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Improving and optimizing the information gathering on web

Due to the proliferation of websites and the growing avaibility of information it’s difficult to keep themself update without selecting the source of informations.

The common approach (and probably the most sure one) is to follow the most known and trusted source. As well as I did, you probably collected your preferred sources based on personal trust or because the reputation given by people you trust. The Strenght is you use “certified” sources. The Weakness is the risk to have only one a point of view and to miss more suitable informations for your needs.

So, how to search for new sources on topic you are intersted in? It is enough to merge google search into your google reader account. This is also a good practice to monitor your on line presence (you need only for searching your name :-))

Let’s start:

ARRANGING THE SEARCH

  • make a search on Google (for instance: “B2B Marketing”)
  • under the section “Search” in the left sidebar select “News
  • go to the page’s bottom and click “create an email alert for [you’ll find your search query here]“. You will reach The Google Alert page 

SETTING THE ALERT

  • Select the result type you want (Default is “News” but you can choose Blogs, Videos, Discussions, Books). You can choose “All Items”, if you prefer, but I suggest to limit the search in 1 category.
  • Select the requency of updates. This is how often Google Alert will send you notifications. Depends on the goal of your search, but usually 1 time per week is enough.
  • Tell how many results you want. You can choose “All results” or “Only the Best”. If you don’t have any particular need and your search is quite generic, I suggest to choose “only the best results” in order to avoid an overload [remember, you have to filter it]
  • Set the deliver to option. You can decide to get the notification delivered to your email account or to a feed. The first option is useful if you don’t have any feed reader but you will have more emails in your inbox. You can choose the Feed option only if you have a Google Account and you configured the Google Reader. If you did, the results will be pushed into your Google Reader Account.

Will you find your new “source” ? You can manage it as you were used to do: adding to your bookmark or importing feed into your feed reader and that’s all.

Have you any further methods to improve and organize your information’s sources?

Published in English Social Network & Social Media

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