Google always says that it prides itself on relevance. That relevance is king, blah blah blah. But there are instances when because of Google’s relevance criteria, they actually give the least relevant results.

Now, here is my disclaimer – I am not a leading SEO expert. I do SEO for sites with good results, but I am not someone who has everyone in the industry on my buddy list. I just wanted to share some anecdotal evidence and corresponding thoughts on this subject and see what other have to say. I have been reading much about the Google sandbox lately, and while I will leave that discussion up to the big guys, I do believe that it exists in some form or another. And that because of this, Google is actually giving the least relevant search results when it comes to some searches.

When people search for new sites with very little direct competition, Google is the lease relevant of all of the search engines. Google’s sandbox seems to be preventing them from showing up. Let me give you an example, we just launched www.GreatMindsIncorporated.com. Because of Google’s time requirements for listing a new website, they won’t even rank a site for keywords with no competition. When I type Great Minds Incorporated into Yahoo!, my client’s site comes up position 1 page 1. When I type it into Google, it isn’t even listed in the first 5 pages. Now if you ask me Google is doing a disservice to it’s users. When they type in Great Minds Incorporated, Google should be showing the site. What if someone is searching for my clients phone number, email address, or postal address. Because Google is trying to be more relevant, they actually become less relevant than Yahoo! when people are searching for new sites with little competition.

I am interested in your thoughts.

Saw this posting this morning on a blog that I read regarding local businesses having websites.

The only thing I disagree with, being a web designer, is that small businesses should hire someone to create the website for them. I believe that design does matter. I am not sure about other companies, but we are able to provide most small businesses with a respectable website that will not destroy their budget.

My husband and I were walking in the downtown area of Rochester, MI yesterday morning. It is a typical little downtown, old buildings from the turn-0f-the-century with little local shops in them.

One of the shops is a locksmith. Outside his store he had a little signboard that said “Ask about our safe sale.” This little sign board made his store stick out from all of the rest of the stores in Rochester. I am sure it didn’t cost him very much to buy the board and stick it out in front of his store.

What it made me think was that sometimes, the simple things make our business stick out from the competition. And for local businesses there is a virtual sign board they can put out on the sidewalk for people “walking” by their store….internet advertising. When someone searches for “restaurants Rochester, mi,” only one of the many good restaurants appears on the first search page for Google. This restaurant has a signboard. All the rest do not. Google has a place for 10 free sign boards on each page (10 organic results show). Why aren’t more companies taking advantage of Google’s free “signboards?” Because they don’t recognize the value of being there. But I believe that just like the locksmith’s signboard, a Google “signboard” will bring in business (and probably a lot more than the one on the sidewalk) – those keywords were searched 100 times last month just on Yahoo!

My husband, and business partner, put this is his monthly newsletter, and I wanted to post it here.

“I strongly believe that to stay on top and win, we all must start meeting our customer’s technology expectations. Here are a few things that I think all customers expect from your business.

* When they type in your name, company name, address, or keywords related to your business they expect to find your website.

* When they visit your website they expect to find a professional looking website that fulfills their need to be informed, place an order, or contact you.

* When you have specials they expect to be informed. ”

One of the biggest obstacles our company faces is convincing people that people are actually looking for their business online. They think that just because they don’t search for businesses online that no one else is searching for their business online.

I saw a report on CNN a few days ago about this 19 year old multimillionaire who sells business chairs online (he started when he was 14). They were listing his clients – and there were big names – one being the Pentagon who bought chairs from him after 9.11 to refurnish the destroyed offices. I would love for some of our clients to have seen this story — The Pentagon. You can land a big fish by being online.

Here are six technological tools I think businesses should consider implementing this year. The first three deal with ways in improve your marketing efforts, the second three deal with ways to streamline your internal operations.

1. Email Marketing
Email marketing is successful when used correctly for just about any business. Yet many people write-off email marketing because they only think of the emails they receive from online retailers boasting of their latest sale with “free shipping.” The term should actually be used to describe targeted, traceable communications to potential and current customers, or individuals who can refer others to your business. Maybe you have services that your customers don’t know about, maybe you have excess inventory that you would like to get rid of, maybe you hired someone new that may bring certain customers in your door, maybe you opened up a 2nd location – there are hundreds of events that you can announce to keep in contact with your customers. Tracking who opened your emails and how many clicked on the links in your email to go to your website offers a measurable way to track the success of your advertising. As long as your emails are relevant, timely, and valuable, your customers will appreciate getting your latest news and will reward you with loyalty. http://www.strategicwsinetsolutions.com/page.asp?PId=49046

