Is Local Search a Dead Cert Service? Nope.
September 14, 2011
Local search reviews play an increasingly important role for businesses. When is the last time you checked your phone book to find a good restaurant or see the best place to get a manicure? Exactly. You pick up your smartphone, tablet, or laptop and search for the best restaurant, store, or shop in your given area. Internet businesses like Yelp and CitySearch have sprung up in response to such local search needs. Yellow Pages or Yellow Book has even reinvented itself to keep up with the times.
Search Engine Journal goes over the basics of managing reviews for local business in, “The 3 Pillars of Local Search Reviews.”
“If you do one thing right in local, make it your reviews. Build on a strong and diverse platform that will allow you roll with the changes with ease because your strategy will be based on pillars.”
The author maintains that the sound strategy for managing business reviews is not to tailor your strategy for any particular service, but rather to stick to the basics, the three pillars.
- Diversify your reviews by providing customers links to several different review services.
- Obtain consistent reviews by mechanizing review requests and ensuring there is a steady stream at any given time.
- Provide reliable reviews by allowing any and all reviews, even non-favorable ones, to be seen and read. Sounds like good solid business advice, just updated a bit to keep with the times.
Our view is that local search is more likely to be subject to distortion, either intentional or unintentional than a general purpose Web search. Just our view. If you disagree, use the comments section.
Stephen E Arnold, September 14, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com, publishers of The New Landscape of Enterprise Search
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