Google Alerts notifications: why you absolutely cannot live without them

In fact, with it, you get a notification when someone says something about you on their website and mentions you. Perfect for your SEO, your online reputation and your authority.

I like to explain to you the what it is, how to set up these notifications and give you 5 reasons why you should absolutely set up Google Alerts.

What is Google Alerts?

Google Alerts is a service from Google that sends you a notification (email) to an email address you enter when a word or set of words is used online in Google's search results.

As a brief example, when someone uses my name "Daniel Kuipers" or my company name "Online Marketing Agency" in a blog, I get a notification about it.

The service is completely free to use and setting it up is a piece of cake. I'll explain how to do it now.

How do you set up Google Alerts?

Before we set up the Google Alerts, I want to give you a little assignment: Think about what words/ terms/groups of words would be interesting for you to get a notification about.

For example:

• Your company name
• Your first and last name
• Name of your product
• Name of your service
• Name / product / service of your competitors
• Important terms in your industry

Make a list of all those terms so that we now add them together in Google Alerts.

Step 1: Go to https://www.google.nl/alerts and log in to your Google account (if you don't have one, you need to create one first).

Step 2: Under "Make a report about," enter a word or phrase.

Step 3: Click "Show Options" and set it all to your liking.

Step 4: Repeat step 2 and step 3 until you have had all your words.

Step 5: Click the gear wheel to the right to 'My notification' to adjust the delivery time and summary.

And how do you turn off the notifications again?

You may not use the notifications, they may no longer be relevant or you may simply want to use different words.

Editing or deleting a Google Alert can be done by clicking the pencil icon to the right of the words you entered.

5 reasons why you should set up Google Alerts

In the intro I already gave a few brief reasons why you should set up a Google Alert, I want to go into that in more detail now. In fact, I give you no less than 5 reasons why you should absolutely set this up.

Let's start quickly.

Reason 1: You can immediately see if your business is mentioned online

That's interesting for your SEO! After all, you can see if people have added a link to your website, or not.

In the second case, you can then contact them so you do get the link (did someone say link building?).

Reason 2: You can immediately respond to current events through Google Alerts

Is there an important development going on in your industry or field? For example, has an update been announced by Google?

Find out immediately through the Google Alerts, so you are always up to date with the latest news Then you can share this information on social media and that can ensure that you are seen as an expert.

After all, you are always the person who first puts the information online.

Reason 3: Act quickly on positive or negative messages

Has your organization been in the news positively or negatively? Then, of course, in either case, you want to act on it quickly.

You want to thank people when they've been positive and you want to fix it when something negative has been said about your company. This may just cause the negative posts to be quickly covered up online.

Reason 4: Google Alerts allow you to keep an eye on competitors

Of course, you can also set up a Google Alert on the company name of your biggest competitor(s). With that, you can see what they are doing in the area of link building, for example (where they are thus likely to be mentioned) and what they are all about.

You can do this not only with their company name, but also with their products, the owner's name or with their services.

Reason 5: Inspiration for your blogs

This reason is an extension of reason 2. If you are always on top of the latest developments, the latest blogs and other information in your industry then you will have plenty of input for your blogs.

You no longer have to spend hours looking for great blog topics; the blog topics just come to you.

That you should be convinced about Google Alerts by now is obvious. Now I'm very curious if you managed to set it up and what words you used.

Will you let me know in the comments?

This article was written on October 21, 2019 and updated on March 30, 2023.