Mike Blumenthal, blumenthals.com/blog | where social & rank meet maps & reviews

Within Geo-Area Business Name Business Category Content Score of Website # of links referring to business Highest score of those links Legitimacy & Location Trust Local Business Center Primary & Secondary Data Providers KML Sitemap, Bulk Upload, Whois, Phone Verification Total # of Web Page (Citations) Geo References & Reviews A Model of Ranking Factors

Within Geo-Area Business Name Business Category Content Anchor Text in Citations Score of Website # of links referring to business Highest score of those links Popularity of User Maps Legitimacy & Location Trust Local Business Center Primary & Secondary Data Providers KML Sitemap, Bulk Upload, Whois, Phone Verification Total # of Web Page (Citations) Geo References & Reviews Relevance & Ranking Factors

Within Geo-Area Business Name Business Category Content Anchor Text in Citations Score of Website # of links referring to business Highest score of those links Popularity of User Maps Legitimacy & Location Trust Local Business Center Primary & Secondary Data Providers KML Sitemap, Bulk Upload, Whois, Phone Verification Reviews: Where Social & Rank Meet

Local Shoppers Look Online First Sources: eMarketer

Local Shoppers Look Online First Sources: eMarketer 90% search online for nearby businesses via search engines

Consumers Trust Reviews The Groundswell Affect 70% Trust Reviews From Strangers Sources: Neilson 04/2009 Harvard Business Review 04/2008

Reviews & Google Ranking

Sustainable Social Presence

Customer Considerations Whatever review process you choose, it should be open, transparent and beyond reproach. An unhappy customer is bad enough but one that thinks you are scamming the review world will be relentless. This correlates to the above. You want to provide your customers/clients with a range of sites so as to be compatible their online behaviors. It is hard to know if they prefer leaving reviews at one place or another. The more comfort they have with your suggestions the more likely they are to leave the review. You need to be where your customers are. In setting up your program asking them what they prefer is a good idea. Whatever system you implement for the customer, it should be so dead simple that they just don’t have to struggle. The least number of clicks, the straighest path, the least to remember should all be ideals of whatever system you put in place.

Business Considerations Putting your eggs in one basket is never a good strategy. For example Google has been known to periodically loose reviews from one source or another. It is also difficult to predict next year’s review site winner and the looser. Being in a range of places protects against both eventualities. Reviews are like traditional testimonials. If they all occurred last year or the year before both potential clients and the search engines are going to wonder what’s up. For a business, saying you will do something versus actually doing it, is a matter of the process being easy for employees and a required part of the internal procedures. This may require employee training and perhaps new procedures to be sure that the ask for reviews happens.

Business Considerations Even if you run the best business in the world, you will sooner or later, get a bad review. Decide ahead of time how it will be handled and who will handle it. Ending up in argument on the front steps of the customer is a no win situation and some thought put it in how you are going to respond will avoid the worst outcomes. If one review can be seen in 4 review site instead of just one then all other things being equal, a review placed there is more valuable. For example even though CitySearch is declining in popularity, they still have 25 million uniques AND share their reviews with Google, Yahoo, MC and more giving you an opportunity to have the review seen 100 million times

Virtuous Cycle

Which Review Sites Should You Use?

vav Case Study – Barbara Oliver Jewelry

vav 04/09 - “Just got a new one in, she googled jewelry repair and in she came. Just thought you would like to hear so you feel validated…….” – Barbara Oliver Case Study – Barbara Oliver Jewelry

vav

Case Study – Barbara Oliver Jewelry

vav 02/13/10 - “Hi Mike, this week 6 new customers in the store based on reviews alone. 6 sales, have I mentioned lately how much I love you? If we continue to do this right, I can forego some of the expensive advertising and build up my wallet and our businesses. WooHoo Thanks!” - Barbara Oliver Case Study – Barbara Oliver Jewelry

vav 01/13/11 - “Just got a $7700 sale. They came in after shopping at Andrews, as they read all the reviews prior and liked what they read. Thank you again Mike for the nagging………………!” - Barbara Oliver Case Study – Barbara Oliver Jewelry

Mike Blumenthal, blumenthals.com/blog | where social & rank meet maps & reviews

Visits (millions) GoogleUniv. Yahoo Univ. Gmaps Yelp CitySearch Yellowpages Yahoo Local Local.com Mrchant Cir. Bing Local Dex Knows Insider Pgs. YellowBot CityGrid Total Possible Visits (millions) Trend Gmaps124XX981  Yelp47 X XXXX  City Search 29XXXXXXXX  Yahoo Local 13XXXX1270  Insider Pages 3XXXX  Angie’s List 0.9XX981.9  Judy's Book 0.3XXXX  Who Shares Reviews With Whom

Total Possible Exposure Of a Review

Yahoo Universal Results vav