Keeping track of your competitors online with Google Alerts

A really simple free way of keeping track of what your competitors are doing online is Google Alerts.

Google Alerts is a notification service that will email you on any topic (based on keywords) that you want.

You can find out:

• What your competitors are doing online.
• Keep track of your brand - find out if others are talking about you.
• Ensure that Google is picking up and indexing your latest blogs.
• Be aware of changing that are happening in your industry.

You can set up Alerts to email you immediately (your brand, your name), daily or weekly. The best thing about Google is that it is automatic, a quick review of your inbox will provide you with the vital information you need.

Setting Up Google Alerts

Step 1.

You will need a Google account - if you have installed Google Analytics, Adsense, Webmaster Tools you will already have a Google account. You sign in at the Google home page.

Step 2:

Login to your Google account or create a new one.

Step 3:

Select Alerts from the My Products section:

Step 4:

Complete the form and click Create Alert.

Use quotes to restrict the search so that you limit the search.

Comprehensive  will search news, blogs, web and videos.

How often: Some things you will want to know right away, others it would be better for a summary once a week.

All done!

As a note, it is better to have many alerts with tighter search terms than a global search term. After a couple of weeks you may want to review your alerts to concentrate on better alert notifications by amended the search terms and  frequency.