19 April 2011

I Spy (or how to know when somebody has blogged about you)

Cultivating a successful online business is an aim for everyone on Etsy. And we know it - fabulous products and proper photographs are merely the base from which we start building our business. We need to make our works visible and easily accessible. But once we have done this, how do we know when our brand name has been mentioned on the web?

The easiest way is to set a Google Alert.

How it works: Once you have specified your search word, Google will start checking regularly for new results that match your query. Then every time Google finds a new result (blog, web page, newspaper/magazine article), an email will be automatically generated and sent over to you. By the way, you can use Google Alerts to monitor anything you think of.

Here is how to do it:

1. Go to: http://www.google.com/alerts


2. Type in your search term (f.ex. my brand name is kanelstrand, and I want to know when and who mentions me on the web). Then decide on the Type (i.e. where you are mentioned - in a blog, a discussion, etc.; for best results choose "Everything").


3. Specify how often you want to receive the email alert.



4. If you are signed in your Google Account, you will have to choose where you want the results to be delivered - in your email inbox or as an RSS Feed in your Google Reader.


5. If you are not signed in, after you type in your email address a verification email will be sent. (it is not compulsory to have a gmail)



6. And now you know!

Are you using Google Alert? Share your experiences and suggestions!

16 comments:

  1. Thank you for sharing this, Sonya! I have just created one for myself and will see how it works. Thanks again, Lena.

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  2. That's a great "how to"! I'm thinking if someone writes about me they would want to let me know and I'd have to act surprised so I'd better not know in advance! Or they wouldn't
    let me know if it's bad thing they wrote ... but then, I wouldn't want to know either:)) temptimg tempting though:))

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  3. Great idea! I knew about alerts but never thought of applying them to my blog.

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  4. Wow, thanks for those tips! So helpful.

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  5. This is very cool - all new to me.
    Thank you!

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  6. I've had a window with your post up since this morning.
    It's a terribly interesting topic, so I start to read it. Yhen I get to the steps you have to go through and I falter...
    It's the technical stuff that I dread..

    But in the end...it was easy!!

    And yes! I did see the Betsy and Bess bag here...But I didn't note down where I saw it and then I couldn't remember....
    Next time I'll just note everything down....and give credit....So sorry....

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  7. OnePerfectDay, nothing to sorry about! I am glad my blog was a medium between artists, that is exactly my aim!

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  8. Google Alerts are great! I have one set up for my Etsy shop & blog name as well as my for my name :)

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  9. I have been meaning to do this but keep forgetting. Now it's done!!! Thanks!

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  10. Done! And very interesting and helpful, thanks for sharing this!

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  11. I tried this out for a while but noticed I keep getting wrong kind of alerts. I mean google wanted to alert me with anything with "kar uski", not just "karuski" (my label name) so I found this service not so useful to me.

    Love your blog, btw!

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  12. Karuski, try putting your label name in quotation marks, that will tell Google to exclude any results with space in between.

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  13. This is a great tip! But I always find it so creepy when I know people are watching me . . .Paranoia left over from High School pot days! OH MY!

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