Google Alerts enable you to see what people are saying about you and/or your company online. Although all feedback may not be positive, GoogleAlerts allows you to respond to any negative feedback that you get on review sites immediately so you can show current customers that you are proactive and truly care about customer satisfaction. As a businessowner with a super busy schedule you don’t always have time to do searches on your own for your company. Google Alerts will do it for you! It will search and notify you when your business is mentioned online. Knowing what people say about you or your company can provide you with valuable feedback you can use to improve your business.

How to Set Up Google Alerts

1. Go to www.google.com/alerts.

2. Type your name or your business name in the “search query” box.

3. It is a good idea to put your name and/or business name in quotes to insure that you receive alerts specifically about you or your business. Without quotes you may receive results that contain only part of your (business) name. I learned this the hard way when my inbox was hammered with results for everyone on the web named DEBBIE and any time the word MEDIA or CONNECTIONS were mentioned online.

4. Select your result type. Your options are “everything, news, blogs, videos, discussions and books.” Since you are using Google Alerts to find out what customers are saying about your company choose “everything.”

5. Then select how often you would like the results hitting your inbox. Choose what works best for you, once a day, as it happens, or once a week.

6. Next you get to choose if you want to see only the best results or all results. Since you are just getting started, select all results for now. Once you become familiar with how it works, you may want to change the setting because you may find you are getting duplicates or alerts that are not relevant.

7. Enter the email address that you want your Google Alerts to come to.

8. Verify your Google Alerts subscription by clicking on the link that’s sent to your inbox.

9. Now you are done! Watch how Google Alerts does all the work for you!