If you do nothing else to track and monitor your name and your brand, Google Alerts is a must. It is free, sets up in less than a minute and you can link to your email or your Gmail address. 

Step 1 – Go to www.google.com/alerts. If you have a Gmail/Google account and would like to link your Alerts through it, click on the red “Sign In” box in the upper right hand corner to log in through that account. If not, you can create an Alert using another email.

Step 2 – Search query – Enter your search queries. A few examples – your name, your firm/company name, your vendors names and your competitors. Keep in mind that the more specific you are the better. Example: If you enter [inside legal] as your search query, you will get inundated with all results that include inside and/or legal. Use quotes to define specific terms. If you instead enter “Inside Legal”, you will only get results for mentions of “Inside Legal”. 

Step 3 – Result type – Choose if you would like to receive all types of content or just blog posts or videos, etc.

Step 4 – How often – would you like to receive the email Alerts as they happen, once a day or once a week.

Step 5 – How many – Do you want only the best results or all results? With “Only the best results”, Google Alerts tries to filter the results so that they are relevant to your query and high quality.

Step 6 – Your email – Enter your email address and click on “Create Alert”. 

Managing and updating the Alerts you set up are just as easy as setting them up. If you setup an Alert and find that you are receiving to many emails, change the setting to “Once a day” or “Once a week” or tweak the search terms. There is a link to manage your alerts at the bottom of every Alert email.