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Tony May, back in 1982, launched Gruppo Ristoratori Italiani or GRI, which has over 200 chefs, restaurateurs, food writers, manufacturers and educators as its members, all charged with spreading the word about good Italian food and wine.

The GRI is set to fix the misconception that pasta has no taste unless it is smothered in a chunky red sauce or a creamy white sauce.  For every rendition America has come up with for pasta, there is an Italian version that neutralizes that notion and makes one’s taste buds come alive with authentic Italian fare. 

Through seminars, training and educational funding projects, the GRI hopes to persuade Italian-American restaurateurs to practice standards of culinary excellence evident in the big Italian restaurants throughout the world.  And they are not talking about the major ‘chain Italian restaurants’ every town has.  There is nothing wrong with these Italian chain restaurants according to May; however they are Italian “style” restaurants and that is exactly what you are paying for; the ambience – fake grapes, candles and wine bottles -  assortment of wines and the Americanized Italian pastas and pizzas.

A Tampa restaurant that serves Italian foods for instance wants to have a representative from the GRI visit their establishment in order to discover what type of Italian cooking is being performed and delivered to the patrons and if any adjustments should be made in order to authenticate any of the Italian dishes to taste more like they were made in an Italian kitchen.

Authenticating an Italian restaurant may be as simple as revamping the menu items to include some of grandma’s old recipes or as drastic as traveling to Italy and enrolling in a cooking school or visiting the many Italian restaurants and wineries to actually taste what real, true Italian food is like.

An article exchange would be good with a website like an Orlando rental cars company in which people look to their website to rent cars and find an article about a smoothie shop that they can visit when going on vacation in the Orlando area.  Another good article exchange website would be with a Tampa rentals company that rents vacation homes, apartments and condominiums to vacationers so they too can read an article about your smoothie shop and visit when they are in the Tampa area.

It may be best to have someone who is experienced in SEO or search engine optimization to write the articles for your websites.  Search engine optimization is article writing using keywords that the three major search engines – Yahoo!, Google and MSN – will pick up and rank accordingly.  Having a high ranking on one of the major search engines is important because people look to the Internet before they look anywhere else for what they need or want.  The Internet is quicker and easier than the phonebook and having a high ranking – which means you are on the first page of the search engine under that category – means you will receive more customers than the competition.

Articles can also be used as vehicles for hyperlinks to other websites or other webpages within your website.  The hyperlinks can be keywords, relevant or other important words that are highlighted and clickable for the visitors that will take them to more information regarding your smoothie store and what you have to offer.  Hyperlinks are merely shortcuts to other web pages or websites and can also be keywords that the search engines use in their rankings.

Articles written about your smoothie business are very important not only for search engine optimization, but for information your customers can use to make an informed decision on whether to purchase from you or your competition.  That is why it is best to have a professional article that is free of grammatical and spelling mistakes in addition to being lively and informative.