Focus Your Information Gathering With Google Alerts

Google alerts is an easy, effective way to monitor the web to keep track of what’s being said about you, your company, product or industry.

You can also use it to keep tabs on your competition or on a particular topic or developing news story.

Getting started

Go to Google Alerts and enter your search query.

Next, choose where to search: The entire web, News sites, Blogs, Videos, etc. Then choose how often you wish to be alerted: As it happens, Once a day, or Once a week. If you’re doing a search on your name, you’ll probably want be alerted as soon as it happens.

Finally, enter your email address where alerts can be delivered.

Precise search for relevant alerts

Hone your Alerts search the same way you would, a Google search:

• Use quotes when searching for terms with multiple words. Examples: “cloud computing”, “law firm”.
• Use a minus sign (-) in front of words that you want to exclude. Example: apple -fruit
• Use the site: operator to limit your search to specific sites. Examples: fastcase site:.edu, “productivity tips” site:legalproductivity.com
• Use the site: operator with a dash to exclude specific sites. Example: “law school” -site:wikipedia.org
• Search within a site or domain site: query. Example: “continuing legal education” site:http://www.nycourts.gov/attorneys/cle

See additional advanced Google search operators

Tip: Find out when someone links to your website by searching for link:www.yourdomain.com. The search may not return every instance, but still useful.

Get started with Google Alerts and stay on top of what’s happening in your niche area and profession and what’s being said about you, your practice, and competition. It’s also great for finding relevant topics to blog and write about.

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