SEO Tip: The Google Mini Mini

Starting at a whooping $2,000 the Google Mini is out of reach for most small business owners and internet marketers. However, our friends at the big G also offer a totally free alternative to add a powerful search field for your website: Meet the little-known Google Co-op.

This nifty little tool lets you start your own search engine using Google’s technology. It has a simple control panel that lets you customize the search results both visually (you can add your logo) and by telling it which website(s) you want to include in the index and if the searches your visitors make should also include results from their main web index.

But the fun doesn’t stop there… no sir! Because Google Co-op also includes a graphical statistics reporting page that lets you see the exact search terms that your visitors are looking up on your site. To a trained search engine optimizer, this is seriously powerful stuff. Just imagine having the ability to tweak and optimize your website pages to the exact terms your visitors look for: We’re talking about 100% search phrase relevance. *sigh*

Do you think that would also help your regular search engine rankings? You bet it does! It’s a pretty safe bet to say that the same search terms that people are using on your site are the exact same ones they are using in the search engines too.

And if this was not good enough, Google doubled the icing on the cake, because Co-op also integrates with your AdSense account and let’s you earn money from the searches made on your site.

If your website doesn’t have a search box, add one right now – it’s one of the smartest moves you can make. And if you already have a regular Google search box, I highly recommend the switch to co-op. You can thank me for it later.

Start your own Google Co-op search engine here:
http://www.google.com/coop/