Everyone looks at success differently. Some look at their life as a whole, while others may divide it up into financial success, family success, relationship success etc. However you define or look at success, I have learned a surefire way to ensure you are successful at almost anything and everything you do.

Now I know that’s a pretty bold statement, and while I am first to admit it may not work every time. If you add "learning a lesson" into it and change your definition of success slightly, you WILL be successful every time.

So, what is this magic formula for success? Well, best way I can explain it is through a story my sister in law told me about a recent trip my brother and her took on a vacation.

For about 10 years or so they had been taking a week off each summer to visit family cottage. The cottage was beautiful and located just an hour out of town. Recently married, it was his first trip to infamous family retreat. He decided to surprise family and drive up there on his own. He outlined his route on a map, and somehow found street name of family cottage. He was to drive for about an hour, then turn left off highway. How hard could that be?

Google is one of most accurate and usable search engines every developed. The geniuses at Google Labs (labs.google.com) are always coming up with new innovative ways to allow people to search for information. With over a billion pages indexed, Google is largest search engine and should stay that way for foreseeable future. That being said, basically any information that you could possibly imagine is somewhere on Google including information on your company and your competition.

Here is how you can find out everything you can imagine about your competition in five easy steps:

1. Locate your competition's domain name.

2. Type in Google Search Bar: link:companyname.com -site:companyname.com. This will show all web pages (excluding their own pages) that have a link pointing to your competitors web site.

3. Document ALL of links in document (I use Excel personally).

4. Repeat process except with a www in front of their domain name, then two more times but instead of "link", write "inurl".

5. Now list you will be left with will provide following key information about your competition: