Until a few months ago Google Alerts was a great way to be notified of news and websites containing whatever keywords you specify - such as your name or topics you are following. But in past months, Google alerts started faltering. It missed obvious mentions, as described by Danny Sullivan of SearchEngineLand.com and other search experts. Supposedly the problem is now fixed.
But not for me. Google Alerts that I set up are not picking up recent instances of my keywords on blogs, news sites and websites. Recently I signed up with two other alert services - Mention and Talkwalker - and have been getting more alerts from them (especially Mention) than from Google Alerts.
Talkwalker is free. Mention has both free and paid service. The free plan limits the number of alerts to three, and a maximum of 500 mentions per month being sent to you. If all you want to track is your name and one or two other keywords, you probably don't need to sign up for the paid plan.
Try an experiment for yourself. Set up all three services - Google alerts, Talkwalker and Mention - and see which one sends you the best and the most results.