Tag Archives: review

Top Local Business Listing Questions Answered – Interview with Will Scott

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I have had many opportunities to chat all things local with my good friend Will Scott, and just the other day we were at it again.  We were talking about some of the most common questions we are always asked by small business owners in regards to local marketing online.  I wanted to take the time and put them down on paper for everyone.  I felt this would be a good venue to get the answers out there.  Here goes my interview with Will Scott of Search Influence . 1. What are the best ways that new to Internet businesses can go about increasing the number (or gaining any at all) citations when it comes to local listings? My number 1 recommendation would be that they make their way over to http://getlisted.org . Get Listed is a really simple tool that checks the major local search engines and tells you if you’re there. If you’re not there you can go submit yourself right from the dashboard. Once you’ve done that, go submit yourself to the major data providers. There’s a shortcut here you can get into those providers data with just 3 sources: UniversalBusinessListing.org (submits to multiple data providers) Localeze.com (submits to multiple data providers and powers many online directories. InfoUSA.com/Landing/UpdateListing.aspx (the only major not represented by the 2 above) One caveat: it’s not immediate. You must submit early in the month and then it may take 45 90 days to see full distribution. In the meantime there’s nothing wrong with hand submitting to some of the biggies like MerchantCircle, Yellowpages.com, Superpages and InsiderPages. Just be advised, your phone will ring with follow-up telemarketing. Politely decline and stick with the free listing. 2. What would you say to those who worry about receiving negative reviews? Negative reviews are bound to happen. Lots of businesses think they can play Ostrich and solve all their problems. The issue is that even if the business owner isn’t active online their customers are. As with many things the best defense is a good offense. If a business owner is proactively working to get positive reviews it’s a great defense when they find themselves with the inevitable negative. And, I think everyone understands that we can’t please all customers. No matter how hard a business owner tries there will always be that one. Just like in real life, you can’t sweat them all and the most valuable tactic is to offer good customer service so you don’t have to worry about reputation management . 3. What would you say to those who are worried their competitiors are giving them bad reviews? Forget about it see above. Seriously though, you can’t defend against it. Just monitor your reviews and other online mentions and if one crops up which looks suspect, address it head on and report it to whichever service is hosting it. It does no good to share your agitation with the site where a review is posted. Keep it factual and professional and they’ll be much more likely to take it down. We have seen Yelp reviews pulled, but it’s not very common. In the case of Yelp, reviews which don’t pass the sniff-test often face the Yelp Review Filter . 4. What are some of the best places/resources someone who has ran a business for years offline, but never online use to get started? Wow, the list is endless but just for a few: GetListed.org already mentioned above. In addition to the service, there’s a blog and links to lots of great resources. OutspokenMedia.com/blog/ Lisa and her cohorts blog almost daily. They take a very user-friendly approach to online marketing. It’s entertaining for pros and approachable for those just getting started. SmallBusinessSEM.com Matt McGee’s blog. Occasionally insidebaseball but filled with great stuff written with the business owner in mind. DuctTapeMarketing.com John Jantsch’s site. Very nitty gritty marketing ideas and execution. SmallBizTrends.com Anita Campbell and a stable of writers tracking, reporting and advising on news and info of interest. SmallBusinessBrief.com Forum from the folks at SearchEngineGuide.com. Search Engine Guide is a little technical for newbies, but there are a lot of helpful people in the forum. In all seriousness I recommend our blog: http://www.searchinfluence.com/blog/ . It’s written by my team for and from the perspective of the small business clients with whom we work. And, though it’s often a little insidebaseball for newbies too, I think your blog  http://dreamsystemsmedia.com/blog/ has a lot to offer as well. Mat, thanks for asking for my opinions. This is an area where I’m pretty passionate. Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal . Top Local Business Listing Questions Answered – Interview with Will

