RSS can be used in combination with a news aggregator services like Google News to keep track of stories posted to the Web about your organization. Google News searches a wide range of news sources, including web-exclusive content and electronic versions of national and local print publications, based on the keywords you provide it. The results can then be sent directly to your RSS reader or inbox.

Step One: Login

To start, login to news.google.com. You should already have a Google account if you’ve used Google Reader, Gmail, or other Google applications before. If not, setting up an account is straightforward and only requires an existing email address.

Step Two: Setting up Your Customized News Section

Once logged in, choose “Edit this Personalized Page” near the top of the right column of the webpage. At the bottom of this section, you will see an “Add a Customized Section” option.

Click there and then type your organization’s name, in quotes, into the keyword field. Putting your organization’s name in quotes ensures that Google Reader searches for your program as one single term.

Step Three: Turning Your Customized News Section into as RSS Feed

In the left column of Google News, you should see a new customized section for your organization. Click on that customized section and you will see options to create an RSS or Atom feed for this section. You can easily adds these sections to your RSS reader in a couple of ways. You can right click on the link and choose to copy the link location or shortcut – then paste the copied URL into your reader’s subscription field. If you are using the Google Reader bookmark shortcut, simply go to your bookmarks or favorites and choose subscribe.