Family tech: Online alternatives to the Yellow Pages

In the past couple weeks I picked up two new Yellow Pages books off my lawn and put them straight into the garbage. If your small business spent money on those expensive ads, I am sorry.

This is the first year I threw them out immediately. For the last several years I carefully unwrapped them and put them into a kitchen drawer. That drawer didn't get opened again until the next year when I repeated the ritual.

Doesn't everyone Google for business listings now instead of finding where they set their yellow pages? I called my test sample of senior citizens, mom and dad to check. They mostly searched Google for businesses they need mom had used the Yellow Pages last week for the first time in recent memory when she had to find a local business she knew by its location, not its name. She didn't know she could have gone to Google Maps, entered her city, then typed in the kind of business it was. She then would have been given a list of the businesses, with their address and phone numbers, and a map showing were they all were in relation to her house.

In Google Maps, you can click on a business, and see additional information about the business, including reviews others have left.

Yelp.com also is a Web site for finding local businesses and exchanging information about them. You can review the restaurants where you eat, and read up on new restaurants you want to try.

Location-aware applications are the newest thing on smart phones. No matter where you are, you can go online and search for "seafood" and see all the fish restaurants around you. Services like FourSquare, Gowalla and Google Buzz let you "check in" at various businesses. You can see who else is eating there, and what others have said or recommended there. Some businesses even offer discounts to Foursquare users who gain "Mayor" status for their business, making the whole act of checking in a game for customers.

These apps let customers become part of a community and share their shopping and dining experiences. Customers themselves build good will for businesses, and provide important feedback to the own-ers.

If you are a business owner, you have to keep an eye on what is online about your business. You should go to the Google Place page for your business by finding it on Google Maps and then clicking on the name. You can edit the information like the kind of business it is, the contact information, add a link to your Web site and more. You cannot edit out bad reviews, but the best way to combat bad reviews is have loyal pa-trons put up good reviews.

If your business does not have a Web site, you should create one right now. Gone are the days of having to work with expensive designers and costly hosting companies. Squarespace.com, for example, lets you easily create a polished, professional looking site yourself, and then hosts it for you for about $14 a month. If you are a take out restaurant and you do not have your menu online, you are losing business. Having your own Web site makes it more likely you'll show up in online searches when new customers come looking for you.

Participating in the online storefront of your business is critical in today's business environment. If you have questions, e-mail me. You must have information about your business online for customers to find you in the real world.

Links for items mentioned in this column can be found at: http://bit.ly/FamilyTech Mark's blog is at http://markstout.blogspot.com and his email address is markstout@gmail.com