By: Jenna Ryan - TheMarketingShop.com 

Everybody's promising to bring you leads online, right? Which of these companies are legit? It's hard to tell unless you understand a thing or two about the internet. I'm here to help you understand the basics so you can make the right decisions when it comes to web marketing.     Websites that rank high on Google get more traffic, more eyeballs and better results. 90% of all web traffic starts out with a Google Search, so it makes sense to figure out how to get to the top, right? The question of the hour is this: What Does Google Want?  

1. Google wants text.

Search engine crawlers cannot see anything but words (photos, images and graphics are invisible). The more keywords you have on your website, the better. "Wait a minute," you say. "Text is ugly." I hear you, that's why you need to style the text to make it pretty and to make it look more like images.  

2. Google wants content.

Search engines today are becoming "answer engines." People go to the web to get their questions answered. Google is only as good as the websites it serves up. If you want to make Google happy, give them web content to feed its information-hungry-searchers.  

3. Google wants clean code.

 You may not want to hear about website code--but ignore it at your peril. You can waste gobs of moola on a beautiful website with messy code. Having cruddy code and a nice site is like having a beautiful home with rats in the closet. Sooner or later, someone's going to find out. Your website needs to be built from the ground-floor up with squeaky clean code.  

4. Google wants honesty.

Before you go stuffing keywords in every nook and cranny of your website, take heed. Google demands honesty. They want the real-deal, websites with good quality content. Shortcuts will get you in trouble. Google has ways of finding out who's legit and who's not. One wrong search engine optimization turn can get you banned for life. It makes sense to just do what they want and build your website right from the start.  

5. Google wants incoming links.

Google values your website based upon the number of incoming links you have. Incoming links are the currency of the web, so the more you have the better. Not so fast! The rules for incoming link are many, so you can't just call up everyone you know. There is an art to running a successful Linking Strategy.   Google wants a lot of things. The Search world is turning  the web design and real estate industries on their ears. It's time to stop fretting and start speaking Google's language. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

Jenna Ryan is an SEO Expert with The Marketing Shop.com. If you are interested in discussing your web marketing strategies for 2007, give her a call today. 214-432-3018  Office  866-697-7638 Toll Free
http://www.TheMarketingShop.com/ Email