Google is the internet's most popular and perhaps most important search engine. In addition to being a top search in itself, it powers the search engine components of AOL and Yahoo to name just a few. So if you haven't figured it out already, you'd better have some understanding how Google indexes and ranks your web page.

Here's what Google looks at:

1. Link Popularity
Contrary to popular belief, just exchanging vast amounts of links with other sites doesn't necessarily make you popular. Getting a link to your site on an already high-rate, popular site does it. If Google thinks Site A is popular, and they link to you - then you are considered popular as well. Link popularity is calculated on all of the pages of your website, so make sure to link to all of the important pages on your website.

2. Meta Tags
Google considers your Title and ALT Meta Tags when indexing your page. It does not give much weight or consideration to your Description Meta Tags or Keyword Meta Tags.

a. Title Tags: Title tags play heavily in your ranking for a search on Google. Title tags with just your company name on every page are not going to cut it. Or are you a victim of "new page 1" title tags because you forgot to name your pages? If so, go fix your Title tags right now!

The Title tag is what appears at the top of a Google search result, so it should describe what your business is all about and should include keywords people would use to find your site. Google will read about 59 characters (including spaces) in a Title.

b. ALT Tags: Google also reads the ALT tags that are attached to your graphics. They are a good way to include more keywords in your web page. They are also the words that appear when you move your mouse over a graphic (For more information on ALT Tags, see http://www.internetbasedmoms.com/alt_tags.htm).

3. Content
Google searches the content on your site to return relevant search results. Be sure to include relevant keywords in the text of all your pages. Also, try to keep them near the top of your pages - Google may not crawl all the way down your page.

For example, if someone would search for your site with the keywords "cloth diapers" - be sure to include those words in your Title tag and near the top of your web page.

4. Domain Name
Having your keywords in your domain name may boost your ranking. Google seems to favor sites with keywords in their domain.

For example, if you search for "diaper" on Google, the top results have the word "diaper" in the domain name.

These are the beginning basics of pleasing Google. Wait a few weeks for Google to index the changes and see what works and what doesn't. Remember to check often, change often and always keep on top of your efforts!

Alright, this is a bit off-topic from the usual web marketing info - but we just had to share this one with you!

For those of you who use Firefox and have it customized to the teeth (or even are new to firefox addons), this is a must have...

Grab and Drag

Installing this extension allows you to grab the page and drag it up and down, just like you would in a PDF document. It also has 'momentum', which means if you drag and "flick" it, it throws and scrolls the page on it's own.

Why do we like it? Well, with today's content-rich websites, the old scroll wheel can get tiresome; plus, it's so nice and smooth... and it's another gadget.

There ya' go! You can get it here:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1250/

Hope you have as much fun with it as we do.

These are the days of new products, social networking and Web 2.0. If you want to leverage the best of these ideas and opportunities, think small!

We have many clients that come to us wanting to purchase our Real Estate Listing Software or have a great idea to start a new Social Network online. Some of those come back to us months later asking why they aren't making money, or why nobody is visiting - despite their marketing efforts, web design or money spent. These are the ones who've missed the "little" picture. They've gone global national.

Now that it's the year 2010, the web isn't as small as it used to be. What would have worked in 1999 isn't going to work now. For instance, if you want to start a National Real Estate Network online, you'll never compete with the big guys like Realtor.com who've been around for years, and have multi-million dollar budgets. However, if you start a real estate network for your specific town, county or small region - you've got something special.

As a websurfer, wouldn't you want to go to a site that specializes in JUST your city, your group or your product rather than one that has them all? If I'm looking to buy a house, purchase a solar panel or join a forum about dot-walking, I want to go to a website that covers just those items - not get lost in the rest of the stuff that's not important to me.

As we always say, websurfers have short attention spans, and if you don't give them what they want in just a few seconds, they next guy on Google gets their business.

So, think local, think one specialty product, cater to one audience. Make your customers feel special!