How do people on Google talk about me, comment on my business, and post about a trend? Does it make it difficult for you to follow up-to-date content for all these questions? If your answer is yes, meet Google Alerts.

What is Google Alerts?

Google Alerts is Google’s free service that helps you easily track the activity of content indexed on Google for search terms that suit your purpose and desire. For example, when your name or business is used in online resources, you can easily track these resources by receiving an e-mail from Google Alerts. Being aware of current content quickly will allow you to follow your online reputation and create a quick strategy. Setting goals while determining your strategy will cause you to use Google Alerts more effectively.

Goals you set before using Google Alerts; It may include classifications that improve both your personal and industry reputation, such as following negative comments about your business, being aware of all current content about your competitors and your industry, and following trends about you.

What are the Advantages of Google Alerts?

Google Alerts provides many benefits for marketers, media professionals, business owners and regular users. Therefore, it would be insufficient to describe Google Alerts as just a word tracking tool. So, in which areas does Google Alerts give us an advantage?

Keyword Tracking Feature:

With the simple keyword tracking feature, you can instantly follow the new articles found in the search result by Google for the related word group for the word groups you have determined, on all platforms.

Easy Tracking of Sectoral Competitors:

With Google Alerts, you can quickly access all the details about your competitors. In this way, you can follow the most up-to-date content about your competitors and always aim to gain an advantage in the race to the top.

User Experience Tracking:

Thanks to Google Alerts, you can access the effects of your products or services on users and users’ comments in an up-to-date manner. In this way, a quick response for all negative situations will create a positive perception for the user, while maximizing the user experience. Creating the keywords you follow in the following structure will allow you to customize the user experience tracking for your brand;

“Brand Name” + corrupt

“Brand Name” + bad

“Brand Name” + incorrect

Local Content Tracking:

With the help of Google Alerts, you can follow the queries you follow in the local breakdown. In this way, you can keep up to date with what kind of topics users and competitors are talking about in the local market about you and your business. The keyword structure for local search tracking should be as follows;

“Brand Name” + location

“Your name” + location

“Your Keyword” + location

Blocking Duplicate Content:

Google Alerts will give you a great advantage in preventing duplication of your business and your service and content structure. Google Alerts will notify you if the content you follow and your service are shared in the same way by someone else without your knowledge. In this way, you can take the necessary measures as quickly as possible.

Real Time Data Transmission:

Google Alerts will send you an instant e-mail notification for all mentions of the keyword you follow. When choosing the ‘instant’ option for push notifications, you can change your notification frequency to once a day or once a week.

Customizable Structure:

Google Alerts offers a user experience where you can customize your tracking as you wish, such as frequency of notifications, identifying resources to follow, language and region. In this way, you can perform the most suitable web tracking for you.

Capturing Backlink Opportunities:

You can create a backlink strategy with the works you will do specifically for the people and institutions talking about you. In this way, backlink studies that you will do in areas that are interested in you and that will have a high return in terms of users will contribute to your individual and business benefits.

How to Install Google Alerts Step by Step?

Step 1:

To create a Google Alerts alert, we first need to go to the “Google Alerts” extension.

Step 2:

You can start creating alerts by typing the search term you want in accordance with your purpose and goal on the Google Alerts page. When you type the search term, you will see a Google Alerts alert preview specific to that word.

We have determined the keyword “sem internet” as a search term, so when a content containing “sem internet” is shared specifically for Google, we will be informed about it via e-mail.

Step 3:

With Show options, we can customize our word tracking process.

“How often? We can receive notifications by e-mail as “instantly”, “once a day at the most”, “once a week at the most” by changing the structure of “.

You can choose the platform you want to follow by changing the “source” structure. In this way, you will have more customized notifications. If you are not sure exactly which platform you want to follow, you can choose the “automatic” option.

By changing the “language” structure, we can customize the language content of the word you want to follow.

By changing the “region” structure, you can specify which local region content you want the word you want to follow to be followed.

“How many?” You can customize which search result you want the word you want to follow by changing its structure.

Step 4:

Finally, you can create the alert by typing your e-mail address where you want the notification to be sent.

How to Delete Google Alerts Alert?

You can easily remove a Google Alerts alert you follow. Let’s see how you can do it together;

– Open the Google Alerts page and go to my alerts.

– Click the “DELETE” button that appears right next to the alert you want to delete.

– You can also cancel your notification subscription via the e-mail you receive a warning.

At the same time, you can customize your alerts again after creating an alert.

Google Alerts Tips !

You can create multiple Google alerts about your brand and you.

sem internet,

sem internet data,

sem internet seo,

sem internet advertisement,

sem internet performance….

Customize your word tracking using intitle so you can track searches that match your target. [Your Name/Brand Name] + intitle:”xx”

[sem internet] + where

[sem internet] + seo

[sem internet] + admin

In this way, you can create more than one Google alert about your brand and you, as I just mentioned.

Google Alerts only allows you to create up to 1000 alerts.

You can easily exclude a phrase by using a hyphen (-) in front of your search term. For example, adding [- “Digital Marketing”] to the search box will exclude results that contain the phrase digital marketing.

A tide (~) in front of the search term will give you synonyms and similar findings related to your search term.

With Google Alerts, you can create alerts only for certain domains. All you have to do is type the site URL you want to search and your preferred keyword. For example “site:semtr.com + blog”. This will help you to monitor all the results related to the blog on the web site.

We should avoid adding too many alerts when creating alerts. Sending all incoming alerts from the same source for each word we follow may cause incoming alerts to be marked as “Spam”. For this reason, it will be sufficient to create around 5-10 warnings at the beginning.

You can prevent spam by choosing “Only top results” instead of “All results”. All results provide information from low quality sites, so it is better to get the best results.

Finally, filter your email or create a folder for Google Alerts. Redirect all your information to this special folder to clear your inbox clutter.

Don’t Expect These From Google Alerts

Google Alerts is a great tool to track your business and any mentions on your behalf and gain valuable insights. But Google Alerts also has its limits. There are a few things you can’t expect from Google Alerts:

Analysis and Report: Google Alerts does not provide you with any analysis. It helps you track when the brand and your name are mentioned online. However, it cannot show you how often your brand is mentioned online.

Social Media Results: Google Alerts is not ideal for monitoring social media results. You need to use different social listening tools to monitor the results.

Prepared by: Bugra Tan

Author