Over the past few months I’ve needed to local a variety of service providers for my home – oven repair, a new fence, and rodent removal all come to mind. Like I mentioned before, I don’t have a phone book. If the service providers weren’t online, they were out of the running.

In all of these instances it took more work on my part to find providers than I would have liked. Each time I started with a Google search but was quickly frustrated because of the lack of ratings and reviews and because local and non-local companies were co-mingled. I then went to Kudzu.com (a local business directory). I had to do several searches before I found companies to call; if (in the case of the fence companies) their website was to fancy or included ornamental iron work for instance, I skipped them; they must be too expensive or too big to take a small job. I skipped firms with no website or really really ugly websites. I skipped companies with no ratings or reviews. I skipped companies, in the case of the oven repair, that didn’t specifically mention my brand range.

I finally found satisfactory service providers and in all cases I was very happy with the work I had done. But, it should have been a lot easier. What could they have done to make me find them faster?

• If a company doesn’t have a website, it should get one. You don’t HAVE to – many of the local directories allow you to create a free ad without a website. There are, however, folks like me that question your credibility and reliability if you don’t have a site. You can use Google to create a free site now which should be enough to get you started. Eventually, though, I think you’ll find it worth your while to at least invest in a simple, well-designed site to represent your business.

• Companies should take business directory sites like Kudzu more seriously. Most companies have few reviews; encouraging your customers to review you on sites like Yelp.com or Kudzu.com can easily distance you from your competition. And don’t limit yourself to one business directory service; in most metropolitan areas there are usually 3 or 4, including some local area ones. You don’t know which one your customers might use so make sure you are up to date on all of them and that you encourage reviews on all of them. In most cases these listings are free.

• If they find they are getting a decent amount of traffic from one or more of these services companies could consider paying for an “upgraded” account that will often push you up in the search results.

• List your business on the Google Local Business center

• Learn about SEO or hire someone to help them improve their site rankings on the search engines. Particularly in the instance of the appliance repair, having their site show up high in a search for “Atlanta appliance repair Thermador” would have caught my attention.

• Consider adding their company to LinkedIn or adding a Facebook fan page. While these social networking sites might not seem like obvious place for someone to look for services, content on both is regularly crawled by the search engines and would improve site rankings. Besides, you never know WHERE you customer is going to look for you!

Today fewer and fewer people are using traditional media (phone books or newspapers) to find companies. They are using the internet and they aren’t just using search engines. To be successful small companies have to take the time to make sure that they have a wide-spread online presence and that it is appealing and up-to-date because ONLINE is where the customers are!

P.S. In each case, after I received good service from the providers, I went back to Kudzu.com to give them a good review. I happen to know it is good for them but not every customer will think to do that. Another suggestion is to remind your customers at the end of the service that you would appreciate a review!

Fence photo: