7 Local Business Review Sites Capturing Your Customers’ Attention
Restaurants, dry cleaners, apartment management companies,
mechanics, doctors, day spas, limousine services, law firms, and other brick (click) and mortar businesses lose and gain customers daily based on based on their past and current customers' opinions. Bad service news travels faster than good service, the old adage goes. Welcome to the new word-of-mouth (mouse). When you're looking for someone to do business with, and recommendations from your friends and family aren't readily available, where else can people turn, but online? Customer reviews can reward one business and completely destroy another. Learn the highest leverage ones for your business.
Yelp.com
Insiderpages.com
Maps.google.com
Citysearch.com
Local.Yahoo.com
Local.com
MerchantCircle.com
There are 1000s of local business review sites and directories, but as a business owner, you should first pay attention to the truly important ones already showing up in Google, Yahoo!, and MSN for your keywords. You can list your business on the sites above and past and current customers can review for free, although some have paid versions in order to "expand your page" (MerchantCircle and CitySearch), it's not always necessary because they will take reviews all day (more content for them).
Believe it or not, you and your competitors are being reviewed by past and current customers on these sites everyday. The credibility and authenticity you'll never be able to achieve from your website alone with no amount of testimonials on your site. If you haven't received any reviews on these sites,that says something as well. It's important to give customers the opportunity to rate your company,
as scary as that might sound. But wait!
Three Important Local Business Review Marketing Tips
1). Never fake reviews or testimonies, it's not worth the consequences (possible banning).
2). Ask happy customers to review right after he/she has bought, and keep reminding.
3). Don't freak out if there are some less than 100% positive reviews.
To address the last one, potential customers expect a balance with everything veering on the side of positive and not for your business to be perfect. If there are any negative reviews follow up with that person by contacting him/her and try to make their after experience a good one. Consumer studies and surveys have proven customers are more satisfied with a company in which there was a small issue and the issue was resolved, compared to if there was never one in the first place. After you have addressed his or her concern, ask them to make an addition to their review.
Get a Promotion & Dominate the Listings
Many of these sites promote your listing higher on each localized, business specific type landing page based on several factors: business details (description, pictures, even videos and other content) and customer reviews.The second is the most critical factor in getting your listing above others. The search engines want content, the more content you provide within their limits, the more they are encouraged to reward you with a higher listing. Google Maps even allows business owners to upload YouTube videos.
To reiterate, just creating a business listing on each is not enough not matter how much content you add. You should ask past customers to rate your services on these sites point blank and the best time to ask is right
after they have spent money with you. Psychologically, everyone needs to self-reinforce in order to avoid buyer's remorse. By asking them for a review it benefits them, because it secures their buying decision in their
own mind and helps your business tremendously.
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An Abercrombie And Fitch
An Abercrombie And Fitch employee in northern California is alleging she was fired for refusing to remove her hijab, or headscarf marking her Muslim observance. Abercrombie pursuit of a homogeneous army of "perfect" employees appears to have snared it again!
Abercrombie Clothing to the AP, "the Council on Abercrombie UK Relations said Wednesday it filed an Equal Abercrombie London Opportunity Commission complaint on behalf of Hani Khan." Abercrombie Fitch says she was told she would be allowed to wear a Abercrombie Outlet, but a visiting district manager disputed that. She says she was fired when she refused to take it off.
In 2008, an Abercrombie And Fitch accused Abercrombie of refusing to hire her because her head scarf "didn't fit the chain's image." That lawsuit, filed last year, is still in progress.
Abercrombie in the company's serious on-the-ground sensitivity issues: Abercrombie Clothing to let a woman help her autistic sister try on Abercrombie UK, for which they were fined $115,264, and banishing an employee with a prosthetic arm from the store floor. That employee, Riam Dean, was awarded ￡8,000 for unlawful harassment, although the tribunal ruled that she hadn't suffered disability discrimination.
Abercrombie London has a well-documented mission of selling its idea of youthful physical perfection, Abercrombie Fitch the Bruce Weber ad campaigns to the employees that fit its ideal of American beauty. The company conceded that that ideal didn't include black, Abercrombie Outlet, and Asian employees in 2004 when it paid $40 million to employees and job applicants of those demographics to settle a class-action federal discrimination lawsuit. They had been accused of "engaging in recruiting and hiring practices that exclude minorities and adopting a virtually all-white marketing campaign."
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This is the last straw. I'll
This is the last straw. I'll never use Google again and their servers are going in my hosts file. Oh, for the days when they swore that they would NEVER be anything other than a Web search engine! Bachelor degree AND MBA degree AND Master degree
If it's done carefully &
If it's done carefully & leaves the user in control it could be ok. It's possible to do non-intrusive video ads as long as they don't autoplay, don't take up too much of the screen and are clear as to what they are. Here's hoping it isn't too bad, anyhow.
online Doctorate degrees AND Phd degree
Outstanding article!
This is a fantastic article on how to help build momentum and promote your site locally. Thanks for sharing some tips I didn't already know! FYI - a couple of your links are broken and need fixin' (InsiderPages and Local Yahoo)
Review's Help With Ranking but does so much more.....
This post is right on the money,boosting reviews help you rank and really seperate a business from the crowd. However something that can not be tracked and is more valuable than ranking and conversion is retention. A customer that finds a business online based on great reviews are more likely to write a review and take ownership of doing business with a company. This really leads into internet reputation management especially the word of mouth because its permanent online.
Interesting concept and site.
Interesting concept and site. You'll have to keep us up to date on how things progress over time.