Search engine ranking is the key to driving more traffic to your website. However getting great search engine ranking is rarely easy. A sound search engine optimization strategy will help you out shine your competitors and rake in the lion's share of clicks to be had on Google. The first step to all search engine optimization is keyword research. Once you know the keywords and phrases people are using to search for product and services like yours on the internet you'll be able to make better decisions about where to focus your search engine marketing efforts.

One of the little known secrets of search engine optimization is using Google News Alerts. Google News Alerts send you an email each time Google's spider crawls a new article or page related the search terms you choose to have it monitor. For example_ If you're selling widgets you can use choose to be sent an email everytime Google crawls a new website that's related to the word "widgets".

If you set this up right it will be a terrific tool for monitoring your competitors and finding new websites you can partner with or advertise on. Sometimes you'll be able to find a blogger in your industry who is willing to blog about your product or service. Other times you may be able to contact media who is interested in writing an article about businesses in your industry. All of these content sources can link back to your website and cause your own search engine ranking to increase.

In addition to all of this Google News Alerts can help you monitor the things that are being said about your company on the internet and also about your competitors. It can provide you with new keyword ideas and new linking strategies.

To setup Google News Alerts go to Google.com/news and do a search for any keyword or phrase you want to target. You will see a link at the bottom of the search results labeled "Create an email alert for...". Click on that link to configure your Google News Alerts.