DIY – Google Alerts Set Up…Reputation Management and Monitoring Your Branding

DIY – Google Alerts Set Up was created to show small businesses how they can be a part of managing their online reputation and monitoring their online branding. We’ve all had an unhappy customer. It used to be that the less than pleased client would simply tell those around them about their experience. These days, we have the web to help spread news faster than wildfires. This can make or break a business online.

If you have a web presence online, you MUST know…

• WHO is talking about you to WHO
• WHERE they’re saying it
• HOW they got “inspired” enough to talk about you
• WHY they are talking about you
  and most importantly…
• WHAT to do about it!

At Cal Coast Web Design, each of our marketing clients will receive implementation of Google Alerts as part of their SEO program.

Go ahead and do it yourself though…. save money that we can use driving NEW traffic to your site 😉

Here’s how to set up Google Alerts for reputation management and monitoring your online branding…

Google Alerts set up for monitoring your competitive keyword phrases…

• First ensure you are set up with a Google Account. To do so simply follow the prompts at http://www.google.com/accounts
• Once set up, visit http://www.google.com/alerts and login with your Google account
• Type in your your main keyword that you think people would call your products or services. Ensure you put “quotes” around your keyword phrase or else you will be getting results for each word you just typed in. That could take all day to keep up with!
• Type – “Comprehensive” – These alerts will show you different sites, blogs, videos or other online resources that have been indexed with your competitive keyword phrases in Google.
• How Often – this part is up to you How often do you want to receive updates. ***Note: You can always come back and “manage your alerts” to edit this frequency at a later time.
• Ensure your email account is selected and click “Create Alert.”
• Repeat the above steps for all main keywords you wish to keep track of . Following your main keywords will allow you to see when pages are indexed in the search engines. This will allow you to see the tactics others are using to get stuff indexed for your same keyword. Let this inspire you. Can you do the same thing? Can you get a link there? Follow suit when necessary.

Google Alerts set up for monitoring your name, company name and domain name.

• If you are not already, Visit http://www.google.com/alerts and log in.
• Type in your domain name with quotes in search terms section (i.e. – “domainnamehere.com”)
• Type – “Comprehensive” – These alerts will show you different sites, blogs, videos or other online resources that have been indexed with your website domain name in Google.
• How Often – this part is up to you How often do you want to receive updates. ***Note: You can always come back and “manage your alerts” to edit this frequency at a later time.
• Ensure your email account is selected and click “Create Alert.”
• Repeat the above steps for any additional domain names you wish to keep track of .
• Also repeat the steps above for your business name, your own name, and any additional terms you wish to search.

Please expect to receive an email in your inbox each week with these alerts.

These alerts are set up so that anytime your name or company name is part of the content of a page that gets indexed in Google, you will be made aware of it through this email.

It is important to check these alerts to protect your branding. If sites are out there linking to you or writing about you, Its always great to know what about!

You may notice that people are writing reviews about your site and you want to hop in there and be a part of the discussion to become a trusted industry leader.

Although very uncommon, if for any reason you need to handle damage control because one of your clients wrote about their bad experience with you on their personal blog, then you can see that and we can show you how to post a reply to help that client out to make them happy and show the blogging community that you are willing to go the extra mile to make things right.

You may want to ensure that no one is using your name, company or team name without your permission as well.

Hate to say it, but that was just the beginning.  Now you need to go monitor all your other social avenues.  Get started now with SitePoint’s 16 Free Tools for Reputation Management.

If you have any questions about your Google Alerts or how to handle a particular online reputation management situation, please do not hesitate to contact us.