Today your task is to set up 'alerts' for your niche or industry to help you monitor what others are saying on your topic.
ProBlogger, DPS & TwiTip
Thanks Darren, this is perfect timing for me. Google Alerts were mentioned earlier here on the forum and I had no idea about how to do it.
I don't have any alerts set up (although I do have trackbacks on my blog) but will go off and do some research now.
Beyond Beeton: Household Management for the Modern Age | Cooking | Budgeting | Weight Loss | Work/Lfe Balance
I've been doing this for years...
I use Google Alerts, and I have it set up for my full name (one with, one without the middle name), my aliases, my domain names, and the names of a few select clients (so I can help them monitor their online presence as well).
I will say two things:
Even I use google alerts incase if I am starving of posts to write.. :)
Never head of Google Alerts.. will set one up. But I do that on Twitter using Tweet Deck.
I've been using google alerts for about 6 months now and there is another benefit...
Having the vanity alert, if your blog and website have an unusual name leads to finding the "fake" sites! i.e. the robots who have stolen pieces of your text, yes including the reference back to yourself and then when you head over to go see who's talking about you you discover a site which is a glorified googleads "thing" with pieces of your text mixed up with pieces of text from others.
Generally you can't get in touch with the people of these sites but you can report them ;-).
I've recently been passed on what sounds like a useful tip but have no idea whether or not it will work - put a predefined "nonsense" word in each posting, in the same colour as your background (that your readers can't see) and then set up an 'alert' for this word. I haven't done it yet because I'm a bit worried this might not be legal... but can't see any reason why it wouldn't be.
Darren, is it okay to do this?
Would it work?
Thanks, Karenne
Karenne - hiding any text is never a good idea. It makes the search engines think that you're trying to "rank" for that word in the search engines - even if it's a nonsense word - and if they find out, no matter how ridiculous, they could effectively ban your whole site because of it.
It's better to use a site like copyscape to help you find thieves.
I have used Google Alerts in the past, but I had stopped using them because it took too much time. Do you normally set it to notify you once a week or once a day?
Debt-free Scholar - A growing college finances blog
Thanks very much Larakulpa... I'm glad I asked, something felt funny about it but wasn't sure what !
Karenne
If this tutorial series wasn't so good it would be depressing! I am realising there are things I never knew - Google Alerts for example, but each step provides a greater perspective on the long term goal. Heck we are only into Day 10 and the stuff I have taken on board has made such a huge difference.
Regards, Kevin
Web2 and More - Bringing Technology and New Ways of Working Together
http://web2andmore.net/blog
Great task
I have had Google Alerts set up for about 2 years on certain topics, my name and associations, but not with my blog names.
I have only used Google Alerts , but I do have the trackback feature on Wordpress.
4 more alerts have been added since I read the assignment.
Thanks,
I use google alerts but had completely forgotten about technorati and have already found lots of interesting sources from checking it out! As well as the google alerts, I've set up a couple of technorati ones with tags.
Madlab Post Discover indie films and entertaining facts!
I already had Google alerts set up to cover mentions of my blog and my name. I originally started using 'vanity' alerts because of people splogging my content, but I find it useful so I can respond quickly when people review my blog or say something nice. I have alerts set up on other sites for stuff around writing and travel and I use the search features in Hootsuite so I can quickly see what's happening on Twitter for my chosen search terms. That all works well; it's just finding the time to respond that's tricky.
This is a great recommendation, but I and a little lost and I could use a little help with this one.
Look at my site, unpaidentertainer.com. What sort of stuff should I be alerted to?
I have used Google Alerts for 2 years and find them very useful. We have about 6 (but will increase them today as I have thought of a few more)
Advantages
Disadvantages
Hope this helps
Our Hiking Blog - enjoying the outdoors -trips, gear, food, clothing and fun.
Brand new idea for me! I just set up Google Alert w/ my blog name and finding my own blog site was a rush. I don't really know yet what words I want to use as my website is an eclectic mix of topics... some personal blogging , some videos, some commentary.. but, so far so good and hits have increased in the last 10 days!
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I signed up for Google Alerts today. I realized really quick to do a daily list and not As Is LOL! I got flooded with emails today! I also did wha twas suggested by someone on here to add my Category titles as keywords for Google Alerts. Thanks for the tips!
