Imagine a newbie coming online and looking for information on buying a new car. Having no idea what a search engine even is, the newbie types the name of a local car dealership, JimBob's Car Emporium, directly into their browser.

Wrong. Not any more.

If the newbie is surfing the web with Microsoft Internet Explorer 5, (IE is now on most computers) they may very well go right to that car dealers web site. That is, if the dealership was smart enough to visit "RealNames" and sign up for the "Internet Keyword" JimBob's Car Emporium.

That's right, "keywords" are no longer simply words that describe the content of your site. They are now something you can buy, thanks to a company by the name of Centraal and their RealNames service.

Centraal http://www.centraal.comhas created an "Internet Keyword web addressing and navigation service" that helps web surfers find sites faster. As an online business owner, you owe it to yourself to educate yourself on this now.

Why has it suddenly become important enough to mention?

Well, until fairly recently, RealNames technology worked as browser plug-in software. In my humble opinion, a bit clumsy for Joe web surfer. But their recent aggressive strategy of partnering with Microsoft and a growing number of major search engines has brought their technology to the forefront. And over two million people a day are already using it.

Here's how this new system works..

The RealNames Internet Keyword system is designed to get Web surfers where they want to go quickly and easily. As a web surfer, RealNames allows you to enter a company name, brand name or product directly into Microsoft Internet Explorer 5 or in a popular search engine (including the likes of AltaVista, GO Network, LookSmart and MSN) and find the associated web site.

How do you end up at the correct site? Simple. The owner of the web site pays RealNames $100 per year to "subscribe" to each and every Internet Keyword they desire. RealNames partners with the major players mentioned above to tie in registered Keywords to their subscribers' sites.

Now before you savvy business-folk start thinking of all the awesome keywords you can subscribe to, such as "small business", "software", and "business opportunities", you need to know one of the catches. For starters, you are NOT allowed to subscribe to generic Keywords, like the three I just mentioned.

You need a legitimate NAME of something YOU have a claim on. Something like your company name, a brand name or a product name. And they must be yours.

That's right, you can also forget about buying up "Capt. James T. Kirk" and routing the visitors to your new Star Trek site. That is, unless you ARE Jim Kirk.

Now perhaps you small business owners are thinking, "But nobody knows the name of my tiny company so they certainly wouldn't type it into their browser!"

That may be true, but if you have ANY brand name products or services, you'd be surprised how many people might enter the names directly into their browser. Heck, if just one or two per YEAR do this, you might cover the $100 per year fee for the Keyword.

And what if you are a relatively unknown small business with no real brand awareness?

Well, you may find it a bit more difficult to generate traffic through RealNames. That's NOT to say you can't take advantage of this new trend in web surfing.

Smart marketer Alan Gardyne of associateprograms.com suggests doing a bit of keyword stuffing when signing up for your RealName. In his own example, he added a popular search term right into one of his RealNames, to increase his chances of being found.

His "keyword stuffed" RealName: "AssociatePrograms.com - marketing advice"

To see how this method helps Alan, go to www.AltaVista.com and do a simple search for "marketing advice" (without the quotation marks).

The search results page reports the number of web pages found, and directly under that it says: marketing advice - click here for a list of Internet Keywords related to marketing advice. When you click on "marketing advice" you'll be taken to a page where AssociatePrograms.com is the ONLY site listed!

Now that's an effective use of $100 per year! Alan has earned a top ranking at a major search engine among millions of other sites listed. Can you do something similar with RealNames? Sure you can. It just takes some thinking and a little patience.

Here are some great places to find out more about RealNames and how they are becoming a major force in the online search arena...

"My Realname"
      http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,19142,00.html

Alan's Gardyne explains his own experiences with RealNames
      http://associateprograms.com/search/search-engine-rankings.shtml

A listing of exactly where you'll find RealNames links
      http://searchenginewatch.internet.com/facts/realnames.html

Don't hesitate, get your own RealName today.