2. Pay-Per-Click
An advertiser once said “half my advertising doesn’t work, the problem is, I don’t know which half.” December’s newsletter focused on the benefits of pay-per-click advertising – You only pay when someone clicks on your advertisement. Did you know that you can set up a pay-per-click campaign even if you don’t have a website? Did you know that if you do have a website, you can use pay-per-click to tract the specific phone calls and emails you receive as a result of that ad? When using pay-per-click advertising no one has to wonder which half of their advertising is working. Online demo: http://www.strategicwsinetsolutions.com/WSILocal.asp?PId=45178

3. Streaming Video / Video Email
As more households sign-up for high-speed internet access, the amount of time spent viewing steaming video is increasing. Over 50% of internet users view online video (eMarketer). Most of us associate video with news providers, but there are a number of reasons beyond the latest headlines to offer streaming video. Product demonstrations, service descriptions, facility tours, interviews with employees or executives, and job descriptions are just a few examples of ways streaming video can move beyond the realm of the daily news with streaming video on your website. Looking for something really unique to capture your clients attention? Try adding streaming video to your emails. Online demo: http://www.strategicwsinetsolutions.com/VideoEmail.asp?PId=40891

4. eLearning
Consistency, traceability, and resource management are the reasons most companies incorporate an e-learning solution into their internet strategy. Consistency – eLearning provides a way to ensure that all of your employees receive exactly the same material in exactly the same way. You don’t have to worry about different trainers covering different topics, or some document being left out of the training manuals. Traceability – Track exactly which modules in your e-learning system employees have read or viewed, test them on their knowledge, and allow them to virtually interact with other e-learners or trainers on the modules – with written documentation on everything. Resource Management – free up time for yourself and your employees by putting your training online. The time saved won’t only be on the employee’s first day, it will continue through the employee’s first weeks. Instead of coming back to ask questions that were covered the first day, the new employee can logon to their e-learning page and look up the information themselves. E-learning Hint: Have an employee leaving and haven’t hired a replacement? Have the employee record a going away training message for the yet-to-be-hired replacement. Online demo: http://www.strategicwsinetsolutions.com/e-LearningSolutions.asp?PId=36870

5. Document Management
We all know the woes of having documents stored on a variety of discs, computers, and servers and wondering “am I using the latest version?” Why not make this the year that you take control of your documentation? A document management system allows you to track the who, what, when, and how of your documentation. The best part is that the system is web based allowing for employees to access documents anywhere there is an internet connection. Online Demo: http://www.strategicwsinetsolutions.com/DocumentManagement.asp?PId=36873

6. Web Conferencing
Although the benefits of web conferencing are obvious to most of us – reduced travel time and costs – the technology is barely used by most small and medium sized businesses because they think it is only something for the “big guys”. The truth is web conferencing is a very cost effective tool. This is an on-demand system that can be used when you need it with no monthly fees. But what exactly is web conferencing you may ask? The term web conferencing can actually refer to various technologies, including video conferencing where each participant can see and speak to each other via steaming video; it can include having everyone logon to a centralized platform where a presenter shares his desktop or PowerPoint presentation; or it can include recording presentations for viewing by other employees or customers at a later date. No matter what form of web conferencing you use you can be assured that company communications will improve. Online Demo: http://www.strategicwsinetsolutions.com/WebConferencingSolutions.asp?PId=36871

Wouldn’t it be great to look back on 2006 with satisfaction because it was the year that you saw your business grow by increasing your customer base with new e-marketing methods and streamlining your operations with the latest tools?

40% of teens (14-17) who spend time online are active Blog readers, 20% create them. Why should we care about this? Because as small business owners these are going to be the people who in 5 years are going to be done with college and searching for our businesses. I was an intern at several different companies while in school, and you know what jobs I always got? Jobs like this “Hey, go find us a place to order some office supplies”; “We need to frame this picture for our office waiting room, go find a framing place and get it done”; “We need new office furniture, can you find a place to order it from and get them in here to talk to us”; “We need an document management system, can you do some research online and find something that will work for us” What do these requests and teenagers online have to do with each other? In 5 years, these teens are going to be the ones researching these things for companies and we better have an online presence and strategy to reach these people with our businesses. Are we developing pod casts for our customers? Advertising on the Blogs that they visit? Sponsoring the right websites and content?