Now, jump forward a few years and some major advances in the online world, and most people will have a short list of businesses they are ready to trade with before they have even considered picking up the phone.  The level of importance people put on internet research will vary from person to person but it is fair to say in the modern world most people will have a look at what Google rather than the Yellow Pages suggests and there are many who will complete the transaction without ever talking to the person or company they are trading with.

We all know this is happening, but what are the impacts to the business who is offering services to the modern consumer?  There are three areas which need to be considered: completeness, timeliness and visibility.

We’ll continue with our Yellow Pages example; for completeness, the level of detail expected in the good old days was already touched on above, a name, an address and a telephone number was sufficient.  If you wanted to push the boundaries, you could pay for a bold entry, a logo or even a small advert, all of which were a good way to draw people eye to your business.

Completeness in the internet age is something different; if you want the casual surfer to know that you offer a service, you have to tell them.  If you don’t and someone else does they will drop you from their short list – the modern world is this unforgiving.  A website with a name, address and a phone number will only be used as such; a client who already knows you exist and wants to contact you may use your site as a reference point to look up your phone number but to a prospective customer, you’re already up against it.  As a minimum you need visual clues, some photos of your products or, even better, people enjoying your product and a description of what you do and why you do it better than everyone else.  If you have a clear range of products, these should be identified and if possible, ordered through the website.  The user should only need to speak to you if the nature of the service requires it, not because they can’t find the information on your site.  It’s not because they are unfriendly, but time is precious and if they find a site that gives them all the information they need, they may already have a winner in their head; the other site may offer a significantly inferior product but if you haven’t told them that in clear English they will assume otherwise.

Timeliness depends more on your business; if you are an electrician and offer the same services throughout the year, on call 24/7 then there’s no need to tell people you are going to be at work on Monday, but if you are a retailer or restaurant people want to know what you are selling now!  If your information is 100% complete but the menu changed last year and the prices have gone up three times since, you may attract them to your venue but the first impressions will be “I thought you had my favourite, but I can’t see it on the menu” and “This looked pretty reasonable on the site but it’s actually a bit expensive”.  You’ll then be fighting your way to recover throughout their visit.

Finally, visibility; you can have the best website in the world with real-time information but if your clients can’t find it then you have a problem.  Think about a hotel just next to London Bridge, with panoramic views, an amazing restaurant, swimming pool and everything else you’d expect from a 5* establishment; now suppose there was a mix-up and they put their full page advert in the Arizona edition of the Yellow Pages.  Anyone, searching near London Bridge on Lake Havasu⁽¹⁾ would find that the hotel was no where to be found whereas anyone in London, England would know nothing about its existence (assuming the Yellow Pages really were the only place to find out such hotels…)

A good website should appear on all the major search engines and anywhere else that people look for your particular goods or services – if you’re a pub you need to have your website referenced on all the local review sites whilst if you’re selling goods you need to appear in the price comparison sites.  Achieving this is an ongoing task (especially with timeliness in mind) and it can’t be achieved overnight, but over time with a good business, backed up by a good website, there’s no reason you shouldn’t be appearing on the first page of Google when people start their search.

So what does this mean for you?  Basically, when the Yellow Pages was King all you needed to do was check that the contact details were correct and wait until the next year to go through the process again; now things are more complicated.  Not only do you need to put time and effort into developing your site, but you also need to keep an eye on how it’s doing and develop it as your business develops.  That’s where we can help…

Each industry has a different market and different strategies but completeness, timeliness and visibility are always crucial.  We can help develop your site, give you guidance on what should and shouldn’t be included and help you optimise your site to ensure it is visible.  We’ll give you regular feedback on how your site is doing and how we can make it better.  With our help, we can make it almost as simple as submitting your details to the Yellow Pages, whilst building a much better relationship with you existing and prospective clients.