Using Google Alerts is a quick and easy way to monitor your name and dental practice name online.

Google Alerts is an online content detection and notification service that automatically notifies users of this service when new content appears online that matches a specific set of search terms.

With Google Local using review links from third party sources and Yelp merging their data with Bing, it’s more important than ever for dentists to keep track of what is being said about them or their dental practice online.

How to set up a Google Alert for your dental practice:

1.  Go to www.google.com/alerts

2. In the Search Query line enter your dental practice name.

You should set up an individual alert for your practice name and your personal name.  You will see a preview to the right of what Google finds under this alert.

Don’t forget to set up a Google alert for your dental website URL too.

Be sure to put your dental practice name and your full name in quotes.

Example:  “The Wealthy Dentist”  This will give you alerts when the words appear together.  You don’t want to receive a bunch of alerts for each word individually.

3.  In the Result Type choose “Everything.”

4.  Next choose how often you want to receive an alert in your email.  

Choosing “As-it-happens” is a good result if you are concerned about a negative review.

But …  if you have a common first and last name combination, you might want the alerts to happen “Once a week” so your email isn’t bombarded with a bunch of alerts everyday as you tweak your alerts based on what Google sends to your email.

5.  Set up how many alerts you want to see.

Start with “All results” and if this returns too many unrelated results, then come back and change it to “Only the best results.”

6. Enter the email address where you want to receive the alert.

Then click on “CREATE ALERT.”

7. Confirm your alert set up by going to your email and look for to confirmation request from Google.

You will want to repeat these steps for your name and your dental website URL addresses both with the www. and without the www.

If you are using an email platform like Microsoft Outlook, direct the Google Alerts to a separate folder. Create an Outlook mail alert for a day and time for you to look through all of your alerts and address anything being said about you or your dental practice online.

You may want to also set up an alert for the practice competition in your geographic area to watch for specials or dental treatment discount offers in case you want to match a promotion for your dental patients.

Now that you have the basics on setting up your Google Alerts for your dental practice, you will now be able to monitor your reputation online.