Some Tactical Tips for Tracking the Long Tail

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Most of us in the search industry are pretty much aware by now that simply tracking individual keyword rankings to determine performance is all but a dead SEO practice. This scene is played out for a variety of reasons, due largely in part to personalized search and Google serving search results based on a searcher’s physical location. With that said, I personally have a hard time believing that most people are willing to ignore keyword rankings altogether – nor do I think we should. Benchmarking rankings for specific keywords and tracking progress over time is still a very valuable exercise. However, focusing only on rankings is far less than ideal. So what other metrics are folks using to track the effectiveness of their SEO efforts? I will expand on a few, but please, feel free to share in the comments as well. A Recommended Approach In general, it’s best to correlate keyword rankings with traffic. But not only is it a best practice to track organic visits from targeted keywords, it is a best practice to capture their long tail counterparts as well. In other words, think of your targeted key phrases as the “base” and track search engine visits from all variations of a given base keyword. Often, when traffic begins to increase from long tail search queries, it is an indication that search engine optimization progress is underway. In addition, tracking long tail traffic in relation to targeted keywords will help to illustrate the value of your SEO efforts until you have obtained better visibility for the more competitive, high search volume keywords. One recommended approach is to segment tracking between “exact match” targeted keyword rankings and keyword category traffic. Exact Match Targeted Keyword Rankings This refers to a standard approach: perform thorough keyword research and identify the top keywords that represent your products or services and track their rankings. Cross reference organic traffic from these “exact match” keywords to monitor growth as rankings improve and to ensure those keywords are converting into leads or sales. Keyword Category Traffic Tracking keyword categories captures the long tail of traffic to paint a more holistic view of how these categories are actually performing. A keyword category can be created by lumping a group of related keywords into one comprehensive “bucket” that makes up a given category. Keyword categories can be very simple. For example, a Review category could simply consist of all search engine traffic that came from queries that contained the word “review”. Keyword categories can also be more complex however, for example a Television category could consist of all search engine traffic that came from queries that contained the word “television” and/or “hdtv” and/or “flat screen” and so on. These categories can be created in a manner of minutes by using Google Analytics Custom Segments. You may also consider categorizing your exact match targeted keyword rankings to match your keyword categories for tracking the long tail. With this approach, a separate ranking report would be run for each category and then appropriately cross referenced with long tail keyword traffic. In graph format, one axis would contain exact match keyword rankings and the secondary axis would contain that category’s long tail visits. So there you have it. A relatively simple approach to tracking long tail traffic and mapping it back to optimization for specific keywords. There are other metrics to trend as well, such as the number of keywords and the number of landing pages (mainly for very large sites) that drive organic traffic. It wasn’t too long ago that analytics solutions were not able to provide such customizable and flexible reporting features, so take advantage if you haven’t already. Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal . Some Tactical Tips for Tracking the Long

Google-Certified Ad Networks for All AdSense Publishers

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It’s been awhile since we last heard anything from Google AdSense. Although it may be starting to lose its luster among website publishers, I would like to think that there are still tons of sites which relied on it to earn some extra bucks.  Anyway, the Inside AdSense blog just announced that AdSense publishers will now have access to Google-certified ad network. This was previously allowed only for U.S.  and Europan publishers. Allowing these ad networks would mean more ad networks would be competing now for display ad space on publishers’ sites.  And this would lead to more ads to appear on sites serving AdSense display ads – more earning for site owners. So the next time you check out your Ad Review Center account, don’t be surprise to see more ad networks queuing up on your display ad space. It’s up to you to select which of these ad networks you would allow to display their ads on your sites. If you’re afraid that you might get an influx of ad networks which are not related to the subject of your sites, well, you don’t have to worry since some of these ad networks adhere to Google’s interest-based ad program which stipulates that only relevant ads are to be served on sites they visit. If you don’t like this arrangement, you can always opt-out of  this feature anytime. Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal . Google-Certified Ad Networks for All AdSense

