Today’s super electronic communications world is overflowing with phone numbers for personal use, businesses, hotlines and prank calls. With so many different numbers floating out there, how do you make your own business number stand out among the billions of 7 digit codes? And more importantly, what are people saying about your phone number online?

Using the internet to find your own phone number is one way to figure out how to make your own number more visible to the consumer. Using directories, especially, is one way to create a ‘name’ for your business that anyone can read.

How-to Look up Your Number
If you’re curious to see how far your business information goes try typing your business phone number into a search engine. Sometimes the business name will pop right up, and sometimes you’ll get links to directories and other sites that provide business information online.

The Online Local Business Directory
Typing your town’s name into Google or Bing.com will bring up a plethora of local directories. You can choose one that is specific to your industry, or you can choose one that includes businesses from all over your town. Some of the local directories will even allow you to advertise for a small fee.

Adding your name to a local online business directory will allow people in your town to find you and read information about you, your business, your services and details about your business location and hours. Basically everything a customer might want to know about your business without having to call you to find out.

The Online Yellow Pages
The online Yellow Pages are just what they sound like they are. They are the online version of the giant yellow paper monstrosity you discover on your porch every 6 months. The online yellow pages are smarter, more eco friendly and contains business information on businesses all over the country.

If your business depends on consumerism from all over the country and not just your area, you’ll want to get your business information on the online yellow pages.

1-800-Reputation
There are websites out there that allow people to comment on the 1-800 numbers that call them, especially if their number shows up as ‘Unknown’. If your business calls a personal line, you can expect someone to write a comment, good or bad, about how the call was handled, when the call was placed (during dinner time, after 8 p.m.), and the actual call quality. These sites are important to businesses because your very reputation as a business it as stake. For phone calls that weren’t answers, consumers may type the phone number as a search query to find out who was calling them.

No one wants to do business with a company that calls families after 8 p.m. or is rude and discourteous on the phone. But everyone wants to do business with courteous, professional and compassionate customer service people that know their business and care about how their customer feels. Strive to have phone numbers that lead to positive reviews online.

Looking up business and personal information online is getting easier, but there is a caveat. Make sure that you aren’t listing information that you don’t want complete strangers to know.

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This post was written by Danica Sorber, owner of DSorber Media Works.

With the number of webpages reaching into the trillions and beyond, it is hard to make your website and internet marketing strategy stand out from the rest. Here is a list of guidelines to follow to ensure that your business gets more attention online.

• Solid design across the board. Pay money for a great website layout. It’s worth it and will pay you back ten-fold. If the e-commerce side of a website is hard to use, then users simply aren’t going to use it, especially because there are 1,000s of websites out there that are better than you. Same goes for company sites that aren’t e-commerce. Have a clear, easy-to-navigate layout.
• Easily Recognizable Logo. Again, this is something worth paying money for. This logo can also be used on your offline campaigns, such as promotional material, correspondence headers, and business cards. Logos that stand out make people remember who you are.
• A Flowing Social Media Campaign. If you are willing to shell out the money and time for a great website and logo, then your efforts in social media should be the same. Users don’t want to go visit a great website, click to go to that company’s twitter profile, and be faced with a stale twitter feed with a boring background. Stay consistent and use the same branding and color schemes that are on your website.
• Make your company interesting through marketing. It doesn’t matter if you sell nails or anything else that seems to be the most boring topic on earth. Create an engaging and unique campaign about an animated nail that is looking for its perfect hammer. Don’t be afraid to be silly and make it fun. That is what gets people’s attention.
• Make your online content breathe. It’s not enough to have a well-designed website. It has to be alive. This is done by regular blog posts;  recent site/company updates on the main page, blog, and social media profiles; and regular customer interaction. Respond to customer correspondence quickly. Answer people reaching out to you on Facebook and Twitter that same day. Comment on a photo one of your Facebook users posted. The key here is to keep reminding your current and potential clients that you are there, plugged in, and read to fill their needs.
• Think outside the box. Sure, a great website, blog, and Twitter profile are great, but what you do with is what counts. Draw customers in with Twitter coupons that customers will only see if they are following you. Donate a portion of your profits from every sale generated on your e-commerce site to charity. You can even offer Free Shipping to customers that answer a riddle or trivia question about your company.

These are the types of enthralling marketing techniques that will increase company visibility online. To stand out from the crowd, do what everyone else isn’t doing or do what they are afraid to do.

And most of all, don’t be afraid of failing– that is usually how the best marketing campaigns are born.

This question probably gets asked a lot in the internet professional world, but I feel that it is a valid question, especially since it is becoming “the norm” for organizations to have profiles on Facebook, Twitter, etc.

My officemates and I had the discussion a few weeks ago about this impact on the online presence of businesses. One person ventured to say that soon enough, some businesses will no longer need a website to advertise their services, but could simply conduct all online interactions via social media.

At first, I was adamant about the importance of a website for a professional, well-run organization, but for some, they may actually thrive if they put all their online efforts into social media instead of their lackluster website, which would cost thousands of dollars to make it usable and attractive to potential customers. Social media profiles need little to no styling (most don’t even allow it, save for the Twitter background and profile pictures) and follow the same format of the rest of the profiles.

And while this may seem like it would hinder the ability to stand out from the crowd, it actually makes it easier to quickly replace the website that gives your organization a bad name. Great creativity comes from working with what you’ve been given- which means having great, clear copy and a concise, professional message.

However, it’s important to remember that using social media to replace a website would only work best for some industries– the ones that depend on the community and its people in order to make it work. Non-profit organizations, for example, are some of the best businesses to utilize social media to its full potential. They can solicit donations via Twitter and a PayPal link and explain their mission statement and goals via a Facebook Page.

Other industries that use websites merely as a “placeholder” but that don’t offer any unique or useful services online (like an e-commerce store or online banking) would also benefit from cutting their failing website and turning to social media.

With Facebook allowing personalized URLs (ie http://www.facebook.com/kelsey7) and social media sites like Tumblr offering a website-like profile layout, it’s easier than provide short URLs to customers. You can also use a social profile aggregator that lists all your profiles on one page. I really like http://card.ly and Extendr (my profile is here: http://wonderwall7.extendr.com/)

As many organizations realize the value of social media for their business, they may also begin to realize how their website pales in comparison with their popular facebook or twitter page. Having a website just isn’t enough anymore– businesses must now acknowledge that the internet is more than just static HTML. Businesses can now engage customers online– something that shouldn’t be ignored.

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Image courtesy of: http://battersblog.blogspot.com/2005_03_01_archive.html

This is a great post from Mashable and Sharlyn Lauby about how Twitter can help you communicate with your customers better along with educating them about your history, awards, and future plans.

Sharlyn also talks about the importance of asking questions via Twitter in order to get immediate (and usually useful) customer feedback.

I found that companies that have an honest and open company culture are often the best Twitterers. Dell has a social media department and several other companies allow their employees to regularly update their personal (and the company’s) Twitter accounts on the clock during the work day so customers stay continuously updates with what the company and its employees are doing.

You can view the article here.