I have written a number of posts the past few months about how important it is for small businesses to be aware of and to improve their local online presence.  Local search is getting big on its own and with the advent of mobile search it is critical that small businesses stake their claim in local business searches.

GetListed.org is a great tool to use for this.  You simply enter your business name and it checks the presence of your business on (at this point) four websites – Google, Yahoo, Bing and Best of the Web.  If you don’t have a listing it gives you links to each for setting up your business on the sites.  If you do have a listing it shows gives you a snapshot of how strong your listing is – do you have pictures, citations (references from other sites) and reviews?

In addition to the four search engines listed above, GetListed.org links you to other search websites that frequently get referenced by Google, etc.  These include Superpages.com, Brownbook.net and Yelp.  Unfortunately this service seems West Coast based – sites that are used heavily here in the Atlanta area such as Kudzu.com aren’t included…yet.

There is a lot of helpful information about boosting your local search presence in one place with GetListed.org.  I highly recommend that every small business owner go there and get started with raising their local search visibility.  Set up your local listings and read the hints and tips.  In addition, I suggest adding it to your to-do list to go out there every few weeks and make sure you are listed where you should be.

How strong is your local search presence?

Technorati claim token:  5KC24UU5U39A  Everyone else can ignore

We’ve long relied on formal expert reviews and ratings to help us decide what to buy. I have had a subscription to Consumer Reports (originally the magazine, now the online version) and I wouldn’t think of buying anything electronic without checking CNET.com.

Over the years, beyond the experts, more and more sites are allowing individuals to rate and review items. I personally find this invaluable and will read consumer reviews if I am making a major purchase. I recently bought a camping tent and spent an hour or more reading reviews on multiple sites before I decided what to buy.

Now there are multiple sites that allow individuals to rate and review businesses as well. These include sites like CitySearch.com,  Kudzu.com, Angieslist.com (NOT a complete list!) as well as lots of local sites. It is important for small businesses to understand ratings and reviews and leverage them to their benefit.

First, it is important to note that you really don’t have a choice about participating on these sites. Some of them populate their listings based on public data. Others allow individual consumers to add businesses, if they aren’t already there. As a business owner you may already be listed and not even know it! Business owners are able, and in fact are encouraged, to assume ownership of their listing but even if you don’t, you are there. Once you are there consumers will write reviews – and more and more are doing this every day – so it is in your best interest to join ‘em, not fight ‘em!

What does this mean? To start with, identify the major sites in your neck of the woods. The ones listed above are in most metropolitan areas and many local newspapers and TV stations are in the game as well. Then, add your listing if it isn’t there and take ownership of it if it already exists. Make sure it is correct, up-to-date and appealing. Consider it a bit of advertising you didn’t have to pay for as well as an opportunity for additional dialog with new prospects!

Next, make it a habit to check your reviews on a regular basis. You should respond to each review. To positive reviews you should add a comment thanking the reviewer. So-so or bad reviews are harder. It is important to respond but you have to stay calm, cool and professional. Remember, the people that read these reviews expect to see a variety of reviews – what is important is that you demonstrate how you solve problems and the type of customer service a would-be customer might expect.

If you do get a bad review and respond to it once, usually it is best to just leave it at that. There are some people, commonly referred to as trolls, that like to get attention by being mean and ugly in the reviews. Generally “don’t feed the trolls” by continuing to respond or getting involved in an escalating argument in a public forum.

Finally, it is worth your time to encourage your customers to leave reviews. You can do this in a number of ways:

• with a follow up note or email
• with a link or links on your website
• by offering an incentive, say 10% the next service, for customers that post a review.

As the popularity of ratings and reviews continues to grow, the number of sites that include them and types of businesses they cover grows as well. All businesses, from auto repair shops to doctors, dentists and lawyers, can be reviewed at one place or another. Put this forum to work for you – you can gain online credibility, get invaluable feedback about your business, attract customers and connect with people online in a whole new way. Nothing wrong with that!

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: