The New Phone Book

You might remember the phone book. It used to be about ten times as thick as it is today and had three main sections. The first was residential phone numbers. The second was business phone numbers. And the final, and often a separate book altogether, was the yellow pages where businesses could pay to advertise their products and services.

The Phone Book was the source for looking up information and finding the right business to help a client in need of a particular service. As dry cleaners, we typically had a listing in the yellow pages and would pay anywhere from $250 - $1,500 per month for the placed ad. And I remember that it was always difficult to downsize the financial commitment from one year to the next. They did not mind if they collected the same amount of revenue as the past year, but the sales rep never wanted that revenue to go down, and it was clear that revenue increases incentivized the sales rep.

Along came the internet, and prospective clients started turning to search engines for the information they were looking for. The phone book stuck around for a bit but was mostly used by the older demographic who had not become computer literate. And then the real bomb dropped on the phone book with the introduction of the smartphone. Who would ever carry around a phone book when your phone could access all of the information?

Out of all the search engines, Google has the lion’s share of the search traffic. Google has taken over as the new phone book. It is where clients go to find out information about a business. And as a business owner, you MUST pay attention to how your business is showing up on Google.  And remember, each physical location has a separate Google page. 

The most important metric is your Google Rating, set on a scale from 1 star to 5 stars. The ideal star rating is 4.6 – 4.9. A star rating of 5.0 is almost not believable, as not everyone can have the best experience – you know the saying “you can’t be everything to everyone.” In addition to your star rating, it is important to have a decent number of written reviews (the more, the better, but at least 50). These reviews should generally be very positive, and there should not be a trend of negative reviews with a common thread (i.e., my shirt buttons always come back broken).

Once you have your rating and reviews in order, you must be showing up on page 1 when common search words for your business are entered. For example, Wichita Dry Cleaning or Wichita Kansas Dry Cleaners. This has everything to do with how Google sees your company and the benefits and services you offer. This is called Search Engine Optimization or SEO.

If any of these Google items are not in good shape, we will get into the different techniques of how you can fix them next week. This week, take a look at Google for your company and your immediate competitors. How do you stack up?