Seven Local Business Review Sites Influencing Your New Customers
June 20, 2012 - Posted by Shama Kabani
Every business – including dry cleaners, auto mechanics, accounting firms, moving companies, restaurants, doctors, law firms, and other brick (click) and mortar businesses – wins and loses new customers every day before the potential customer even sets foot out the door. This decision is often based solely on past and current customers’ opinions posted has online. With so many businesses to choose from, being number one on Google is almost never the only deciding credibility or trust factor. These days, you’re dealing with an educated customer who does their research and does not care what you have to say about your business: they care what others have to say. When friends and family aren’t readily available to ask for recommendations, where else can people turn but the local online community? Welcome to the new word-of-mouth (mouse) marketing. When faced with too many choices, others will rely on the “social proof” of what others think. Online reviews are a perfect example. Where are potential customers finding these reviews? The truth is, all over the Internet. There are 1000s of local business review sites and directories – but there are a handful that matter more than the rest combined.
Since a potential customer’s initial search still often starts with keywords on a search engine using a service-oriented keyword followed or preceded by the city in which they’re searching (ex: BMW mechanic Dallas), you should first pay attention to the truly important ones already showing up in Google, Yahoo!, and MSN for your keywords. Below are seven of the major review and business listing sites that hold weight and have huge online presence. Learn the seven biggies.
1. Google Places for Business
Formerly known as Google Local, Google Places allows businesses to register themselves with Google, at which point they’ll be listed on Google Maps as well as show up in Google search results with extended information and data available at a glance. After signing up for the free service, simply describe your business with location information, a listing of services, hours of operation and a link to your business website. Once listed, users will be able to leave reviews for your business directly on your Google Places page. In May 2012, Google incorporated Google+ Local listings into Google Places. Google+ Local uses Zagat summaries of user reviews to assign a business a Zagat score.
If you let Google find your business first, you’ll be rewarded with better placement on the map. Much like Google would rather find your website on its own through links rather than search engine submission, Google Maps will trust and more than likely post reviews from other review sites before submitting or modifying your listing. Often, the Google Places bot will scour the Internet for other reviews sites already touting your company’s offerings and experiences, so start building profiles on other review sites first to begin compiling a healthy portfolio of reviews. Reviews are an absolutely essential factor in achieving top placement in the alphanumeric listing of the Google Places/Google Map Listings, so long as your reviews are genuine – fake reviews are quickly recognized, and can not only hurt your listing position, but your reputation. A business name containing keywords and a complete Google Places profile also helps. Get started with Google Places for Business.
2. Yelp!
Since it was founded in 2004 to connect residents of San Francisco to local businesses, Yelp! has taken off and become a household name across the world. With 71 million unique monthly visitors in the first quarter of 2012 alone, the Yelp! community has exploded into a full-fledged social community, complete with the ability to add friends, earn community reputations, a robust commenting system, and picture profiles. Because of it’s marked popularity – with over 27 million reviews posted as of March 2012 – Yelp! reviews rank well with search engines, and are generally seen as reputable and trustworthy thanks to an algorithm implemented in 2006 that, while not necessarily perfect, helps to curb fake reviews. To gain control of your profile, first check to see if your business is already listed; if so, then you must “claim” the listing with phone call verification. See what others are saying about your business and talk back on Yelp.com
3. Yahoo! Local Listings
Yahoo! Local Listings are similar in format to Google Places. Complete with a map and full landing page, Yahoo! Local listings rank above organic search results and below the top three pay-per-click listings. Promote your Yahoo! Local Listing by treating it like it’s one of the family – get reviews, flesh out the profile, add business information. Although Yahoo! currently only gets about 13.5% of the search engine share, that’s still represents a significant number of potential visitors to present your business’ listings to. Get your Yahoo! Map Listing started.
4. Citysearch
While not as popular as it once was, this business review site has been around for many years. Citysearch was founded back in 1995, and for many years was fueled by staff reviews of local venues. Today, however, they have adopted a format very similar to that of Yelp!, showing user-posted reviews. They also boast a “Best of Citysearch” competition, allowing local users to vote for their favorite businesses in various categories to a quest to win their favorite places the crown. Most importantly, Citysearch listings tend to show up well in search engine rankings. Check out CitySearch.com.
5. MerchantCircle
MerchantCircle, founded in 2005, has been infiltrating search listings and growing ever since. Originally designed as solely a user review site, MerchantCircle now sets itself apart from the rest of the review sites by touting the availability of deals and coupons available from merchants. In February 2012, MerchantCircle announced over 15 million monthly visits and 1.2 million active registered merchant users. Join the circle.
6. Insider Pages
Insider Pages is another online “local search” service operated by IAC/InterActiveCorp, owners of CitySearch. Before its acquisition by IAC the company was based in Redwood Shores, California, and had over 600,000 reviews of local merchants around the country. Today, they claim “millions” of monthly users. Better yet, Google Maps definitely picks it up. Be an insider.
7. Angie’s List
Angie’s List was founded in 1995 in the form of a hard-copy publication that solicited user recommendations for local businesses in Columbus, Ohio. The database moved to the Internet in 1999, and has since become a dominant force in local user review websites. Unlike other business review sites, however, Angie’s List charges a membership fee for users to read and post reviews, though listings are free for companies. Even with a fee, Angie’s List claims over 1 million members, with over 40,000 reviews posted each month. List your business on Angie’s List.
Three Important Local Business Review Marketing Tips
1). Never write fake reviews or testimonies. It’s simply not worth the risk of being banned, and could severely damage your reputation in the eyes of users if you’re caught.
