Google Alerts: Tool for the Freelance Writer

Why You Need Google Alerts
Google Alerts is a helpful tool for anyone who writes for publication online. If you set up a Google Alert for each piece you publish, you can elect to get an email alert whenever your blog post or article is indexed. If your piece isn't indexed, that means that people searching for information on that topic won't find your article on google. If you publish a piece and don't get a google alert on it in a timely manner, you can take steps to help it get indexed (create backlinks, post on social networking sites, etc).

Since Google Alerts will send an email each time your work is indexed, it will also point to any of your work that may be published elsewhere. If the piece has been reprinted without your permission, timely identification of the plagiarized work is key when seeking retribution in the form of payment, getting proper accreditation and a backlink, or having the piece taken down entirely.

It's also nice to know that someone liked your work well enough to publish a portion of it with your byline and link to the original article. If you set up the Google Alert properly, you'll get a notification when that occurs as well.

How to Set Up a Google Alert
To set up a google alert, you must first have a google account. If you don't have one yet, go to google.com/accounts/newaccount to create one. If you already use some of google's other services (gmail, adsense, etc), go to google.com/alerts.

Once you've signed in, pick a phrase that is specific to your article and type that into the box for search terms (see next paragraph for more specific information). Leave the next choice at the default everything, and select whether you want to get the email as soon as the piece is indexed, or whether you want it just once daily or weekly. I always choose as it happens. The next choice, email length, isn't really important as it's unlikely your article will show up more than one place at a time, so I leave that option at the default up to 20 results. The last step in setting up the Google Alert is to type in the address that you want the email alerts to be sent to.

Which Search Term You Should Choose for a Google Alert
Some people choose to use their article title as the search term to set up the Google Alert, but I use a sentence or phrase in the first paragraph instead. If someone has stolen my article but given it another title (or no title), setting a google alert on the title of my piece won't help me. By choosing a phrase near the top of the article, it will also alert me if someone has quoted the first few sentences or paragraphs of my work and given me proper credit with my byline and a backlink to my original work.

When choosing the search term, put the entire phrase in quotes or you'll get an email alert any time something is published anywhere on the internet that has those same words in random order. By putting the phrase in quotes, you'll get notified only when that exact phrase is indexed somewhere.

Summary
By setting up a google alert on each piece you publish, you can tell if someone is stealing your work, likes your work enough to feature it somewhere, or if google didn't like it at all for some reason. Each of those actions make Google Alerts a tool every web writer should be using.

Sources:
Personal experience
google.com