-Harold Martin
The Daily Harold
I signed up for Google Alerts only, but I keep monitoring the twittersphere by having multiple keyword searches open in TweetDeck.
Blogging about PR, marketing communication and career at CyberFootprint
It feels almost a little snobby to do be doing this, but I have had Google Alerts and a Twitter search RSS feed for a long time to keep track of mentions of kikolani on the web.
I probably need to check my Google Alerts again though, because it doesn't seem to pick up a lot of things the Wordpress Dashboard and Alexa picks up. For example, it would have been nice to find out that my blog was listed in a blackhat SEO forum as a good one to get links on because my site has DoFollow commenting - I'm curious now whether I got legit traffic, or just a ton of spammers through that mention.
I use Google Alerts and a few Twitter Search RSS feeds. I think its important to constantly adjust your Google Alerts to maintain their relevance. It can be tempting to filter them off to a GMail folder but if you do you'll check them less and less and defeat the purpose of having them.
I've been using Google Alerts for only about six weeks now and only have my blog name and one key term on Alert. It's been an interesting experience because I pick up some related posts I would have NEVER found otherwise. But it also restricts me a little bit to someone using that exact terminology. I need to do some expanding and experimenting with terms in order to really get the multiple perspectives that I'm after.
thinking towards the whole at http://www.inventingelephants.com
Getting The Scoop
Tweetdeck is the way to go for searching twitter. We have setup multiple keyword phrase searches in tweetdeck. The extra benefit of having this on your desktop is that you can be the first to retweet great tweets and get the retweet scoop.
Also we recommend the google desktop trends gadget. It's great for getting the scoop on what the general population are searching for in google at any given moment.
Another idea we implemented was to setup an RSS feed monitoring the latest releases of books in our niche in Amazon. You can be the first to blog about a new book in your niche. To do this go to Amazon and just go to the book category covering your niche and subscribe to the RSS feed.
Example
Hot New Releases in Books
Any Category > Books > Health, Mind & Body
gives http://www.amazon.com/gp/new-releases/books/10/ref=pd_nr_b_nav
RSS is http://www.amazon.com/rss/new-releases/books/10/ref%5Cx3dpd_nr_rss_link
Children are born ExcitedByLife. When did we forget?
I use Google Alerts and Tweetlater's keyword alerts. The Google Alerts seem somewhat random; it's as if, on a slow day, the program says, "Oh, let's dredge up this gem from 1999 and see if she notices." I haven't quite figured out why some of the alerts show up at all, and others appear to be duplicates. It just highlights the fact that anything posted on the Internet will never die. (I've recently found the Google archives of usenet and posts I made 14, 15 years ago. All I can say is "Why is this stuff still taking up server space?" but it's kind of fun - a blast from the past. Something to peruse when you're really, really bored. Who knows? Maybe you can even formulate a blog post from all the detritus floating around on the Internet.
I was thinking about Google Alerts, but I didn't know it can be set up to feed to my RSS Reader in stead of emailling me.
If you set up a alert for your name type it in quotes just as you would a normal search, otherwise you'll get a alert for your name and last name individually.
I only use Google Alerts for one search, and that is for sites linking to my personal portfolio.
To stay updated with design blogs, I use their RSS feeds. I have over 350 design-related RSS feeds in my reader, and get almost 100 new articles each day. It takes a while to sort through them, but I get to know everything that's going on in the design world.
Find me on Twitter: @tutwow
I set up my alerts.
Just a thought:
What if I find out how unpopular I am and I get no updates on my vanity alerts. That would be more depressing than finding bad press!
I have been using Google Alerts for both my blog and my name. It has been fun to see that people are referring to my blog. I have had people copy my whole entire blog...they did give me credit.
I have also found that the if I am active promoting my blog the more active others are in linking to my blog.
i also follow two other subjects I am interested in. I usually get alerts when there is something written in the news and in blogs.
Sheila
Newbielifeline.com
@SheilaAtwood
I did not have this alert set up. I was completely oblivious to this. And, I've been blogging for almost a year and a half and have a current page rank of 3. Though, that just came very recently. A few weeks ago, I had good traffic for my site and all, but my PR was nada while I had fellow bloggers doing the same things as me with a PR of 3 or 4.
I truly think the link back lesson/challenge (which I did do, but not in as an aggressive manner) and joining blogcatalog made that difference. These challenges you've provided grown in requirement and I'm glad I joined this challenge. Thank you for this.
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