Over the weekend, my automatic garage door sprung a spring — meaning I had to pull the red emergency cord to get it to close.

Because I’m a handy-with-tools kind of woman, I could see how to fix it, but given that the pulley / cable combination had broken too, figured it better to call in the pros. (Plus, my garage door, which is solid wood, is *heavy.* As buff as I am, I couldn’t lift it to the open position.)

Going online, I searched for “garage door repair Plaistow” and was presented with the Google map pack.

Read the one review for Cass Shumsky Overhead Garage Door Corporation. The customer was very happy with her garage door repair. Bingo. Called the company on Sunday afternoon and received a call back from Cass Shumsky himself Monday morning.

I told Mr. Shumsky I had found his site through Google and he said, “They say now the yellow pages no longer work, so I’ve been working hard to make sure I show up in Google.”

Even better, to get people to leave a comment on his Website, he entices them with a $5 gas card — an enticement I read about on his Twitter feed. How cool is that? (I left my own comment.)

The entire experience of dealing with Mr. Shumsky was wonderful. Eric, his repair person, showed up at my house at 12:15 and because I had a call scheduled for 1:00, he had my door working again by 12:50. I was very impressed.

Small companies like Shumsky’s call me regularly because business has dropped off and they’re scrambling. I explain about why they need to be online, but I get resistance.

Here’s why being online — with just a simple Website that’s not even optimized — worked for Mr. Shumsky:

1. Because he has a Website and has claimed his Google Places listing, his business appears in the Google map pack.

2. He encourages people to leave testimonials, ensuring future business.

3. Simple site shows what he does — fix and install garage doors.

4. Phone number is on every single page making it easy to call.

But there’s more to it than that. Mr. Shumsky succeeded with me because he treated me with courtesy and respect (I can’t tell you how many male tradespeople have treated me like I’m an idiot), he had his repairman out when he said he would, and the repair was done quickly and cost-effectively.

Yes, the Internet has changed all the rules with regard to marketing. But some of the rules haven’t changed — as seen in my experience with Mr. Shumsky. As he said to me on the phone, “My name is on my business. That means I stand behind my word.”

Thank you, Mr. Shumsky, for reinforcing this “traditional” way of doing business, and thank you for fixing my garage door. It works better than it did before it broke. And, you’ll definitely get my order when I’m ready to order a new garage door.

According to the experts at Planet Ocean, publishers of Search Engine News, “. . . very soon any business, small, large, local or international must include a plan and strategy to incorporate Local Search optimization efforts into their online marketing plan or be left to catch up on those who do.”

This is basically the same thing I said in my MarCom Strategist newsletter, “Increase Business with Local Search” (I read SE News after publishing it, so obviously great minds think alike!).

In short, local search is going to be BIG! HUGE! (as Julia Roberts says in the movie Pretty Woman) so it pays to take steps now to ensure customers / prospects can find your site when they’re searching for it — whether they’re down the street or across the U.S.

In addition to having a site optimized for search engines, you also need to get your business listed in the three search engines’ local listing centers.

Before you begin, take a moment to ensure you have accounts with all three search engines. You’ll need a Windows Live ID for Bing.

Google Local Business Center
Yahoo! Local
Bing Local Listing Center

Once you open your accounts, you’re effectively creating profiles people can see, so you’ll want to take a minute to ensure that people you don’t know are viewing only the information you want them to see.

Setting up your local listings is pretty easy but can take a good half hour or more — and after having just added my listing to Yahoo and Bing, I have three tips you can do before-hand to help you save some time.

1. Create a tag line — Each listing center requires you to include a tag line of approximately 150 to 200 characters that describes your business. Be sure to develop a tag line that describes what you do using action verbs and plain English.

2. Write a description — Yahoo and Bing also require that you include a longer description where you can flesh out the services you offer and what makes you unique from your competition.

I created a really good one for Yahoo and then kicked myself when I realized that I couldn’t access my Enhanced Yahoo Listing since it’s pending review — hence, I had to make a new one for Bing from memory.

So be sure to have your tag line and description ready to go in a separate document when updating or adding your local listings. (This step ensures that your tag and description are the same across all three platforms, too.)

3. Have images ready to go — All three local listing platforms let you upload images, including photographs of your products (or yourself) and videos. Save time by having these images and/or URLs ready to go.

In addition to the basic listings, Yahoo offers an Enhanced Listing for $9.95 per month and a Featured Listing for $24.95 per month.

And speaking of Yahoo, you can also pay $299 annually to be listed in the Yahoo Directory. Now, I’ve read in places that getting listed is good for SEO as Google considers the directory a trusted source. (This is because a “real” person reviews each directory listing.)

However, some people believe that a Yahoo Directory listing can adversely affect your Yahoo rankings, so I can’t advise you whether you should pay the fee or not.

And, if you were grandfathered into the Yahoo Directory the way I was (and hence don’t have to pay the $299 annual fee) and you’re listed in the wrong category but your URL is correct, just leave it alone (which seems to be the general consensus).

And that’s it for setting up local search listings. Once they’re complete, you’ll then want to ask your customers to post online reviews to sites such as Yelp — which is a Google Partner — as reviews are now part of the local search algorithm.