An Extremely Nifty Guide to Reviews and Local Search

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There is one area within the “Local Search Sphere” that brings a wide amount of debate when it comes to ranking impacts, importance, and ethical dilemmas. That area is reviews. Dah dah daahhhhhh. ß Scary Movie Sound So, in an attempt to put light on a fairly clouded subject, this post will focus on following… How reviews effect local search rankings The future of local search + reviews A list of review sites that currently get picked up by “The Engines” A 6 step review strategy for your business. How Reviews Effect Local Search Rankings In this section I will be calling on information from David Mihm’s 2009 Local Search Ranking Factors as well as my own experimentation and thoughts. There are no doubts that reviews effect ranking factors on the major search engines, as well as a number of IYP’s (Internet Yellow Pages). This issue has a very high “agreeance” among local SEO’s, and I have seen certain amounts of reviews move companies up the rankings with all else staying the same. Mary Bowling of SeOverflow stated that, “ Yahoo Local has said there’s a threshold for the number of reviews and that once you reach that threshold, the reviews begin to factor into your rankings. Of course they will not say what that threshold is. For [Google] Maps, more reviews help you to rank better, and even one review is helpful, and gives you an edge over businesses with no reviews.” Many Local SEO’s don’t like that this is the case, and both sides of the issue have good ammunition for debate. Reviews are a very good trust factor to prove the validity of a business, but they can be semi-easily fabricated by guys with black hats and dark sunglasses. At this current time, and for the foreseeable future, reviews affect rankings. So, instead of fighting this, I have chosen to embrace it, and look at ways to promote real reviews of local businesses. Not only do reviews lend a helping hand when it comes to ranking factors, but the number of reviews works as “eye candy” to people searching for local businesses. Let ’ s look at the following example… If a business has no reviews, then the link to the Places Page says “More”. If Google has a single review associated with the business, then the text changes to show the number of reviews. The review count is the last part of the listing that users see They are surrounded by white space It is the only means of comparing businesses at a glance Consumers generally trust online reviews for finding more information on a local business. Reviews can also be used to your favor with Google’s Other Places You Might Like Tab as pointed out by Andrew Shotland. Now, a little nugget for businesses that show up with a 3 pack or less. When a business has 5 reviews or more listed, the “review stars” a.k.a. “five  eye candies” make their way to the listing. All of this adds up to show that businesses with reviews stand out, and can lead to an increased Click-Through-Rate. When I shop…I shop reviews, my mom shops reviews, and I even caught her dog reading reviews on a local Petsmart. Now, one of the things that seems to bring varying opinions amongst the local community is the ranking weight given to different review sites as they are picked up by search engines. I am not going to shed light on this issue. I will save those thoughts for a different occasion. Review sites that currently get picked up by Search Engines First and foremost Yahoo, Bing, and Google have their own review systems for consumers to leave feedback. The following is a list of places that the search engines gather reviews to include in their own results. Yahoo – None Bing – Citysearch, Judysbook. Google – Across most industries (SuperPages, City Search, Insiderpages, Judysbook) This is a basic list of some of the most generic review sites that show up well in industries across the board. Google pulls reviews from 100’s of Industry specific sites like demandforce for dentists, and urbanspoon for the food industry. Just recently it was announced that they would pull reviews from local blogs and news sites as well . So, with Google and Bing pulling information from other places, what are they doing with it? The Future of Local Search + Reviews Sentiment Analysis is the next phase of Local Search, and I believe we will see this evolve throughout the rest of 2010. A few month’s ago we saw the following pop up on Places Pages, and a similar list on Bing’s Listings as well. This shows that Google is now analyzing the ratings, and keywords found within individual reviews in order to rank businesses on price, atmosphere, service, and many other factors. Now, why would this information be useful to a Search Engine? With businesses properly categorized, they would be able to return listings based on searches like “Italian restaurants with great atmosphere” or “dental office with great services”. Instead of this information being returned by optimizing keywords for the SERPs, the search results would be based on user generated content. This will also increase the percentage of local boxes being displayed in the results. So, when the engines begin this, you had better have a good understanding of what your reviews say about your company, or clients. If you don’t, you might find yourself ranking very high on a term like “dirtiest restaurant in New York City”. A review strategy for your business The following is by no means all you should do. This is the basics and contains a very broad scope to a subject that needs a narrow and specific focus. But, these steps are important and serve as a great starting point for any business. 1. Do not fabricate fake reviews or the Local SEO gods will beat you like a red headed step child and drop you from visibility (No offense to any red headed step children). I consider fake reviews one of two unpardonable sins. The other is hijacking a listing. 2. Look at every review about your business found on the search engines. Then, do a search for the following “your company name” + phone number. This will show you every listing that is indexed on your business. It will also allow you to see what reviews are saying (and reveal a fair amount of citations in the process). From here, the wonderful Miriam Ellis wrote a guide on her SEO Igloo Blog entitled Edit, Remove and Respond To Reviews – Tools For Conflict Resolution in which she identified the process of fixing a tainted image. Now, understand that it is important to follow up on negative reviews, but you don’t need them all removed. No business is perfect, but showing that you are “aware and care” is as close as you can get. 3. Find a way to thank those who have left reviews. Many site have profiles where you can send the reviewer a message, or at least respond to the review. Do so, and in the process you could ask them to follow you on twitter or facebook, and ultimately create loyal customers who can be called on in the future for helping with your online reputation.  4.  Look at the review section of your industry competitors on Google and Bing, and find out which sites reviews are gathered from . If you didn’t catch the hint up above, Citysearch and Judysbook are showing in both engines. This means that a single review on the mentioned sites could help you on more engines than one. 5. Choose a few sites that you want to promote as the place for customers to go to leave reviews. It is important to not put your eggs all in one basket. I have seen 30 Google reviews disappear that took a client months of work to generate. The company was only explaining how to leave reviews on Google. If they had been able to give directions or links to multiple review sites, then only a few might have been lost. 6. Come up with a review campaign that fosters legitimate feedback . Look at the guidelines for each review site to make sure you are acting in accordance with their expectations. Some review sites ask that you don’t reward people for leaving reviews, others say that offering something is a great tactic. Use your best judgment, and I would love to hear what you are doing to promote honest feedback of yours, or your client’s businesses. Reviews are such a vital part of local search and like me, they are gaining weight as time goes on. Businesses that monitor what is being said about them will be able to learn from honest customers, and have a good understanding of what the outside perspective of their company is. Not only will they be able to ultimately rank better for different searches, but they will also be able to improve on business practices based on the customer feedback. So, the time has come for small businesses to manage their online review reputation, or manage to find themselves with nothing but a bad Click-Through-Rate and a link begging for “More”. Mike Ramsey is the owner of Nifty Marketing , a Local Search consulting company hailing from Burley, Idaho. His twitter handle is niftymarketing and he is a proud husband and father. Mike is also teaching a social dance class if anyone is interested. Yes, his wife talked him into it.         Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal . An Extremely Nifty Guide to Reviews and Local