"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.

Is it misleading? Hell, yes.

It would be like Kanye West running into a social media award ceremony and shouting  “Yo Facebook, I’m really happy for you…I’ll let you finish. But Google had the most users of all time!”

For Yahoo to not only call it quits with search but to instantaneously declare themselves the number one at something is delusional. Yahoo has never been first at anything, not even being absorbed in a significantly more successful search engine *cough*…AOL…*cough*.

Oh and speaking of Kanye West, what’s the deal with Yahoo using “Flash Lights” in the commercial? That song is about pure narcissism (which is such a stretch for Mr. West to rap about *eye roll*)!  What does Yahoo have to be narcissistic about? It certainly didn’t live up to the promise of all those awesome 00′s commercials with the cowboy cry “yahoo!” at the end. In fact the only thing Yahoo should be proud of is knowing how to make money even in rough times. Yahoo is like a 80′s film star that got downgraded to tv dad in the 90′s and is now doing guest spots as the murder victim on cop dramas between infomercial and night manager gigs. Yahoo is a shining example of just because you’re well known at something, doesn’t mean it will make you rich.

Am I mad at Yahoo? No, but I am upset at internet companies allowing Google to swallow more and more of the search engine pie chart. This merger is not going to increase Yahoo/MSN slice of the pie, it’s just going to make search professionals realize we are practically on Google’s payroll.  :/

Thanks to Thomas Hawk for the image!

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

With the rise of social media, small businesses are now able to get their name out there as effectively as the big chains, and for a much smaller price than they’re paying for their marketing too! Check out this blog post for a huge list of SMB reputation management services.

3. Citysearch Plans Reputation Mgt Offering

In keeping with SMB reputation management, Citysearch is now offering a fixed-fee service through CityGrid. Check out this blog post and the interview mentioned in it for more information.

4. Yellowbot Offers Reputation Tool Too

We’re just crazy about small business reputation management here at Search Influence, so here’s another post about yet another service, this time offered by YellowBot! These blog posts are a fantastic resource in helping decide which service- if not ALL of them- is right for your business.

5. Google Maps: New Guidelines for Dealing with Multiple Listings & Duplicate Listing Removal

As much as we love Google Maps here, we don’t hesitate to call attention to its faults. This post gives a few tips on how to check for – and delete – duplicate listings for your business. We had to learn the hard way about the penalties they impose for duplicate listings. Save yourself the headache and check out this blog about duplicate content and how to rectify the problem before it’s too late!

6. It’s MayDay for Yellow Pages Sites

An early-May change in Google’s algorithm affects the way massive websites are indexed. While this probably doesn’t affect your site directly, it may affect a site that you’re listed on, a site on which you may be counting for a quality link. If you have a basic listing on a large directory site, the page on which you’re listed may not be viewed as authoritative by Google. In that case, you could then speak with the advertising department of the site and look into options about getting an enhanced listing with unique, rich content that is more likely to be indexed, viewed highly by Google and give a strong link back to your site.

7. Google Algo Changes Drop ‘The Other Shoe’

This post from Greg Sterling references the same update to the Google algorithm as Andrew Shotland’s does above, but makes the point that directories with content-rich listings will prevail over directories with simple listings of phone numbers and addresses.

8. Effective Online Marketing Messages: How to Pace Yourself

This one comes straight from Search Influence’s own Nick Fidanza. A few weeks ago he wrote a comical blog post about when online marketing messages are ineffective, with the promise of a follow up on how to avoid the outcomes mentioned in the first post. While we could go on for days about how to properly send out online marketing messages, we decided to keep it simple this time. Check out these 4 guidelines to plan out and pace your messages.

9. Google Lists Top 1,000 Sites On The Web & Then Lets You Advertise On Them

This Search Engine Land post mentions brand-new-yesterday features available to online advertisers in Google Adwords. These features are thanks to advertisers and users like you who have allowed Google to be privy your site’s analytics data and/or your personal searching and website viewing activity.

10. Evil Conversion: When Optimization Goes too Far

That’s right, we agree – there is such thing as too much optimization. Sandra Niehaus provides three vivid examples of consumer purchase experiences that, through over optimization, could end up causing the customer to navigate away from the site before converting or worse, turning the customer away for good.

