Benefits of Google Alerts for tracking brand mentions
Launched in 2003, Google Alerts has become one of the most popular tools for monitoring brand mentions on the web. It allows you to track comments or reviews about both your company and your competitors. When a new mention appears online, the program sends notifications to your email.
How to set up Google Alerts
Setting up alerts is very easy, which is an added bonus. Even users with limited experience can quickly learn how to use the service.
Setup steps:
- In the programme, you need to enter the query you want to track.
- Next, select the update frequency, e.g. once a day, once a week or when new results appear.
- You need to specify the type of results. They can be news items, mentions in blogs, forums or videos.
- Choice of localisation: the country in which you want to track mentions and the language.
- The software allows you to choose whether you want to see all the results or only the best ones.
- The last step is to enter an email address to receive notifications. Please note that you must set up your email using Gmail.
The service is then ready to use. It will begin sending periodic notifications to the email address you provide, according to the terms you specify.
How to use G-Alerts
Google Alerts allows you to see how consumers perceive the brand and, if necessary, develop measures to improve the image. But this is not the only way you can use Google Alerts. You can use it to track your competitors and learn from their experiences. The service can alert you to market news, such as the launch of a new advertising strategy by another company. This gives professionals valuable tools to improve their marketing activities.
Tracking malicious links is another way you can use Google Alerts. Hackers can insert these into a website’s code to hack it. Such links can’t always be detected in time. In this case, Google Alerts will be an additional tool for responding to such threats.
The service opens up new opportunities for guest posting. In Google Alerts, you can search for sites that post external links using keywords such as “become an author”. This can help you find different exchanges that can help you improve your site’s position in the search engine.
Another non-obvious way to use Google Alerts is to generate content creation ideas. The service can help you find unique topics for publications your competitors have not yet used. It can also detect plagiarism in existing articles and take steps to mitigate the damage.
As well as the benefits, Google Alerts has its drawbacks. For example, an experienced marketer may find it lacks the functionality for in-depth analysis. However, as an additional tool, this service is perfect for the tasks at hand.
