This document provides tips and strategies for using Google tools like Google Alerts, RSS feeds, and dashboards to monitor brands and stay up-to-date on relevant information from websites, blogs, and news sources. It discusses how to set up Google Alerts and RSS feeds to track keywords, competitors, and industry news. It also gives examples of using RSS feeds to monitor specific company websites and blogs for press releases or updates.

1. Module 3: Google, RSS, Alerts & Dashboards

2. Is your website a billboard?

3. Is your website updated regularly?

4. Is your website useful to your own employees?

5. I don’t know who you are. I don’t know your company. I don’t know your company’s product. I don’t know what your company stands for. I don’t know your company’s customers. I don’t know your company’s record. I don’t know your company’s reputation. Now – what was it you wanted to sell me? Moral: Sales start before your salesman calls…

6. Google Quotient Findability: Can your brand name, product or service be found easily? Linkability: Are you linking out and being linked by others? Relevance: Are the search results relevant to your potential customers? Differentiation: Are the generic searches for your product or service rated higher than your competitor’s?

7. Search engine results are key 68% click a search result in the 1st page of results 92% will go up to (at most) 3rd page before changing query (half will switch after 1st page) 39% believe that the companies whose websites are in top search results are the leaders in their field. Key lesson: If you're not ranking well for your desired search terms, brand names and other important key words and phrases, you're missing out on significant, highly qualified traffic . Source: iProspect & JupiterResearch, Search Engine User Behaviour Study on Google, MSN, Yahoo! Users, 2008

9. British Airways vs Virgin Atlantic: A basic search results comparison

10. “ British Airways” – 1 st Page Results Source: http://www.distilled.co.uk/blog/reputation-wars/reputation-wars-british-airways-vs-virgin-atlantic/ www.britishairways.com - Owned www.britishairways.com/travel/home/public/en_gb - Owned www.baworldcargo.com - Owned www.baworldcargo.com/tracking - Owned en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Airways - Positive www.britishairwaysjobs.com - Owned www.britishairways.no - Owned www.baa.com - Positive www.oneworld.com/ow/member-airlines/british-airways - Owned www.baholidays.com/packages/ - Owned

11. “ British Airways:2 nd Page Results www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,291304,00.html - Negative www.bavirtual.co.uk - Owned ocaoimh.ie/tag/british-airways/ - Negative www.bafc.co.uk - Owned www.londoneye.com - Owned www.britishairwaysrfc.co.uk - Owned www.topix.net/com/bab - Positive www.worldtracer.aero/filedsp/ba.htm - Positive www.gbairways.com - Positive www.flybmi.com/bmed - Positive

12. “ Virgin Atlantic” – 1 st Page Results www.virgin-atlantic.com - Owned www.virgin.com - Owned virgin.com/uk/default.asp - Owned en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_Atlantic_Airways - Positive www.virginatlanticglobalflyer.com - Owned www.flyingwithoutfear.info - Owned www.v-flyer.com - Owned www.virginatlanticflights.com - Owned gs19.globalsuccessor.com/fe/tpl_virgin01.aps?newms=hm - Owned www.airlinequality.com/Forum/vir_atl.htm - Positive

13. “ Virgin Atlantic”: 2 nd Page Results www.cheapflights.co.uk/airlines/virgin-atlantic.html - Positive www.forbes.com/forbeslife…etc - Positive www.forbes.com/forbeslife…etc - Positive www.virginatlanticglobalflyer.com/MissionControl/Tracking/ - Owned farechase.yahoo.com/airlines/virgin_atlantic-214281 - Positive www.engadget.com/2007/01/17…etc - Positive www.virginmobile.co.za/…etc - Owned www.cheapflights.com/airlines/virginatlantic.html - Positive www.fastcompany.com/…etc - Positive www.usatoday.com/…etc - Negative

14. British Airways vs Virgin Atlantic Own website Own website Own website Own website Positive: Wikipedia Own website Own website Positive : Airport website Own website Own website Negative: News site Owned Negative: Blog Own website Own website Own website Positive: News Aggregator Positive: Baggage Tracer Positive: Travel booking site Positive: Travel booking site Own website Own website Own website Positive: Wikipedia Own website Own website Own website Own website Own website Positive: Airline review site Positive: Flight deals aggregator Positive: Magazine site Positive: Magazine site Own website Positive: Flight deals aggregator Positive: Gadget news site Own website Positive: Flights deals aggregator Positive: Magazine site Negative: News site Score: 42/50 Score: 44/50

15. Love vs hate “ I love British Airways” - 436 results “ I hate British Airways” - 172 results Score: 36 / 50 “ I love Virgin Atlantic” - 597 results “ I hate Virgin Atlantic” - 3 results Score: (49.75 rounded up to) 50 / 50

16. Fun test: GoogleFight.com

17. 10 ways to monitor brands for free Google Alerts: http://www.google.com/alerts, iGoogle Yahoo Alerts: http://alerts.yahoo.com Yahoo Pipes: Social media firehose http://pipes.yahoo.com/update_maker/social_media_fire_hose Blogsearch.google.com Technorati.com Backtype.com Search.twitter.com FriendFeed: http://mashable.com/2008/12/05/how-to-get-the-most-out-of-friendfeed/ Socialmention Compete.com Bonus: whostalkin.com

