It is a good strategy to have a google alert on yourself.  A google alert will notify you by e-mail if there are new search results for your key terms.  In this case my key term is "David Matney."  I have set up a google alert for myself to help monitor my online presence.  If someone writes something online about me - then I want to know.  In addition to monitoring your own online presence it is also a good idea to set up a google alert on your competition.  This will help you monitor your competition. 

In this post I will l attempt to help you set up a google alert for yourself. 

***

Step 1:  On the web log on to www.Google.com and in the upper right hand corner click on "Sign in."  This is located in the upper right hand corner.

Step 2:  This step involves setting up a google account.  If you do not have a google account click on, "Create an account now" 

Step 3:  This step involves setting up your account.  You give some basic information and you will have to agree to the google terms and conditions.

Step 4:  After you sign in to your account click on "Alerts."

Step 4:  Enter your search terms.  In my case I put David Matney.  Be sure to put "David Matney" in QUOTES.  Otherwise, you will be searching for David and Matney separately. You can specify the types of searches and the frequency.

Step 5:  After you alert has been created, you can modify you alert by logging onto your google account.  Once you have your alert, google crawls the web and searches for your key words daily.  From my understanding, some websites get crawled more frequently than others.  If google crawls the web and hits "David Matney" then you will get an e-mail.

Here is an example of an e-mail alert in action.  A few days ago I was interviewed by a reporter from the Associated Press.  I can now track the different places the article appears on the web with having a google alert.

Here is how it looks ...

 When you open the e-mail it looks like this ...

 Thanks,

David Matney,CRS,GRI

Alliance Real Estate