Mike Dorausch is always on the lookout for new chiropractic clients in Los Angeles. To help spread the word about his services, he gently asks patients to say nice things about him at one of the many customer-review sites popping up on the Web.

“Online reviews is how folks find us,” Dorausch says. About 80 percent of his new business stems from customers finding online reviews about him and booking appointments, he says.

Picking up on a trend started by the travel industry, business-listing sites by Google, Yahoo and others including Yelp and Citysearch let customers rave about their favorites, or complain about poor service. That helps consumers get real-life opinions about local businesses and services. For businesses attempting to reach consumers, the feedback spreads the word in a way ads can’t. But perhaps more crucial, the reviews can dramatically raise a Web site’s visibility in search engines.

Reviews and star ratings are often cited in search results. A

Google search for “Los Angeles chiropractor,” for instance, includes not only urls to Web sites and descriptions, but plus a 10-item list of local chiropractors with their addresses, reviews, star ratings and a local map at the top of the page.

“You’re seeing a lot of businesses fighting to get into that top 10,” says Greg Sterling, an analyst at Sterling Market Intelligence. “This is the most privileged position on the Web. It’s a big, prominent placement. whether you’re there, you benefit, and whether you’re not, you don’t.”

Sterling says businesses will spend about $1.7 billion that year trying to reach potential local customers online, growing to $2.2 billion in 2009.

Dramatic Growth at Local Level

Local listing sites are showing dramatic growth. Traffic at Google Maps is up 25 percent year to year. Relative newcomer Yelp, founded in 2004, is up 129 percent.

Yelp is all about members…

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