How to Create a Listening Station with iGoogle – Part 3 Customization

A few days ago, we talked about how to create a listening station or social media dashboard using Google’s free iGoogle home page. This is the page you’ll use to monitor:

• What’s being talked about in your industry in the news, on blogs and in social media.
• What people are saying about you, your company, your products and your competitors.
• Your favorite blogs, discussion groups and news sites.

In part two, I showed you nine tools you can use to find targeted content for your new iGoogle listening station.

Today, I want to wrap up with a few tips you can use to customized your iGoogle page.

Adding Additional Pages/Tabs to iGoogle

You can fit a lot of content on your iGoogle home page but you may want to add additional tabbed pages to your page. You could create a separate page for your Google alerts, for your competition or to have separate sections for each topic you want to follow like Sales/Marketing, Social Media, Product Development, Legal Issues, etc.

Here’s how it works:

1. Go to your iGoogle page. Click on the small down arrow to the right of Home. (See image below)
2. When the box opens, click on “Add a Tab”



3. In the box that opens next, type in a name for your new page. Uncheck the box that says, “I’m feeling lucky…” then click “OK”.



4. Customize your new page using the same steps we covered in parts 1 & 2 for customizing your hope page.

How to Add a Theme To Customize the Look of Your iGoogle Page

iGoogle allows you to customize the look and feel of your page by adding a theme. There are free themes for almost every category you can imagine. Each of your tabs can have a different theme.

1. Click on the “Change Theme from Classic” link to get started.



2. Enter a phrase or two related to the type of theme you want & click “Search Themes”
3. Scroll through the available themes. When you find one you like, click “Add it Now”

Some themes may not look right in your browser. If you don’t like the way it looks, simply repeat the steps until you find one you like.

How to Customize your iGoogle Layout, Add Columns, etc.

1. Click on “Settings” in the upper right-hand corner of iGoogle



2. Scroll down the Settings page until you see the Layout section.



3. Pick the column layout you like and click “Save”

The Finished Product



You can click on the image above to see the full-sized finished page I created. Notice the headlines in the sections I highlighted. These are useful items that our Mercedes S Class expert might have missed without having this type of social media dashboard setup.

How will you use this in your business? Are there feeds and/or searches you’re using that I didn’t cover in this series? If so, let us know by leaving a comment below.

Also, if you’re enjoying this blog and don’t want to miss an update. You can subscribe by entering your email address in the box at upper right.