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?

To Solicit or not to Solicit

Yelp is clear about incentives for reviews: “Yelp has advised business owners not to offer incentives for reviews. For starters, paying people to write reviews about your business is another form of shilling and that’s just wrong. Second, very often you’ll offend a customer and the offer will be quickly outed in your reviews, resulting in unintended negative reviews and/or negative publicity. Finally, it’s typically a fruitless exercise.”

It’s a fruitless exercise because of the Yelp review filter.  Yelp knows their site is a great opportunity for illegitimate behavior, and they have built tools to attempt to minimize the spam and attempt to maintain the authenticity of the site. They haven’t been entirely successful. Says Luther Lowe of Yelp,

‘It’s very tough to design algorithms that can tell the difference between the guy who’s cranking out a fake five-star review about himself, and the guy who’s flipped that laptop around and handed it to his customer and said, “Hey, write a five-star review about me.” So, you know, I know that businesses are going to ask people to write reviews. If you do that, you need to be prepared for pretty violent review fluctuation.”

From Yelp Common Questions: “Some reviewers are more credible than others. For the most part, users can decide for themselves which reviewers they trust the most. We remove some of the guesswork by filtering out reviews that are written by less established users. We do this in order to provide more trustworthy and useful content to our users and to help protect against fake reviews from malicious competitors and disgruntled former employees.”

Control Yourself on Yelp

Every small business wants testimonials to help drive traffic. Yelp is tremendously trusted by real world users. (Isn’t it more encouraging to try the new restaurant in town after you read 10 great reviews online?)

And Yelp is tremendously trusted by search engines, and being so trustworthy makes it ripe for abuse by some businesses and internet marketers. The prime example is Google Local map rankings, which are influenced by some degree by the presence of online reviews on select review sites.

But Yelp advises you to control yourself:

“Should I ask customers to write reviews for my business?

While we understand that there is a temptation to solicit reviews from your customers, it is not something we encourage. The most successful businesses on Yelp have had their reviews come organically. This is for a couple of reasons:

1. Potential customers can sometimes have an adverse reaction to a business that looks like it has solicited reviews.

2. Quite often those solicited reviews will be filtered out (see above) based on the activity level of those users within the Yelp community.

If you do ask your customers for reviews, please be prepared for the review number fluctuation that might follow.

Also, keep in mind — success on Yelp is primarily measured by the number of people who view your page and thus walk in the door or set an appointment, not the number of reviews you have. Yelp users are savvy: they care about quality — not quantity — when it comes to your business reviews.”

To be completely genuine, solicitation of reviews even without incentive is frowned upon. And incentivized reviews (buying Yelp reviews) are absolutely unethical …

This picture taken in the store suggests completing a review, and not only a review … but “as good as it gets” review, to get 20% off the next purchase. One reviewer complains on this business’ Yelp profile about the incentivized review request in the store; Mel T comments on Yelp:

“How would they base the authenticy of a Yelp review? What if I just claimed ownership of Jane D.’s (as in Jane Doe – I’m not trying to impersonate any fellow Yelpers here) review? How would they know if I was really Jane D.?

- Would I still get a discount if I had written a review, but it wasn’t “raving?”

Well, I’m sorry, Pure Beauty. You cannot buy a five star Yelp review from me. Instead, your blantant bribary is going to cost you two whole stars. Yep, that’s right; I’m knocking you down TWO full stars. Had it not been for your sign, I would have given you three stars – an A-OK for decent employees during my visits, a relatively clean shop, and reasonable prices.

But, again, I will not stand for your bribary. Hmph. (Hmm..wonder if I can get 20% off with this review..?)”

This beauty supply store has bigger issues than their Yelp spamming. There are quite a few reviews blasting their customer service. Perhaps, they should consider better ways to combat negative publicity.

Asking for Help on Yelp

One self-proclaimed newbie small business on Yelp asks help of the Yelpers, Greg “GSKChicago” K., asks, “I am relatively new to Yelp and still learning my way around … What do Yelpers look for from a business owner on Yelp?”

