Google Alerts for Your Small Business

One of the neatest ways to keep track of what's being said about you and your small business online is to use Google Alerts. You simply put in terms that you want Google to alert you about - and then determine how often you'd like to be alerted.

I use Google Alerts to track where my company name is being mentioned online, as well as my website and my own personal name. This allows me not only to find out where my marketing is being most effective (press release and article sites that Google crawls frequently) - it would also alert me if someone where saying something "not so nice" about me too, and give me the chance to do something about it.

You can set Google to alert you "as it happens" or on a once-a-day basis. You'll receive an e-mail with all of the mentions of your specified terms online.

One thing I noticed recently was that my Google Alerts had seemed to stop coming. I knew this was odd because I know my company has been mentioned (positively!) in many places online - but also because even if Google weren't picking up links to my site it should be picking up links for the generic terms I have alerts set for such as "internet marketing" for example.

I went in to my Google Alerts account and deleted - then re-scheduled - all of my alerts, and that seems to have done the trick.

Check out Google Alerts and keep track of your small business name online!

Caroline