The Maine SEO Blog

With local search and reviews becoming so important, I pressure my clients who differentiate based on location to take it seriously.  Recently, as I was having this conversation with one such client, he asked me: “Well, if this local search stuff is so important, then why am I not running out and posting great reviews for my site; and bad ones for my competition?”  Great question.  And it quite honestly caught me off guard.  My response is multi-faceted:

It can come back to bite you in the butt…

…if you’re dishonest about it.  Search engines (or review sites) aren’t stupid, and neither are your customers for that matter.  Every review site I’ve seen requires you to create an account in order to post a comment.  Each user’s profile displays the amount of time they’ve been a member.  When a person has only been apart of one of these sites for a few days and suddenly begins posting reviews (maybe rave ones for their own site and negative reviews for competition), it serves as a red flag for both other users and the site itself.

A Yelp forum thread from a few months ago discusses this topic as it applies to Yelp, but can relate to any local review site.  Participants seemed to go back and forth about the morality of posting reviews for your own company, both with good points.  I think the consensus is…

Honesty is the best policy.

Posting your own review doesn’t have to be a bad thing, especially if you’re trying to get your name out there.  As long are you are up front and honest with both your connection to the company (owner, employee, consultant, etc.) and your true feelings about the company, other consumers can take or leave what you have to say.  The person reading it can take your biases (positive or negative) into account and form their own opinions.

Case in point, a review of flyte by Rich:

If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.

Remember Mom telling you that?  I suggest staying away from negatively reviewing competitors altogether.  No one likes to see one company slam another; if I remember correctly, competitor review commercials (think of most cleaning product ads) have among the lowest response rate from customers of all the possible marketing tactics.  Plus, there’s no need to give others negative reviews – especially if they don’t deserve them.  Worry about keeping your own reviews positive instead.

Nicki Hicks
Why not? Give yourself a pat on the back.

Moderator: Jeffrey K. Rohrs, Vice President, Marketing, Exact Target

Speaker: Nikki Fielding

• Have a consistent, core brand message
• Each channel should be appropriate for what it is: video vs. images vs. content vs. PPC
• Push LinkedIn more

Speaker: Simon Heseltine, Director of Search, Serengeti Communications

• What are people saying about your brand? (tweetbeep – alerts when people talk about your company, Google Alerts, Technoarti/RSS Feeds, Digg, Wikipedia – history page, YouTube, Flickr)
• What did people USED to say about your brand?

Speaker: Michael Jensen, Co-founder, SoloSEO

• Local reputation: Yelp; local: maps, SERP, apps, etc.)
• Get customers to review you online! (motivation: coupon, discount, free gift, etc.)
• Have customers leave a review right at your location – may result in link/recommendation
• Respond to critical reviews
• Pluribo: reviewing eBay products

Other Speaker: Jordan Glogau, Partner, Internet Reputation Management

NOTE: These notes are the major points of the presentations, and do not include every point the presenter made.

Moderator: Greg Sterling, Founding Principal, Sterling Market Intelligence

Speaker: Mike Blummental, Partner, Blumenthals

• Huge growth for Google Maps – catching up to MapQuest
• Google maps is seen over a wide variety of devices (SMS, Smartphones, etc.)
• Check for your site in Google Local, Yahoo Local, niche local sites
• The “new” PageRank: location prominent score: explicit anchor text, score of website, number of links referring to the business, highest rank of linking site, NOT PR score)

Speaker: Tony Wright, CEO/Founder, Wright IMC

• Consumer reviews/local business links: Yelp, Angie’s List, Zillow, ServiceMagic, CitySearch
• Local reviews can make/break business
• Set up alerts: Google, Twitter

Speaker: Craig Greenfield, Director, Local Search, Performics

• Businesses with multiple locations: each location should have its own page, with main URL having sitemap for spiders

Speaker: Steve Espinosa, Director of Product Development, eLocal Listing

• Set up local profiles on sites
• A/B Testing is key
• Looking to the future: local listings w/ customized profile
• 5 star reviews are incredibly powerful
• Helpful to have keyword in business name
• Helpful resources: InsiderPages, Open List, Google coupons, Meetup
• When submitting at Google Maps, link videos – adds web reference
• Phone tracking through Google: pretend to make an audio campaign, “call reporting”, track phone numbers!

Q & A

• People are still ignoring modifiers (above regular google ten pack)
• H card format for Local
• Keep check with local reviews
• Google TV – distribution onto TV
• Synergize site with local listings
• Submit to Google
• Other speaker: Eric Stein, Director, Local Markets, Google

NOTE: These notes are the major points of the presentations, and do not include every point the presenter made.