The answers:

Miguel “the Coach” R. says: “honesty!”

Lauren “Order” H. says: “if you do anything related to your own busines, disclose that you are the owner. and don’t use the talk boards or other parts of the yelp site as free promo or spam.”

nikki c. says: “just be real, honest and your own worst critic.”

Seems legitimate enough. This business owner wants to do the Yelp thing correctly, but Miguel “The Coach” R. comes back later to point out some problems, and all of Greg’s good intent evaporates:

Miguel “the Coach” R.:  “Greg -No offense but after reading the reviews for your business, I am a little disappointed. Everyone who did a review on your business – only did a review on your business. So, that means that you either made several profiles, had your friends make profiles, somehow convinced your customers to make a profile and only rate your company – or – some combination of the three.

If you want my opinion. No company will EVER completely 100% satisfy each and every customer. And to see nothing but 5 stars for each review is flat out unbelievable.

As of right now I feel as though you have already been dishonest by doing what you did, and that will eventually hurt your business rather than help it.”

Using Social Media to Drive Fans over to Yelp Profile

If your small business has a strong Facebook Fan base, you can attempt drive Fans over to your Yelp profile and hope that some percentage of them will actually leave reviews. These businesses on Facebook are technically soliciting reviews but offering nothing in return, so their Yelp review building may be considered more legitimate. They are still soliciting, but they aren’t buying Yelp reviews.

This Facebook-er is more blatant. The Lone Star Salon tells Fans if they leave a review on a review site, Lone Star Salon will give them $10.   Totally buying a review.

And ….

And …

We’re talking about pretty low value transactions here – a water bottle, a free cookie, etc. – but any incentive can be enough for a reviewer to take a few moments to drop a review into a Yelp profile that they would not have done if not incentivized.

Raffle Your Incentive … is Still Incentive

Another way to buy a review is a little more subtle, but it is still crossing Yelp’s guidelines for good Yelping. Essentially it is offering a chance to win a free product or gift certificate in a raffle. It’s not a direct exchange like Lone Star’s program, but these are still incentive for leaving a review.

Any reviews on Yelp from these campaigns are not the natural and organic reviewing that is Yelp has struggled to maintain. From Yelp Terms of Service:

“You agree that you will not, and will not assist or enable others to: use the Site in a manner that may create a conflict of interest, such as trading reviews with other business owners or writing or soliciting shill reviews”

And there are a few abusers on Twitter too …

Again, offering a chance to win free product or discount is not directly buying a Yelp review, but it is definitely incentive for the reviewer, warranting the review as forced.  Not natural behavior for Ramona Family Naturals.

They tweeted on the 14th and got 2 5-star reviews on the 15th. (I wonder who won the box of organic produce?  They should tweet that.)

And The Spot Yogurt in Santa Monica appear to be naively direct in their request.

And before that, they requested on March 31^st too.

Of course, we know that ignorance of the rule is not exception from it.  Yelp says of this type of false reviewing:

“very often you’ll offend a customer and the offer will be quickly outed in your reviews, resulting in unintended negative reviews and/or negative publicity”

Luther Lowe on business owners aggressively soliciting reviews from customers:  “it just looks spammy and decreases the authenticity of your overall presence. That can turn the customers off to you.”

Charles Grumblemouse O. has a more virtuous Yelper attitude. He says of being Paid to write reviews:

“… the impetus for writing reviews is surely different if you’re paid than if you were just doing it for the love right?”

And finally, it’s important to be creative and sincere. Here’s a great case study of a New York Locksmith. He’s got a great perspective on how to get Yelp reviews without direct solicitation.

Image credits: Thanks to “twonjosh,” “Silver Smith,” ZDNEt, and Steve Rhodes for the images!

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:

1) Monitor activity- Find all of the sites where the bad news lives.

2) Stay calm- Be patient, it takes some time.

3) Post positive- Here are just a few ideas:

Create a social networking profile – Facebook
Create a business profile – Linked In
Start a blog – WordPress
Share photos- Flickr
Claim your identity- Naymz
Create a Wiki- Wetpaint

The number 1 thing NOT to do is search for yourself or search for the negative information.  This is the fastest way to ensure it will NEVER go away.

