Google alerts – probably the best free research tool in the world - Krishna De: Content Marketing, Social Media And Social Business Strategy, Education And Mentoring - Krishna De: Content Marketing, Social Media And Social Business Strategy, Education And Mentoring

Google alerts – probably the best free research tool in the world

Posted by: Krishna De | Posted on: January 8th, 2007 | 26 Comments | Posted in: Business blogging, Business strategy, Free resources, Information products, Market intelligence, Marketing online, Personal branding, Recommended resources, Research, Writing

One of the most effective no-cost research tools I have use and recommend to my clients is Google Alerts.

This is an amazing resource that I use to access information about:

the industry I work in and trends in the market
my competition and marketing strategies they are implementng
research about market trends in my clients industry
reviewing the strength of my clients brand
researching my clients competition
accessing statistics to use in presentations, reports and articles
identifying potential joint ventures and strategic alliances
discovering new business tools
research for my book
content for my products, programmes and live events.

Google Alerts enables you to set up an email alert on a daily or weekly basis or if you prefer, in real time.

I recommend putting in place a once-a-day Google Alert which you can then review at the start of each day.

Items that feature in the news, in blogs or on the web can be included in the alert.

I highly recommend you setting up your own Google Alerts – and don’t forget to set an alert up for

your own name
the names of your key products
and of course your business.

This will enable you to monitor and track your personal and corporate brand and where people are reporting on you, your products and services and your business.

Google Alerts is how I found out that the Howth Coastguard had blogged about my review of their blog. You are very welcome guys – just make sure that you enter for the Irish Blog Awards won’t you!

If you liked this, get more great tips by subscribing to our Ezine.

http://www.bsetc.ca Erin Blaskie

Wow – second helpful resource in two days!

One of my clients, Michael Port, uses this service and I’ve been meaning to sign up for Google Alerts but hadn’t actually taken the time to do it. Well, I am now registered and I’ve setup about eight or nine different alerts.

I’m looking forward to seeing what comes back in the alert and I’m going to use this to focus my writing and my keywords.

Thanks again Krishna – your blog is becoming one of the best resources I have in Newsgator!

Erin
Krishna De

Erin – you are more than welcome – my goal is to bring you helpful strategies, tips and resources to grow your practice so I am delighted that you found the information of assistance.

Your comment about it being one of the best resources is wonderful – thank you. That is what I wish for.

When you get chance take a look at the recommended resources – top right link on the blog – you will find a host of other things posted there.

If you find this blog helpful perhaps you could recommend it to others. Your recommendation is how we grow!

And don’t forget you can join me each week on my weekly interviews with experts about building your brand and growing your business – you can register on this page or go to:

http://www.bizgrowthlive.com

Thanks again Erin for taking time to post a comment.
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http://nitynyahoo.com Nitin

HI,

Google Alerts is a great facility. I have been using the same for a long time now and have many alerts on all the topics and words I want to follow.

There are few limitations though. The alerts do not give all the changes in the web. Google has listed sites which when change will be given as alerts but in case you want what all has been added on one topic on most of the websites of the world then you can user googlealert.com (a paid service) which is not a Google site but using Googles crawlings and gives all the results of your topic of interest.
Jane

Thanks for this Krishna! I’ve just found your site through David Maister’s blog, and have signed up for a whole lot of Google alerts. Should save me a lot of time tracking down info about our competitors’ movements and press about our company! I’ll be back!
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Krishna De

Jane – you are more than welcome – thanks for taking the time to stop by. goog luck with the research!
http://www.LeadOptimize.com Lead Optimize

Over the last few months, I have found that using Google image search is often more effective for finding some items than using regular text search. I have asked friends, family, clients to try it and give me feedback. The results have been very positive. I do wonder if part of the reason for the positive feedback is that many people are very “visual” by nature so seeing a picture of what they are searching for is more captivating than text results. This applies mostly to searches for specific tangible items such as, say, “wooden benches” as opposed to more intellectual items such as “sales leads.”
Krishna De

Chris – thanks for your insight – I have used Google image search from time to time but that’s interesting to thnk about using it when searching perhaps for consumer items and making purchasing decisions.

That would certainly lend itself to an image search.

I also wonder if it’s proving effective as to view something we are able to make assessments quickly on the presentation, quality and packaging of a product or brand – where as reading a text search requires more attention and concentration before we make a decision of whether it’s worth clicking through to the website in the link.
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Paul Lamach

Thanks for the info. Don’t have time to check your site out right now, but will mark as favorite, and will be checking it out on a daily basis.
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http://www.videos.bycenay.com/tech-stuff/google-alerts-your-personal-research-assistant/ Cenay Nailor

Couldn’t help chiming in here… late… as usual.

I use Google Alerts, tell my business partners and friends to use Google Alerts, and emailed my list about it. It’s a great resource for research. Or as I like to say, Google is my personal research assistant.

However, a few of my friends and business partners are total newbies when it comes to the Internet, so I created a video showing them exactly how to setup an account, login and create your first alert.

Could I share that here?

Google As Your Personal Research Assistant

Your list of 10 exceeds mine, so I will be updating my notes. You thought of a few ideas that never occurred to me!

Thanks!

Cenay’
Krishna De

@Cenay thank you for stopping by and giving a link to your video – that’s really helpful.
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http://alertrank.com/mrgooglealerts Adam Green

Since you describe Google Alerts as a research tool, Krishna, I thought it would be worth describing how it can be used to monitor real academic research. If you target your search correctly, you can get alerts on what university researchers are saying about any topic. For example:
gene splicing site:edu filetype:pdf

This will deliver alerts on papers published as PDF files at colleges on gene splicing. You can use this type of info for product development, or as the subject of a blog post. Everyone is impressed by academic references, so add some mentions of a symposium happening at a local college on your topic of interest:
“social media” symposium site:harvard.edu

I’ve written up hundreds of these tips in a free Google Alerts tutorial that your readers might find helpful:
http://www.alertrank.com/google-alerts-marketing.html
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Google alerts – probably the best free research tool in the world

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