Manage Your Company's Reputation with Google Alerts

Do you know what others are saying about you online? Keeping track of your online reputation is very important for businesses of any size; and you'd be surprised what people are saying about you.  Using the free service Google Alerts, you can get notifications whenever Google finds something new about you on the internet.

What is Reputation Management?

People can talk about your business all over the internet in blogs, forums, review sites, business directories, local websites, social networks and more. It's very important to know what people are saying about you and your company - customer feedback can be very helpful when examining your strongest and weakest areas.

Hopefully these mentions will consist of glowing reviews. When that's the case, finding the mention will give you a chance to thank that customer. You may also run into complaints (face it, some people just aren't happy with anything). If that's the case, knowing about it means you can intercept the issue and resolve it. If someone is unhappy with the level of service you provided them, it's worth looking into to improve it for next time.

For those negative reviews, it's important to show that you care. Apologizing publicly for the bad experience, and if you have done something or will be doing something to look into and resolve the issue globally, be sure to mention that. Don't be aggressive or defensive, just show that you care about your customers and their feedback, and want to provide the best experience possible.

Using Google Alerts

Google Alerts is very easy to use. Log into your Google Account (or create one) and go to your dashboard at www.google.com/dashboard. Click Set up search alerts for your data next to the Me on the Web area.

You'll be able to set up alerts for whenever Google notices a new instance of your name, your email address, or anything you want. Use this to track products, services, and your company name. You can create multiple Google Alerts. Alerts will notify you via email whenever it detects a new mention.

Google Alerts won't detect everything. For example, it won't always tell you when there is a new review for you on sites like Yelp that collect multiple reviews on a single page.

What are people saying about you?