It is hard work and extremely time consuming to bury bad press.  I know it is tempting to look, but that one search can enable the bad news to resurface and erase all of the work that was already done, bringing you right back where you started.

Even if you do not have a reputation management issue at this time, please know if one does present itself, there are ways to fix it, as well as one major way to prevent it from disappearing!

Image Credits: Thanks to ladybeames and stevoarnold for the great imagery for this post.

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.

But there are concerns that Google is now trying to dominate the local search landscape with new developments, some of which place user reviews at the heart of their new features. Google’s new browser add-on called “Sidewiki” allows anyone to contribute comments about any web page. According to Google, Sidewiki entries use an algorithm that promotes the most useful, high-quality entries. It takes into account feedback from users, previous entries made by the same author and many other signals developed.

How Google uses these entries to rank web pages remains to be seen, but most marketers agree that the impacts of this are far reaching, because it includes every web page on the internet in Google’s own social network, with consumer opinion – both positive and negative – displayed every time a user opens a web page. With this new feature, Google has shifted power firmly away from corporate web teams and placed it in the hands of the consumer.

The good thing is that Sidewiki entries are tied to a Google profile. There’s no guarantee that the profile isn’t bogus, but the advantage is that no anonymous entries are allowed. Also, Google will analyze language so that “stupid comments” are automatically discounted or removed.

Some marketers surmise that user profiles will be moderated by a quality algorithm, so more influential, active or powerful users, with more powerful Google Profiles or Personal PageRank, will have more influence in the comments. This is very likely the case, as measurements of Twitter influence have demonstrated in the past. It’s usually a small minority of influencers who create the most comments and influence the majority of users.

So how do businesses make use of this feature? The same way they bring newly-created linkbait to the notice of influential bloggers – by cultivating customer evangelists and monitoring social networks for influential voices and alerting them to content that is interesting and valuable. Sidewiki is just another way for Google to introduce a new feature of quality control into its already formidable algorithm and ensure that SEO and website promotion experts don’t get too complacent with their efforts.

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.

Where did Lifestyle Lift go wrong?

According to the article, it appears that Lifestyle Lift fabricated reviews of their own facilities and even went so far as to create entire new “review” sites to advance their message.

To be clear, user reviews are great. The creation of alternate sites for search or more targeted messaging are a long accepted technique to obtain ranking and spread the message.

Where it becomes a problem is when these reviews and sites are presented as authentic user generated content and they are, in fact, a fabrication in support of public relations.

In short, the creation of false consumer reviews with the intent to deceive is the problem. It’s long been held to be unethical and now, in the state of New York, it’s illegal

Examples of likely fabricated reviews:

These aren’t for Lifestyle Lift, but for other plastic surgery searches. I’m not saying the following are specifically relevant to bunk reviews, but there are a couple listings – you can find them yourself – which have an abundance of positive or non-informative, yet 5-star, reviews.

http://www.google.com/search?q=breast+augmentation+san+francisco
http://www.google.com/search?&q=plastic+surgery+new+jersey

And we don’t know that these are definitely a fabrication but “cool” has 3 reviews, all of which are for the same plastic surgeon, focusing on different locations (1 of which includes “Plastic Surgery” as the business name) and no reviews for other businesses: http://maps.google.com/maps/user?uid=101692309768642551973

And “Happy”, whose reviews look more authentic has a similar instance of 1 each for business name”Plastic Surgery” and for the doctor’s name itself – again, with no reviews for other businesses: http://maps.google.com/maps/user?uid=104188572776476355287

At a minimum, what the above demonstrate is how not to ask for customer reviews. Whether “Happy” and “cool” are real people or employees of the practice, a little digging makes it appear these are inauthentic and calls into question the validity of all the reviews.

So what’s a small business to do?

As the examples show it’s a dog-eat-dog world in online reviews.

Ironically we’re preparing a much more focused post on how to get reviews but in the meantime remember:

• Be authentic! Chances are if you fake it you’ll get caught.
• Have customers tell their story. They’ll be much more believable than you.
• In doubt? Don’t do it! Lifestyle Lift should be a lesson – it might cost you $$

Of course, this case is different than most because Lifestyle Lift got busted. The New York State Attorney General has drawn the line for us with regard to clearly egregious behavior but I think we can all agree they’re not the only ones.

