First of all, if you don’t already know it, that big fat yellow pages book is long gone. They may still make it and deliver it to all the houses on the block, but no one is using that book at all.

Nope, they are all using the internet these days my friends. From their mobile phones, iPads, laptops and desktops. When they want to contact a company or find someone to sell them a product or do a service for them, they search it out online. Taking it one step further, the internet has given them a new avenue they never had with the old yellow pages. Not only can they find a company to get the job done, they can also do research on that company to see if it’s a good company to do business with.

Now even if they don’t plan to research the company, often times negative material will stop them from doing business with you or your business. The reason for this is that complaints on sites like Ripoff Report rank in the search results extremely well. Often in the top five, which is what we call “above the fold”. What this means is that their listing is visible to the user without scrolling down the page. This is where it gets ugly. Because the potential client or customer may have only been looking for contact information for you, but what they see is a whole lot more. Continue reading →