Being in that number 1 position when your prospect or customer searches for you on Google or Yahoo! can do wonders for your business. While there are many, many different factors that can improve your ranking, there’s one that rises above all others – get other sites to link to your site. That said, how easy do you make it to link to your site?

Ever noticed how easy it is to link to sites like YouTube, Flickr, and many more. These sites have figured out that if you want people to link to you, it’s important to make it easy. They put the HTML code required to link to the specific photo or video right out in front where it’s easy to find. If someone can cut and paste, they can link back to the site.

No matter what content you have, it’s relatively easy to create a “copy this code” section that can make it easy for anyone to link back to your site. Whether you have white papers or even just made up advertisements, why not make it easy for your site visitors to help you improve your search results?

The web continues to democratize publishing and and turn journalism upside down. The blogosphere can get people to buy, but it can also turn people off. Given the importance of blogs, how do you keep track of who’s saying what . . . and where?

One tool merits your attention – Icerocket. Use these tools to monitor blog postings about your brand, product or company. Say you manage the iconic Cheerios brand. With a simple search on IceRocket, you can see that in the past month that 12 blog postings were made that mentioned Cheerios. One announces a Cheerios sponsored writing contest, another actually reviews a new product – Oat Cluster Crunch Cheerios. You can specify a search for Cheerios on MySpace, which turns up items from myspacetv, including this video of a baby eating some Cheerios.

This search tool can just as easily turn up web content that’s more disconcerting. If you’re interested in engaging in the online version of reputation management, start with blog search.

Good marketing decisions require you to think from your customer’s perspective. As media consumption moves online, one thought moves to the front of the line: what are the search terms your customers use when they’re looking for your category of products or services? These key words should form the core of just about everything you do online. Not clear on the right ones for you?

Wordtracker can help you identify keywords that are most likely to be used as queries by search engine visitors. This tool can be a valuable weapon in determining which keywords are the right ones for you. As you can see in the results from their free trial, the findings can help inform your brand strategy. When we searched on the term “digital marketing” we learned that it’s not a very popular search term (the No. 2 in the column labeled 24 hours in this example is the predicted number of MSN searches per day for the keyword combination of “digital marketing”).

So, what is it you do, once you have these keywords? Everything from determining where and how much to invest in pay-per-click ads “PPC” (as we discussed in Search me) to driving what words should be used on your website . . . to even what words you should include in your email marketing or literally any copywriting efforts. Wouldn’t you like to know which keywords are the right ones for your brand?

Need to list something in the classifieds? The likely online answer is Craigslist (much to the chagrin of eBay, GoogleBase, and others).

What’s surprising isn’t the success of Craigslist, but the fact that even though the site was started 12 years ago, the notion of what a classified is hasn’t really changed. Most online classifieds don’t even begin to represent what’s possible on the web.For example, check out RealPeopleRealStuff or Imoondo, two sites that represent the future direction of classifieds, spelled v-i-d-e-o. Maybe you’re considering the purchase of a top of the line dressage horse. Or, maybe you would like to unload your coveted gaming computer that lights up. When you compare these ads to stale print or even print with images, it’s easy to see where classified ads will move.The lesson here is that you have a window of opportunity to build out your own “video classified” capability. The faster you move up the learning curve, whether you’re selling puppies or million dollar homes, the more of a competitive edge you will build.

That little search bar is where a lot of buying starts. You should put an ad for your product in relevant web search results to make sure that your brand is top of mind when your customers are on the prowl.

Have a fat dog? If you are searching for guidance on Google about dog weight loss, you’ll find Iam’s / Eukanuba Pet Food. Your customer might not be looking for your product, but for a solution or a benefit that your product delivers. A search on dandruff doesn’t bring up Head & Shoulders – why not?

Your brand can start appearing in search results from Yahoo! or Google for a budget in many cases of just a few dollars a day. What’s stopping you from getting started?