Where does that line get drawn for you? As with every ethical question there are many shades of gray between here and there.

I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Thanks to the Blog Herald for tipping me off to this story. It’s very relevant to our livelihood and that of our customers.

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.

Consumer-generated product reviews play a big role in online purchasing behavior. 55% of US internet users indicate that they check other people’s opinions online before making purchases. A study by Deloitte & Touche USA reports that 18% of customers purchased a beauty or grooming aid based on reviews posted by other consumers.

The fact that reputation matters online is beyond debate. At Search Influence, we believe that business is not just about putting a positive spin on your product or service. It’s also about creating value for your customers. And the value you provide is what will create good buzz online, with positive reviews and comments from happy customers.

Very Satisfied Customer

Customer reviews are not only useful on blogs, forums and review sites. They’ve also been reported to improve site conversion, retention and customer loyalty, and boost search engine results by increasing on-site content.

eBay was one of the first web companies to harness the power of Consumer Generated Media (CGM) feedback. By using user generated feedback ratings, it helped other users make purchasing and selling decisions.

Unfortunately, many businesses are still in reactive mode today. This includes even big brands, such as McDonald’s, KFC and Coca Cola. Few have woken up to the fact that consumer reviews and opinions are playing an increasingly important role in word-of-mouth marketing online. It’s only when they get negative buzz that they go all out to clean up the mess.

One example of how negative buzz can play havoc with your brand is the recent Domino’s Pizza YouTube video fiasco, that resulted in criminal charges being filed against two members of the staff at a Domino’s outlet, for posting a video that shows a staffer shoving cheese up his nose.

To minimize the backlash Dominos uploaded a video on YouTube addressing the issue. Not exactly the most effective way to salvage their reputation. You can bet a lot of people (us included) will be avoiding those pizzas for a while!

In the long run, the best approach is to take a proactive stance on creating and maintaining a good reputation online. Here are some steps we recommend to help you create more positive buzz for your products or services.

• Provide value: The #1 rule of thumb for brick-and-mortar stores or offline businesses is also what works best online. Customers appreciate businesses that offer them quality products and services, whether they operate online or off.

• Ask for feedback: Are your customers unhappy? Do you get complaints about your systems, processes, staff or services? Ask each customer to fill in a form with feedback and reviews, no matter how inconvenient it can be.

• Take action: View your customer’s complaints and feedback constructively and take the steps you need to improve what you’re offering. It’s easier and cheaper to offer a refund or a replacement than it is to clean up the bad press and damage to your business reputation created by an irate customer.

• Monitor your online reputation: You could do this yourself using Google Alerts, but if your online reputation matters a lot to you, it makes sense to hire a reputation management firm to monitor buzz about your company.

• Participate in the conversation: If your business generates a lot of positive feedback from customers, ask them for permission to use their reviews and testimonials online. Participate in industry forms, social networks and consumer review/opinion sites.

Be Part of The Conversation

Even if your online reputation is suffering, it’s not too late to change the negative perception of your business. You can syndicate articles to industry newsletters and article engines. Put up a blog on your own website and post your articles there. Allow visitors to post comments and reply to them.

Learn about social networking and how to make it work for you. Build a mailing list and keep your subscribers in the loop with an email newsletter. Send out press releases on recent developments in your industry.

Rules of the road for creating visibility online:

• Get personal. Build relationships with potential customers.
• Be human. Use consumer-speak, not corporate-speak.
• Don’t advertise blatantly. A link to your website at the end of a forum post is acceptable.
• Be patient and consistent in your efforts. It takes time to build trust and see results.

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:

Will Scott Head shot 01

Will Scott Head Shot 02

Will Scott Head Shot 03

Will Scott Head Shot 04

Will Scott Head Shot 05

I’ve got a favorite but interestingly my wife disagrees

And… remember what grandma used to say… “If you don’t have something nice to say” — I think you know the rest.

Thanks for your help!

Will

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