The Clickable Search Engine Marketing Blog

If you have something you want to promote or to sell, then the answer to, “should I be advertising online” is yes. The real question is, “Should I be advertising online now?” The answer is: you already are. 
 
Now - there are exceptions. If you are starting a business, changing your name, or are a hermit without a phone, you might not be advertising online.  For everyone else, there are many ways you and your business are advertised online. Let’s start with the basics: 
 
Google Yourself
Many businesses considering online advertising don’t have enough information about themselves. A good place to start getting an understanding of how you are advertising online is to do a few Google searches.  I say Google because it has a 74% market share as of June 2009 according to Hitwise.  Go search for your brand name, product reviews, management names, and other ways people might be looking for you online. 
 
If you are happy with the results, you might not need to worry, though that isn’t always the case. Even in search results for your brand name you may not have the top spot. That is where search engine optimization comes in. There are some great articles on how to improve your search engine rankings here and here. 
 
But when search engine optimization isn’t enough, or you are targeting a broader range of terms in search engine indexes than you have time or resources to optimize for, you are ready to start looking at paid search marketing. Since this is the Clickable blog, and Clickable is all about paid search marketing, a little informational video plug is in order. 
 
Yelp Yourself
There are many review sites on the internet. People review everything, and when they can hide behind a computer, they are brutally honest. Yelp.com is one of the largest review sites out there, but others such as Angieslist.com and Epinions.com cater to different types of reviews. Go check out some different review sites and see what people are saying about your company, product, or service.
 
Local Listings
As search engines evolve, there are an increasing number of ways you, your products, and services show up in search engine results. One often overlooked necessity is having your business listed correctly in local business listings.  If you haven’t set up a Google local business listing yet, hop to it! It is free, and a great way for people searching locally for products or services to find your business. 
 
Follow Yourself on Twitter
Even if you have never used Twitter, finding out if people are talking about you is a good idea. One of the easiest ways to do this is to use TwitterFall. Now there are tons of services out there which let you search Twitter, but my favorite is TwitterFall because it allows you to watch for multiple terms at the same time, it is free, and you don’t even have to have a Twitter account. Simply type in a few terms somebody may use to reference your company, product, or service and watch as it updates in real-time. Soon enough you will understand how Twitter could be used to help promote your company, interact with customers, and improve your online brand image. 
 
It is hard to know how to sell your products and services online unless you know how other people are finding them, and the impression they are getting. Even if you have been advertising online for years, sometimes it pays to take a step back. See how others find and perceive your business, then set out to improve it.

Trace Johnson, Clickable SEM Guru

Note: Clickable employees volunteer several hours a week to helping other search marketers succeed. "Clickable Gurus" participate in numerous online search communities to provide straightforward answers to numerous questions, and, each week, one of the gurus posts a search marketing tip to the Clickable Blog.