You probably don't even know about them. Few people do.

Even fewer people realize how many different ways you can use them to get free publicity, increase your search engine rankings, and make yourself a media celebrity in your field.

I'm talking about "news alerts."

Google offers Google News Alerts at www.news.google.com. Look in the column to the left of the page.

Yahoo has a similar service, as do a number of other web portals and news outlets.

News alerts are the Internet's new -- and one of its most powerful -- secrets weapons for attracting attention from radio, TV and newspaper reporters.

You can sign up for news alerts for free. Then you choose keywords related to your industry, and whenever those keywords show up in a news story--practically anywhere--you get an email notification and a link to the story..

News alerts allow you to identify and contact the journalist who did the story to suggest a follow up, offer another angle, etc. on the story they've already done.

You can even set up news alerts for a competitor's name. If they're quoted in a story somewhere, you'll be notified by email. That gives you an opportunity to contact the reporter who wrote the story and position yourself as a future resource for similar pieces.

You can also set up your news alerts so that every time your name appears in the media, it sends you an email notification.

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