According to Wikipedia Google alerts are;

Google Alerts is a content change detection and notification service, offered by the search engine company Google. The service sends emails to the user when it finds new results—such as web pages, newspaper articles, blogs, or scientific research—that match the user's search term(s).

It can be used to help you monitor who is talking about your business or organisation across the internet. This will then allow you to engage your customers and reviewers as well quickly. The notification service tracks mentions related to your business or brand and can potentially unveil opportunities for link building, brand building, collaborations, and more. It is also a tool that is well-suited to beginners.

Google Alerts can be set up here and can be used to monitor anything, and luckily you can also set the frequency of alerts so that notifications do not bombard your mailbox.

You will need to set up a search term you wish to track. Google Alerts will display a results preview as you type. Options will allow you to choose the frequency of notifications and the source of alerts such as blogs, news, web, and if you are unsure set it to automatic. Regional settings can also be selected, such as language and region. Further refinements can be made to choose "all results" or "only the best results" When all options have been set up select 'create alert'.

What things should be Monitored?

Monitor your competitors

Check on what your competitors do can unveil marketing tactics that you can use in your business.

Maybe they're doing lots of guest posting, heavily promoting their content, or even buying links! We always advise against buying links as this can adversely affect your search rankings. Our SEO services include competitor analysis to find new opportunities that your rivals are not using and target existing ones.

Guest post opportunities

Identify blogs that share topics that align with your business, and pitch article at them, which would link back to your site. Bear in mind that those sites often have people pitching for guest articles. We seem to have people contacting us daily about writing a guest post. Unfortunately, most of the ideas we receive are poorly conceived and not that original.

Monitor questions in your niche

Answering industry-related questions can help to establish yourself as an expert in your field. In turn, this helps to build trust amongst potential customers. As well as using Alerts, try answering questions in a forum such as Quora.com.

what are your competitors are publishing

Most businesses will publish new blog content regularly, including your competitors, which has the benefit of creating brand interest and improve search engine rankings.

Keeping an eye on what the competition is putting out can help you discover new topic ideas for your blog and possibly identify your business's blog's unique ideas.

What Problems are there using Google Alerts?

Google Alerts is not able to monitor all areas of data, i.e. social media such as Facebook and by tracking social media, you will see:

• Quick reviews and first impressions of your products
• Questions and comments from people needing your help
• Honest, immediate thoughts from your customers

And these days, social media updates are usually the first source of news.

Also, not all the notifications are accurate, and there seems to be valuable information that is sometimes missing from reports.

Peppard Creative have been providing Web design and SEO Services since 2014. You can contact us here.