In part one of this series, we looked at what reputation management is, and why it is important. In this part, we take a look at how you can keep tabs on your online reputation.

Google Alerts to the rescue!

One of the best ways of keeping tabs on what people are saying about your business is to set up a Google Alert for it.

Google Alerts are email updates about whatever you wish to monitor. You can set up alerts for names, topics, businesses, key phrases, and so on. It’s like setting free a query on a search engine.

Once you set up an alert, Google regularly checks to see if there are any new results based on whatever query you set up. If they are, you get an email. Depending on your alert settings, you can receive these updates instantly (‘as-it-happens’), daily, or weekly.

You can create up to 1000 alerts. This will help you if you wish to monitor not just your business, but news in your professional field, your own name, or issues affecting you and your customers.

How to set up a basic Google Alert

  1. Go to www.google.com/alerts
  2. Enter your query, just as you would for a normal Google search
  3. Enter the email address you want your alerts delivered to
  4. Confirm the alert you created.

All you need to do now is sit back and wait. As you start getting alerts delivered to your inbox, you’ll begin to see a picture emerge of how your business is perceived online.

In Part Three of this series, we’ll look at some of the more advanced features of Google Alerts. And in Part Four we’ll look at reactive and proactive strategies for managing your reputation online.