2). Don’t be afraid to ask happy customers to review after they visit or make a purchase. Many customers would be happy to, if reminded.
3). Don’t panic if there are some less than 100% positive reviews. No business is perfect, and nobody expects them to be. Instead, use any criticism as a learning tool for improving your business. If possible, follow up and see how you can fix the problem. 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.
For over ten years, Idan Shnall has worked behind-the-scenes to help create exposure, traffic, leads, and sales through major search engines like Google, Yahoo!, and Bing. Calling upon his diverse background in copywriting, advertising, marketing, and sales, he has been learning traditional SEO and SEM tactics for many years. He is the lead SEM Strategist at MarketingZen.com, an innovative online marketing company. For more information on SEM & SEO and reputation management contact The Marketing Zen Group.
This is a great post! One thing about Google Local Business Listings, they recently changed it to only have 7 top listings. They are making room for their Paid local listings spots.
I would like to let the world know of the issues that are happening with Japan
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great post, but local listing for indonesia territory dint support yet
I like to know more about the part where you said let Google find your business just like in organic search by listing your business first in review sites. Do I have to promote the review sites where I have my listing to be found quickly by Google? Thanks for the info here.
Thanks for the advice, it’s nice to know consumers have somewhere to turn now so they don’t get robbed again!!!
Thanks for a concise well- written article. This article came up when I googled “best online business review sites”. Given how fast the landscape changes I’d like to see a 2011 update! I’m surprised not to see Angie’s Pages in here. I googled because a client opted not utilize my services and simultaneously offered to write a great review on “my favorite review site” and I don’t know which one to tell him! I’m also curious about the variety of aliases I utilize and how that impacts the google spiders and other ways that the search engines look for sites. Thanks!
Great site, but not for Mexico. I have a vacation rental business in small beach resort on the Pacific Ocean on mainland Mexico near Puerto Vallarta. We have about 70 – 80 private homes and villas for rent and, since we live here and have personally been in every house and villa many times, offer our expertise to clients re: which home would better suit their specific needs. We get rave views from our clients about our service, but do not know where we can ask them to leave a review other than our site. Any Ideas??
There is only one issue with the list… Yelp has the tendency to delete legitimate reviews. Try and see for yourself… it will leave you frustrated.
I agree with you. We had all our positive legitimate reviews filtered by Yelp right after we said no to them when they sold us their $300/month service to remove competitors listing. Do not use Yelp for any type of business listing. We just closed our account with them and will inform our customers as well.
Good post. InsiderPages is pretty marginal. Yelp has the best ranking usually in Google, surprising as they are competitors in a way. Really surprised there’s not a major competitor to Yelp
Thanks for another informative website. Where else could I get that type of information written in such an ideal way? I have a project that I am just now working on, and I’ve been on the look out for such information.
Thanks for sharing this. I am actually looking at how to post paper reviews. Some of our customers just write feedback after they visit our shop. Is there a way I can post them online legally on these sites? Thanks!
Unfortunately, I think the only place you could really post these online would be in a “testimonial” section of your business’s website. However, many review sites offer free signage and window clings for interested businesses. If you’re providing these paper feedback forms, you could include a reminder that you’re also on these online review sites.
Reggie,
Our CEO Shama just wrote an article on this topic! Check out her article for some ideas!
There is a way to collect reviews electronically while customers are at your business. Check out Terillion’s (www.terillion.com) review capture tools. I work for Terillion (just for full disclosure!
wow what a nice list for review publication.
Yelp is a scam. They are SUCH a scam that there is a site named simply yelp-sucks.com. It’s a ripoff operation that blackmails good businesses into paying for “sponsership” and hides indefinite (huge) numbers of reviews. They hire shills who pose as “Elite” members to encourage perpetuating feeding their network of swindlers. This is why they have a full docket of class action suits pending. Don’t take MY word for it, just go to ANY search engine and enter YELP SUCKS- then stand back!
Nice list, but is it still good after 3 years? And I agree with the comment regarding Yelp, they are not very good at all.
Thanks for the tips. Very helpful to know what’s out there. Are there any sites that could be added to this list today?
Great post. As a company that looks for reviews, we like sites where the users are identified. Reviews by anonymous users can be used by competition to smear a company’s name to gain the upper hand.
this s awesom
I appreciate the efforts of the author to try to find legitimate review sites that increase trust — but based on the comments it’s pretty clear that universally there is not a legitimate site that has reached the general market – yet. BUT WE ARE ON OUR WAY!
Love the post and topic. Not sure if I agree with the importance of Yahoo listings but the rest sure are important!
YELP! is definitely a biased review website. I have reviewed a Yelp-listed business and gave it a one star rating. My review stated ONLY facts and offered photo evidence to substantiate my facts. The first review stayed on the website for several days and then disappeared so, I repeated my review and again several days after my review was posted it was no longer visible. After some research, I found that Yelp had “filtered” my negative review. It WAS still listed BUT, it was 1). Not used in calculation of the businesses overall rating, 2). Only visible by clicking a very obscure link “1 filtered review” and, 3). Required the user to answer a human validation question.
After finding this, I signed up for a new Yelp account and entered a similar review for the same business — the results were the same as the previous reviews.
YELP! may be a well known reviews website but, based on my experience with providing HONEST reviews, they will only show the reviews that THEY decide are useful.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I really appreciate your efforts and I am searching for the best website review list,take it.If you own a business, someone somewhere is talking about you. Thanks to online review sites, everyone else on the web can be exposed to your business so I appreciate this post.
Again Thanks
Admin
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