When is the last time you researched your area of expertise on the major search engines like Google or Technorati? This week I did a web search using key words and phrases people use when searching for information about ezine publishing. I was pleased that my blog came up first and second for some terms in Technorati, and in the top 10 for some terms in Google.

But I was disappointed that there were hundreds of articles on the topic of ezines in article directories, and only a few were mine. So I learned that I need to submit more articles about ezines to the article directories in order for people to find my business online.

Doing this research is time consuming…you can't help but get screen sucked for hours. There is a lot of garbage on the Web and a lot of splogs -- spam blogs that exist only for generating ad link revenue.

It makes you wonder how anybody searching on Google or Yahoo ever finds anything useful. If you are a professional and want clients to find your website, you have to know what key words your potential clients are using in their searches. What are their problems and how can you solve them? You have to put yourself in the shoes - or rather the brain - of your potential client. What words do you think they would type into Google when they are looking for a solution to their problem?

This takes a lot of time to do, and the end results are beneficial. It is now clear that I need to submit more short articles to the article directories on ezine topics so people can find my websites and blogs more easily.

Here's your tip: use the search engines to discover if you're "findable" on the web. Then create content where needed. You may need a blog with lots of blog posts on your key topics. Or, like me, you may need to submit more short articles to directories.

More reasons to do the search: Find out who your competitors are and what they are up to. Then, model what they do, only do it better.