You work hard to craft the perfect messages to market your business. However, potential customers will believe their second cousin’s ex-brother-in-law’s opinion over your ad every time.

The Internet gives customers a platform to share their opinions with the whole world. This can be very scary or the opportunity of a lifetime. So, how can you use the myriad of review sites to build business?

Firstly, be sure to have your guarantee and quality control in place, so that if you do end up with a less than satisfied customer, you can rectify the situation quickly and completely. In order to be sure every customer is a satisfied customer, you might ask them to fill out a short survey of your product and service once the project is complete.

The next step is to get those deliriously happy customers to leave a review on the Internet. Because Google believes that its sites carry the highest authority, the first place you want to see reviews is on Google Places. So make sure that your business has a completed listing on Google Places. It’s free and that’s always the best price.

Angie’s List is another great place to get a review, but it’s open only to the paid membership, so the number of potential readers is smaller. There is no cost for businesses to be listed as the consumers pay for the privilege of membership.

Other places to make sure you have listing so your customers can leave a review are:

• Merchant Circle (merchantcircle.com)
• Yahoo! Local (local.yahoo.com)
• Yelp (yelp.com)
• City Search (yourcity.citysearch.com)
• Local.com (local.com)
• Yellow Book (yellowbook.com)
• Yellow Bot (yellowbot.com)

You can check your listings on several of these sites by going to Yext.Com and entering your business information. They have a service that will do it for you, or you can use the information to improve your own listings for free.