If you are a blogger, writer, or business owner, Google alerts might be a very use full tool for you.
If you want to know what is going on around a particular product or industry, what would you do? Or suppose you want to know something about a particular topic what would you do?
I guess you would search about it in a search engine like Google and would explore your topic or product or industry. Right?
There is no problem at all. Most people do the same. Whenever I want to know about something, I also search for it on Google.
But what if you get a tool where you get alerts about your topic automatically in your email box if something new publishes on the internet? Sound good. Right?
So let’s understand Google Alerts which is an amazing tool to explore new results on the internet.
What is Google Alerts and How Does it Work?
Google Alerts is a service or you can say tool which is offered by Google. It detects new results on the web and sends you emails about the content or new results which are published on the internet. These results may be news, blogs, articles, video, etc.
And if you are using this service and have created alerts about any specific topic, you will get emails about your topic.
The type of content and frequency of getting emails will depend on the settings you do. There are multiple settings while creating your alerts, that I will discuss in detail in this article.
For example: As you can see in the above image, I have created an alert about WordPress hosting. And that is why I have received emails about that particular topic.
It is very helpful to me to be updated about the topic if something new result is on the web. You can create alerts about a single topic and you can add multiple topics also.
Creating a Google alert is very simple which I will also discuss in detail in this article.
What are the Benefits of Google Alerts?
There are multiple benefits of this service. You can use this service according to your need. For example, if you are a business owner and want to be aware of a product, you can create an alert about that particular product.
Or you are a blogger and want to know about some topics. You can create alerts about those topics and Google will send you an email notification about those topics if there will be any new results on the web.
It will help you to know what other people are publishing around those topics and you will be aware of that.
Or
Suppose you are a person who wants to know your competitors regularly. Then this tool can very help full for you.
In my view here are examples of some of the areas of the benefits of Google alerts:
- Explore and monitor specific topics.
- News
- Get awareness about a particular products
- Be up to date about your industry or other specific industry.
- Know Your Competitors
- Helpful in Learning
The above are only some examples and there might be many other benefits of it. It is up to you what is your goal and how are you utilizing the Google alerts.
Let’s have an example to explore it in detail:
Mr. Aman is a blogger and writes about Whatsapp and other social media apps on his blog. he wants to know and be updated about what is going on about Whatsapp and other social media apps.
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Now he has the option he does searches on the regular basis. And he monitors all the news or facts about them so that he can be updated himself. But it will consume a lot of time.
However, if he uses Google alerts, somewhere his work can be easy and he can save a lot of time. He can create alerts about specific topics like WhatsApp and other particular social media apps.
If he does the same, he will get alerts (the content publishes on the web) about his topics in his email box. He can check his email easily and regularly and know the alerts.
Steps to Create Google Alerts
The process to create Google alerts and settings are very easy. Just open your Google search and type Google Alerts. Normally, you will get it on the top of the search result page.
You need to click on it and you will be redirected to the main page. If you have a Gmail account, you sign in to the account. But in case, you don’t have an account you can create a new account.
Might be you may have multiple Gmail accounts, then you can link an account of your choice.
When you reach the Google alerts page, you will have the option to Create Alerts.
As you can see there is a search bar on the page. You just type your topic and click on the Create Alerts button. An alert about your topic will be created.
But, just hold on and avoid doing it so quickly. First of all, you type your topic on the search bar and click on Show Options
When you will click on the Show Options button, you will have some settings options. And you must do it. As you can see in the above image where there are multiple settings about the topic.
There are the following settings areas where you need to pay attention and do as per your requirements.
- How Often: In this setting, there are three options. (1) As it Happens, (2) At most once a day, (3) At most once a week. Now it is up to you which option you select. You can select the first option if you want it “As it happens”. If you want Google to send you emails once a day you can select the second option – “At most one a day”. And if don’t want a notification every day, you can also select the third option which is “At most once a week”.
- Sources: There is the option to select the sources also. You can select one or multiple sources about your topic. For example, if you want to get an alert about only Video results, you can select Video. Or you can select News, Blog, Video, or whatever options you want to select. Or you can also select the option of Automatic.
- Language: In this option, you need to select the language.
- Region: In this case, you need to set up the region.
- How Many: Here are two options. (1) Only the best results, (2) All results if you want all the results you can select the second option, and if want only the best result you can select Only the best results.
- Deliver To: Here, your email id will be shown. You will get all your alerts on the given email id.
After doing all the settings, you just need to click on the Create Alerts button. After this process, an alert will be created on that particular topic that you entered in the search bar.
Now if you want to create alerts about more topics, you can add multiple topics in the same way.
How to Edit Google Alerts?
Suppose you have created alerts about three topics. But later you realized that you have done some mistakes while creating it and want to do some changes.
But don’t worry, you can edit it also. Just open your google alert account and edit it. Let’s have a look at the below image. There are two icons on the front of each topic.
The first is a pencil icon and the second one is a Trash box. If you want to delete any particular topic, you just click on the trash box. And your alert will be deleted about that topic.
But if you want to only edit, you click on the pencil icon from the topic you want to edit. After clicking on the pencil icon, a particular topic will be opened along with the settings option.
As you can have a look at the above image. After editing the alert, you click on the Update alert button.
So, in this way you can edit or delete your particular topic in Google alerts.
Conclusion
Google Alerts is a very nice tool and you can utilize it for your personal growth and business growth as well. It totally depends on you what kind of goals you have.
Whether you want to learn something or want to grow your business, if use it well, it can be very fruitful for you.
One thing that I have noticed is that it is very helpful for researching your industry and monitoring it as well.
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