Most businesses that decide to have an online presence have frequently already established themselves offline first. So they try to replicate a brand online that they have already created offline.

But a brand is not transferable, as is, from the offline world to the online world. It takes work on both to have an offline presence and an online presence.

If you ask Mary, who owns the domain name www dot cakesbymary dot com, where she ranks in the search engines like Google, chances are very high that she will say she is number 1 on Google. However, she will be referring to searches that are conducted for the keywords mary and cakes but that is not how people search.

No one knows Mary when they need some cake and they will search for wedding cake or birthday cake. As far as the search engines are concerned, Mary and her site do not exist because she has not optimized her site to this type of search … which in reality is all that matters.

Searchers will be directed to the sites that have capitalized on the generic search terms (or keywords) and the site that appears in the search results will gain the customers even though, theoretically, the company might be on the other side of the world.

Mary may well have the most appropriate offering but if users can’t find her, she might as well not have a website or an online presence.

It is all very well having a business name like Cakes by Mary but the name itself means nothing.

You could be a scientific agency dealing with the mapping of the stars, or a washing machine repairman, or a business consultant … who knows … however the odds are high that your potential customer certainly does not know you and no amount of searching on Google is likely to find you.

Your domain name should incorporate your key deliverables … like BirthdayCakesbyMary or WeddingCakesbyMary.

If you sold wooden toys online then the clever name Toytopia would work because it incorporated the keyword Toy that defined the product.

For those businesses that have a specific geographic location relevant to customers, find a way to add your location to your domain name.

If Cakes by Mary was located in one of the trendy areas of San Francisco south of Market Street, known as SOMA, then BirthdayCakesbyMarySOMA would be a great domain name that would work to her advantage and increase the chances of being found by her target customers..

Here is a tip for you to do early in your efforts to become an Internet Marketing professional.

Go to your website and within the web browser, open the source code to see your own meta keywords. If you are using Internet Explorer, for example, click on View and then Source in the list of drop down commands. Frequently, on the first page that you see, you will find a section with meta keywords and this will let you know how the search engines see you.

More importantly, use the same technique to view your competitor’s pages and sites that are of interest to you like potential new target markets for your goods and services. And, all of this critical information is available to you for free!

Chances are that you will soon learn what works and what does not work. You can see what your competitors are doing and you can leverage the same techniques and keywords for your site in order to be No 1 on Google.

In order to help you, I will continue to post (on this blog site) tips and techniques I have obtained and learned from My Go-To-Market Partners as I became an Internet Entrepreneur and built aspenIbiz, my online business, along with my various Web 2.0 properties and affiliate web sites. Together, these tips will provide a traffic formula that will improve your Page Ranking and drive qualified leads to your website.

In closing, be sure to meet me at my website, WhoIsMikeFarrell, read aspenIbiz blogspot that has more posts about my Internet Marketing activities, and learn how to be savvy with your money, like the insiders, at aspenIbiz the Conspiracy For Your Money blog.

Finally, I would like to provide Best Wishes for a Happy Holiday Season and a Prosperous New Year!