1. Yelp – http://yelp.com
Yelp is a free service that allows anyone to write an unbiased review of your business that is available to the public at any time.  Do I have your attention yet?  To stay up to speed on your Yelp page, use the site’s search function to find your own company and click the large red button that says, “Claim This Business.”

2. Local Search
- http://google.com/local
- http://bing.com/local
- http://local.yahoo.com/
Local search is the most likely way that internet searchers will find a small brick and mortar business.  All of the major search engines have expanded the capabilities of local search to include directions and reviews, another source of information about your company that you’ll want to closely monitor.  All the search engines have similar functionality to Yelp that allows you to claim and enhance your business listing.

3. Analytics – http://google.com/analytics
What good are all these new sources of business if you can’t measure the results?  Google Analytics is free and easy to install on almost any website.  In addition to always asking your new customers how they found out about you, it’s important to have solid numbers about how people find you online.  If you need help, installing analytics is a minor project that can usually be completed in a couple hours.

What other internet services do you consider essential for local businesses?

Here’s three tips for making the most of your entry pages:

- Make people feel comfortable about being in the right place.
Every page on your website should have consistent branding and be clear about what your company does.  You’d be surprised how many sites miss that second part.

- Provide navigational orientation that indicates where users are on your site.
Is it easy for the user to know how deep they are in your site structure and move up to a category level or homepage?  You can easily handle this by using a main navigation that clearly indicates the active page and using a crumb trail on more complex sites.

- Properly target your search terms and make sure your landing pages have all relevant information.
Nothing frustrates users more than irrelevant search results.  Make sure your site isn’t contributing to the problem by paying close attention to the search terms that drive traffic to your site and adjusting content accordingly.