During a lunchtime lecture at last week’s conference, a presenter mentioned the importance of setting up a Google Alert for your name so you’ll know what people are saying about you and when your articles get published.
Frankly, if I set up a Google Alert for “Susan Johnston,” the number of emails would be completely unmanageable. Granted, you can set weekly or monthly updates, but when you have a generic name, there are bound to be several Googlegangers (others who share your name and show up in searches) and sorting through them is a huge PITA.
Still, I’d like to know when my articles are getting published without having to check a website ten times a day (er, not that I would actually do that). So, I came up with a better way to monitor my bylines: setting up alerts to search specific websites. That way I’ll automatically get an email when my article gets published but I won’t have to sort through the other stuff.
Here’s how to do it: Go to Google.com/alerts and create an alert for “Your name” Site:website.com. For instance, I could set up an alert for Experience.com by typing “Susan Johnston” site:Experience.com. Then, once I find a new article I’ve written, I bookmark it in Delicious for future reference.
I also set up an alert for “urban muse” so I can see when people mention my blog or link to me. What strategies do you use? Any suggestions that might work even better?