18. Fee-based trackers

19. 15 Google tips

20. Google search tips 1. Capitalization and quotation marks: Google searches are NOT case sensitive. Searches for najib razak, Najib Razak , and naJIb rAZak will all return the same results. Use “quotes” or + sign to include all words. Eg: a +b 2. Limit to .my sites Example 1: killinghall site:com.my Example 2: “abdullah badawi” site: gov.my 3. Either OR. If you want to include either this or that in result list, use the OR operator ( must be upper-case ): Example: "siti nurhaliza" OR "datuk khalid” site:my (Leave out the OR, Google returns pages that include both terms)

21. 4. Exclude the Wrong Results Using - Exclude irrelevant results with minus (-) operator on every word that you want to exclude and try again. Eg: killinghall -school -“north yorkshire" -church –pubs 5. Finding different Filetypes Go to Google > Advanced Search. Try finding Acrobat (pdf), Powerpoint (pps), Excel spreadsheet (xls) files on any .gov.my site. Example: site:bnm.gov.my filetype:xls

22. 6. Older stuff Try Google Cached or www.archive.org 7. Daterange trick: as_qdr=d7, where d=day, 7=seven http://www.google.com/search?q=site:abc.com&as_qdr=d7 8. News and Images: http://news.google.com http://images.google.com 9. Google Finance: http://finance.google.com 10. Tools: Calculator: Eg: 3200+5000 OR 5% of 3527

23. 11. Tools: Metric converter Eg: “233 square feet in square meter” OR “233 sq ft =? sq m”, 10 acres in hectares 12. Tools: Dictionary, acronym finder Eg: define: dodecagon OR define: PCR 13. Tools: Currency converter Eg: currency of Brazil in Malaysian money Eg: 3.578 USD in MYR Eg: 5.6 million British pounds in MYR 14. Tools: Recipe tip Eg: half a cup in teaspoons 15. Phonebook Eg: Brad, Pitt, LA OR rphonebook: Brad Pitt LA Extra tip: Check flight status by typing flight code eg: mh 123

24. Google AdWords, Google AdSense, SEO

25. Understanding basic terms Hits Pageviews, Impressions Unique visitors Downloads Embeds Timespent Traffic PPC =pay-per-click, CPM =cost-per-1000 CPC= cost/click, CPA = cost/action

26. Google PageRank PageRank™ is Google's proprietary system for ranking web pages. Google grades pages from PR 1 to 10 based on a complex algorithm that takes into account the page's content, and the number and quality of inbound links. The higher the inbound links, the higher in the search engine results page (SERP) your website/blog will appear after a query .

27. Search Engine Optimization The process of choosing targeted keyword phrases related to a site, and ensuring that the site ranks higher when those keyword phrases are part of a web search. Organic Paid Paid

28. Wordtracker Enter in keywords and search phrases Find relevant terms Use for brainstorming as well as drilling down into specific phrases. Google Keyword suggestion tool: Free version:http:// freekeywords.wordtracker.com http://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

29. Google AdWords: search results Exercise: 1. Search for keywords of your product 2. Who’s advertising your keyword?

30. Google AdWords AdWords is Google's flagship advertising product, and main source of revenue. AdWords offers pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, and site-targeted advertising for both text and banner ads. Google's text ads are short, consisting of one title line and two content text lines.

31. Google AdSense Website publishers can earn a portion of the ad revenue for placing Google-administered text and image ads on their sites or blogs. The ads generate revenue on a per-click basis. Google utilizes its search technology to serve ads based on website content, the user's geographical location, and other factors.

32. Google Analytics Tracks and generates detailed statistics about visitors to a site. Used to optimize AdWords campaigns by analysis of where the visitors came from, how long they stayed, their geographical position and where exactly visitors click on the site.

33. Building a simple monitoring dashboard

34. RSS Rich Site Summary/Really Simple Syndication is a method to syndicate your web content out to users. Using RSS files, you can create a feed that supplies headlines, news, blog posts, comments, forum threads, photos, audio files, and even video to your “subscribers”. Subscribers can use a dedicated software called an RSS reader or aggregator to “pull in” all their favourite web content into one location and scan quickly. Current browsers come with integrated RSS readers. Users can also use a web-based aggregator to pull-in feeds that are constantly updated and view a web page of feeds. Eg: Bloglines, Google Reader, Netvibes

35. Using RSS 1. Monitor News: http://thestar.com.my/rss/ http://www.cnn.com/services/rss/ http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/help/3223484.stm 2. Monitor Press Releases: Intel: http://www.intel.com/intel/rss.htm IBM: http://www-1.ibm.com/services/us/igs/rss/rss.html Dell: http://www.dell.com/RSS/ 3. Monitor Blogs: http://www.tonyfernandesblog.com/main.php?tempskin=_rss2 http://rockybru.blogspot.com/atom.xml http://www.kennysia.com/atom.xml

36. Exercise: Add feed to iGoogle 1. Go to http://www.thestar.com.my/rss

37. 2. Right click RSS, copy shortcut (IE) or copy link location (Firefox), or copy link address(Chrome)

38. 3. Open igoogle.com. Click on ADD GADGETS Top left. 4. Click on “Add feed or gadget” (bottom left) and paste URL (over http://)

39. 5. Create a dashboard of feeds and divide into tabs (topic headers) To add a tab, click on down arrow and Add Tab You can add up to 9 posts/updates per feed and re-arrange pages into 1-column, 2-column or 3-column

40. Method B: 2. Clicking on RSS button 1. Switch to Google 2. Subscribe

41. 2. Add to Google homepage

42. Marty Weintraub, http://www.aimclearblog.com Bonus: How to Build a Reputation Monitoring Dashboard: http://tinyurl.com/repboard