Saturday, June 4, 2011

Amazon Tripadvisor and Fake Reviews

ARE REVIEWS IMPORTANT TO YOUR WEBSITE RANKINGS?

I just finished reading the reports on how Amazon and TripAdvisor have paid other companies to post fake reviews to their websites.  If these ONLINE GIANTS ARE WILLING TO FORK OVER BIG BUCKS FOR REVIEWS, IT MUST BE IMPORTANT!!

What about your business on the web? Do you have a place where your satisfied customers can go and rave about your great product or service?  If not maybe you should look into a couple of online search engines and directories which allow for this enchancement to your business listing.

Since GOOGLE is the largest search engine in the world; let's start with them.
Google has a service called Google Places, which allow any small business to create or claim their business listing.
Once you are all set up Google looks at your business and ranks it based on locations and business category. Google uses a ranking called the Local Pack 7 - which means when  a search is done for a product or service; Google returns it's top 7 results on the first page listed as local search results.

Take a Look At this Graphic:



A QUICK SEARCH ON YARD SERVICES IN BELTSVILLE, MD RETURNED ONLY TWO GOOGLE PLACES LISTING.


Once you get your business listed on Google the real fun begins with asking your satisfied customers to go online and post great reviews about your product or service.  Google loves this and will push your business listing to the top based on how many reviews you have.

Go ahead type in a search term for you business and take a look at the results.  Is your business listed?  If not, get started today!

If you need help in setting up a Google Places Account - Local Business Consulting  offers this service.