
This task, which should be performed almost daily, can be challenging, especially if you have limited time and many other tasks to attend to. However, there is a tool that makes this process easier and saves time – Google Alerts. This tool allows you to easily track the latest news and activities of your competitors by simply creating an alert using links to their websites.
For example, you can monitor:
- Spelling errors in the competitor's name
- Spelling errors in URL addresses
- The domain name
- Spelling errors in the domain name
site:moz.com/blog OR site:buzzstream.com/blog
3. Monitoring User Discussions About Your Website, Brand, or Products
Sometimes, it's crucial to monitor what individuals are saying about you, especially if you offer products or services. Tracking customer comments online allows you to address issues and improve your service quality.
You can easily do this by using Google Alerts. All you need to do is create an alert using your product names, company logo, or the topics you want to monitor. You will periodically receive emails containing links to websites where the specified names were mentioned. There are ways to make better use of Google Alerts.
For example, if you are interested in the quality or prices of your products, you can set the alert to include words like "quality," "price," "expensive," or any other relevant terms. This way, the links you receive will contain more relevant information, saving you a lot of time and effort.
Example of how to write a Google Alerts notification:
SEO + site:growthhackers.com + intitle:(who|what|when|where|how)
4. Getting External Backlinks for Your Website
Backlink, or simply a link back, is one of the key factors website owners aim to obtain. Backlinks play a crucial role in improving a website's quality and ranking in search engines. They are also known as external SEO or Off-Page SEO.
Manually tracking all websites for links pointing to your site can be quite challenging. This is where Google Alerts comes into play; it's a fantastic tool that simplifies this task. You can set up an alert for your website's name to receive notifications about any new site that links to your name.
This way, you can verify whether someone has added a link to your site. If they haven't, you can reach out to them and ask them to include the link. You'll find this much easier than convincing them to start a backlinking process from scratch. It's straightforward; all you need is a link to your site. This way, you get a new backlink pointing to your site, boosting your ranking in search engine results, thanks to Google Alerts.
5. Carefully Monitor Your Digital Products or Unauthorized Use
If you offer digital products like online courses, e-books, or software, it's crucial to monitor them closely. You should combat any unauthorized use of these products.
Google Alerts can make this task much easier for you. Simply set up an alert containing the name of the product you offer, such as the name of the PDF book you sell or the name of the free online course you provide.
Thanks to this alert, you'll receive email notifications about any unauthorized attempts to sell or distribute your products. This enables you to address these attempts and successfully protect your products.
6. Explore Guest Post Opportunities for Your Website
Opportunities for guest posts are considered one of the common terms when thinking about improving search engine performance. It's a way to acquire external backlinks, but through a mutually beneficial agreement.
It's called a "guest post" because you write an article or post for another website in your field. In return, you include a link back to your site, whether it's for a specific article on your site or for the homepage.
Finding these opportunities involves setting up alerts within your niche or topics of interest. You follow these alerts with a phrase indicating that websites are open to receiving guest posts, like "write for us" or "guest post."
For example, you can set up an alert like "your topic of interest + write for us" or "your website niche + guest post."
7. Correct Duplicate Content and Other Indexing Errors on Your Site
Sometimes, Google indexes pages from your site that you don't want to be indexed. These could be pages with duplicate content, outdated or irrelevant content, or limited URL parameters. There are also numerous ways that can lead to duplicate content, which weakens your keyword rankings and tarnishes your online presence. Setting up alerts can help you address these indexing errors before they become a real issue.
To set up an alert, first identify a common URL pattern among all the unwanted pages. (This will vary based on the URL structure, so you'll need to identify it yourself.)
For example, it's common for a website to register duplicate content on search engines when the content from the same page appears under slightly different URL addresses, like this:
Sitename.com/keyword-1/
Your site name.com/article-category/keyword-1/
Important tips for using Google Alerts effectively
Here are some tips I've personally tested regarding Google Alerts, and their effectiveness has become evident. Let me share them with you:
1. Make full use of Google Alerts: You can create up to 1000 alerts, so don't limit yourself to just one. Use multiple, specific alerts to get the best results.
2. Choose specific keywords: When tracking a specific topic or term, try to select precise keywords. This will prevent irrelevant links from showing up.
3. Utilize Google Alerts filters: Google Alerts offers various customization options such as frequency, sources, language, and more. Use these filters to obtain specific results.
4. Track spelling errors: Sometimes, keywords containing spelling mistakes can yield good results, especially if people commonly misspell them. Rely on this in certain cases.
In summary, Google Alerts is a powerful tool that can be used in marketing and content writing. It's user-friendly and can be beneficial for anyone, regardless of their digital marketing skills.
