One of my favorite free services is Google Alerts, an internet monitoring service 
that sends e-mail notification when keywords or phrases you identify appear online. This service is a goldmine for authors because it allows you to track mentions of your work, competition, and more. Here are some Google Alerts you should be sure to create:
1. Author Name – Track your name so you see when it’s mentioned online.
2. Website URLs – Create alerts for your website(s) and/or blog(s). Note that you can leave off “www” or “http” and simply create the alert for “mywebsite.com.”
3. Book Titles – Whether you have one book or twenty, track mentions of your book online with an alert. This gives you the opportunity to thank reviewers and others who mention your book. You may also want to write a blog post for your own blog and link back to any major media mentions.
4. Industry Statistics – Depending on the subject matter of your book, create alerts to track what’s happening in the industry. For example, if your book is about small business financing, you might have alerts for “business loans statistics,” “angel investing,” etc. When you’re alerted to new statistics, you can use them to write a relevant blog post, share on social media, or as fodder to create a new PR campaign. Sharing statistics and then providing supporting data or tips can be a great way to capture media attention.
5. Competing Titles/Authors – If you’re serious about book promotion, it never hurts to keep an eye on the competition. If a competing author lands an interview with a major media outlet, see if you can follow up on that with a slightly different perspective.
6. Article Titles – If you distribute articles to sites like ezinearticles.com, ideamarketers.com, or any other content distribution service, create an alert for the title of each article to find out where it appears online.
7. Speaking Opportunities – If you speak on the topic of healthy living, create an alert for “call for speakers health” or “health conference” or “healthy living event.” Use Google Alerts to uncover new opportunities for speaking, contributing articles, etc. This takes some creative testing, but can bring you some fantastic opportunities.
8. Blogs and News – Staying on top of news for your industry is a great way to learn and get engaged with your target audience. Create alerts that lead you to news stories, whether from major media sites or blogs. Then, take time to comment on related stories. And don’t just say, “Nice article!” Instead, demonstrate your expertise and contribute to the conversation. Add a missing tip that the writer didn’t include. Make it interesting and valuable and readers will notice.
this was very interesting
i’ve had alerts literally for years, and wasn’t using several of these suggestions, actually more than 1/2 of them
thanks much!
That’s nice to know–thank you–glad it helped!
Great insight…so much to learn. Short educational clips go a long way. More, please.
Thanks Stephanie! This is a great reminder. I have just begun my blog and I realize that it would be a huge advantage to me to use Google alerts with it. I hadn’t started to use them yet, and I certainly didn’t realize how many different ways they could be used. It’s amazing to me how many powerful new things there are that I can use and profit by. Thanks for sharing this information!
Thanks for your feedback, David. Best of luck with those alerts and the blog!
Very interesting, Stephanie. Do I sign up for google alerts and if so, how do I do that? Blogger sends a statistics report so I can see where the traffic comes from. I haven’t yet figured out how to get that kind of feedback from WordPress. I have blogs both places. One is a parenting blog and the other is a soul mate relationship blog.
Hi Elva, You just need a Google account to sign up for alerts–they are free! http://alerts.google.com
If you want better reporting on your website traffic, you should also have your website designer install Google Analytics, which is also free: http://analytics.google.com.
Good luck!