Word of mouth sales goes electronic

good job providing local results.

"Register your company with Google Maps. It's a manual process that takes some time, but then you can put your business, profile information, and Web site link on Google Maps," says Percival.

Carrying Percival's example a bit further, I checked 'cleaning wicker furniture' on Google and Yahoo Answers. Google had 417 entries, while Yahoo Answers only had 15. But if your product cleans wicker furniture, answer those questions and put a link to your Web site. If that's too blatant for you, buy advertising on the results page.

Create a lot of content for your blog and/or Web site, says Percival. If you don't have a Google Alert that sends you an e-mail every time the phrase you specify shows up on the Web, try it. If you sell wicker furniture cleaner, you want to know about the blogs that talk about wicker furniture so you can answer their questions and become the expert in wicker furniture cleaning, or replacing wicker furniture that can't be cleaned.

PR professionals now say a targeted blog with good readership will do more for their clients than general newspaper coverage. After all, how many people reading the paper any one day really care about cleaning their wicker furniture? And blog content stays on the Web forever, unlike yesterday's newspaper stuffed into the recycling bin.

You can dive deep into Twitter and blogs and the hundreds of other social media outlets for general personal or company marketing awareness, or you can focus more tightly and provide help to the community in areas you have expertise. Either way, the more content you have out there, the more people on Main Street will find your company when they search.

Wouldn't you like your word of mouth sales to extend from friends and customers to all of Google? Then start trying out Percival's advice on social media.