Michael Leander’s Marketing Tip #10 will introduce you to Google Alerts. A service offered by search engine company Google which notifies its users by email (or as a feed) about the latest web and news pages of their choice.

Perfect for monitoring what is being written about you, your company, your competitors, your products and much more, Google Alerts currently offers six types of alert searches: “News”, “Web”, “Blogs”, “Comprehensive”, “Video” and “Groups”.
A News alert is an email that lets the user know if new articles make it into the top ten results of his/her Google News search. A Web alert is an email that lets the user know if new web pages appear in the top twenty results for his/her Google Web search.

Watch the introduction by Michael Leander here:

A News & Web alert is an email that lets the user know when new articles related to his/her search term make it into the top ten results for a Google News search or the top twenty results for a Google Web search. A Groups alert is an email that lets the user know if new posts make it into the top fifty results of his/her Google Groups search.

Google Alerts also allow its users to determine the frequency in which checks are made for new results. Three options are available: “once a day”, “once a week”, or “as it happens”. These options do not necessarily control how often they will receive alerts. The first option, for example, means they will receive at most one alert email per day. The “as it happens” option can result in many alert emails per day, depending on the search.

To setup your Google Alerts click here

For monitoring competitors, what is being written on Google about you, your company, your brand, your products, your service etc. Google Alerts is a great tool - in my opinion.