Website Promotion is not Voodoo

Yahoo Fails At Search, Tries Its Hand At Being A “Pretty Woman”

"Your Yahoo! May Look Different Today!"

It is a sad day when search engines are reduced to stalking celebrities to keep themselves relevant.

That is the thought I had when I saw the latest Yahoo TV commercial. Since their merger with Microsoft was announced, Yahoo has been trying to carve out a niche for itself as a entertainment news site (seriously how many E!s, TMZs, OhNoTheyDidnts, and Superficials must we have! How are all the celebrity bloggers going to eat and stay in white MSpaint to draw on photos?). They are even going as far as to declared themselves THE NUMBER ONE visited site for such frivolous news  – when in all honesty, they are including Yahoo Search,Yahoo Mail, and Yahoo Games (noticed I didn’t include the “!” because there just isn’t anything exciting about Yahoo anymore) into this data.

1. Why Local Businesses Can No Longer Ignore Foursquare

For some reason businesses are hesitant to jump on the social media bandwagon. It’ll never make sense to me because even if you don’t believe in its power, your customers do!  By simply adding a little prize for the mayor or a special for just checking in, you are almost guaranteed loyal repeat customers looking to catch a deal. It’s a game for these people! Make your business the board!

2. The Rise of SMB Reputation Management

Yelp is intended as a review site where users can write and read reviews for local businesses to help make informed buying decisions. It’s a powerful tool in that users trust the real opinions and feedback from their friends and neighbors. Yelp’s user-driven reviews allow everyone to add in their opinions of products and services at local clubs, restaurants, and businesses in all forms.

There is obvious value to a small business owner in getting users to leave positive reviews. The question is how much should a business pay for a review? No, no, no … I’m joking. The question really is how do you encourage customers to leave Yelp reviews naturally and organically without abusing the intent of the site?

These days it is really easy to tarnish the online reputation of a company.  Just one bad review or article posted on a high traffic web site is all it takes.  In most instances it is impossible to have negative comments and stories removed.

The best way to fight negativity is through positivity.  The simplest way to do this is to drown it out.  Good news can chase bad news down the search engine ranks to the 2nd or 3rd page, where it is less likely to be found.

Here are some action steps:

The reason testimonials and reviews are so powerful is because they provide a third-party (and hopefully, unbiased) opinion of what actual users think about products and services. Google knows this and considers reviews and citations an important factor in local search rankings.

Studies have shown that not only do long customer stories (2.5 times longer than reviews) lead to increased, more relevant search results, but increasing website interactivity with fresh, real-world content like customer questions and answers can increase sales conversions and lower customer service costs. For some business owners online reviews have become far more useful than the traditional print yellow pages and savvy business owners have figured out proactive ways to use online review sites.

Lifestyle Lift is learning the cost of unethical customer reviews. The New York State Attorney General has reached a $300,000.00 settlement with cosmetic surgery company Lifestyle Lift in response to fabricated consumer reviews.

It appears that Lifestyle Lift was directing employees to spend their time in reviewing their own facilities.

Lifestyle Lift is a plastic surgery chain store. From those online customer reviews one finds, which appear truly authentic, they’re not doing so great in good old fashioned customer service. According to the article in the NY Times it seems that Lifestyle Lift is resorting to aggressive reputation management techniques to suppress bad reviews and advance their own message.

“Markets are conversations”, states the Cluetrain Manifesto, the online reputation managers’ Bible. And if you sell any kind of product or service today, you must be part of the conversation or get left out.

Crowd Pleaser - The Power of Word of Mouth

In the days before the internet, reputations were built on word-of-mouth (WOM) and reputation management was a term that referred to damage control and crisis communications. The growing reach of the internet means that online business is now a two-way conversation.

I’d like a little help here please. Like my friend, Portland OR Web Designer, David Mihm I needed a head shot for SMX Local Mobile where I’ll be on a panel with a fine bunch of fellows on ranking factors for local search.

I went to see one of our clients Jessica Johanningmeier a New Orleans Wedding Photographer to have her shoot a few.

“Make me look young, thin and beautiful” I said and she felt right at home.

So without further ado I give you the choices. Please have a look and tell me in the comments which is your favorite:

So, I was reviewing my ranking for “Swine Insemination” on the heels of my last post and noticed the ad on the right, below:

Swine Insemination and Reputation Management