What is a Google Alert?

Imagine that you have an assistant who's job is to find everything new that people write about your topic on the web. The assistant lets you know when someone mentions your web site. He reports news stories, research findings and blog entries about your topic.

By taking a few moments each day to review what your assistant gives you, you stay abreast of new happenings and make note of trends that you need to address. You're aware when someone praises your web site, suggests improvements to it or links to it.

Google Alerts is such an assistant. It gathers information about any key word or phrase you request and emails it to you daily. Reading through the list takes only seconds and you quickly pick out what matters to you.

Best of all, Google Alerts is free. It's the kind of assistant you cannot afford to be without. The only down side we can see is that Google will know more about what you're interested in. Since Google already knows what you're interested in, that seems of little consequence. Don't let yourself be talked into signing up if you don't care about information regarding your topic and your web site. But we highly recommend you do so.

Your 20 Minute Task

Sign up for Google Alerts for your topic by going to www.google.com/alerts.

You'll see a form for telling Google what keyword to track, where to look for it (the web, blogs, video, etc.), how often you want alerts and your email address.

For your first alert, type in the URL of your site without the www in front. For example, if your site were "www.20MinuteWebBusiness.com," you would type in "20MinuteWebBusiness.com." (Leave off the quotation marks and the ending period.) Click the "Create Alert" button and then open your email and click on the link Google sent to confirm that you want to receive the alert.

Add alerts for your other major keywords. You can create more alerts the same way you did for your domain name. Alternatively, you can sign up for a free account or use your gmail or other Google account if you already have one. That way, you can add and delete alerts easily.