Google does a lot more than provide the best search engine on the internet. It's also provides some great tools and applications--the sort of stuff you'd normally have to hand over big bucks for --and they're all FREE!

This tutorial will show you how to use one of my favorite Google applications. It's called Google Alerts. What is Google Alerts? It's a program that lets you set up a search to be performed once a day or once a week and have the results emailed to you.

Setting up a Google Alerts is simplicity itself. You simply go to the Google Alerts page, type in the keyword or phrase you want to search for, choose to have the search done every day or once a week and put in your email address.

Google will send you a confirmation link by email. Once you click on this link, Google will begin running searches for your keywords and mailing you the results. You can have any number of Google Alerts, for any number of keywords, and you can run them on any topic you can think of.

Google Alerts is a great research tool. Rather than spending your own precious time scouring the internet daily for news on your favorite topic, you can have Google do it for you.

Let's say you're writing a book about the Boston Red Sox. You simply set up a Google Alert with the team's name and  Google will email you each time "Boston Red Sox" is used on a new web page, blog post, news article or video. 

It's also a great way to monitor what's being said online about you and your business, or of keeping up with what your competition is doing.

Google Alerts is like having a your own virtual research assistant. It can free up a good portion of you time and made it easier for you to stay on top of subjects you need to know about.  If you're writing articles, posting on blogs, creating ebooks or doing writing of any kind on the internet, you really need to be using Google Alerts!

 
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