Google Alerts is an automated Web search service that helps your tour and activity business by monitoring industry developments and news online. Google Alerts sends you emails when they find new results (i.e. web pages, newspaper articles, blog, etc.) that match your search terms.

You can use Google Alerts to monitor anything on the Web to:

  • Find out what is being said about your company or your tours and activities
  • Monitor a developing news story
  • Keep up with competitors or the travel industry

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Currently there are six types of alerts sent when new content matches the alert’s search terms:

  • Everything: This default setting aggregates News, Web Pages, and Blogs containing your search term.
  • News: Consists of articles that match your keywords and at the same time appear within the top ten results for your search term in a Google News search.
  • Web: These are new web pages which appear in the top twenty results for a Google Web search.
  • Blogs: Consists of matching content which appears in the top ten results of a Google Blog Search.
  • Video: Consists of matching content which appears in the top ten results of a Google video search.
  • Groups: Consists of matching content which appears in the top fifty results of a Google Groups search.

Moreover, Google Alerts is very easy to use; simply enter a query that you are interested in, and wait for Google Alerts to sends results which match your query directly into your inbox.

Google Alerts for Diving

If you are only interested in information from specific sources there are some simple tricks that can filter your alerts:

  • “quotes“ – add quotes around a word or group of words to match that term precisely
  • Site: – use site:  operator with website, newspaper, blog  URL or name to receive alerts from specific source, example: site:smh.com.au tours and activities  – will send alerts with all articles from Sydney Morning Herald mentioning tours and activities
  • Link: – add link: before your website’s URL to see who is linking to your website
  • OR – insert OR in capital letter to allow either one or several words from the source, example: site:smh.com.au tours and activities  OR outdoor adventure will send alerts with Sydney Morning Herald articles including tours and activities or outdoor adventure terms
  • + and – signs – use plus (+) to join words and minus (–) to exclude words

You can mix and match above modifiers to narrow your results even further.

Google Alerts is a very useful free tool. It keeps you up to date with news around the internet, helps you find new customers or see what your existing customers are saying. It minimizes the time you spend researching countless sites looking for the latest reviews related to your tour or activity.

Alerts from forums and social media sites are a great source to find customers who are searching for activities and considering booking online.

We recommend you try Google Alerts to track information about your business name, research competitors (product updates, promotions, special events) and monitor new feedback from your customers.

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