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Where should your customers review you?

Jay

So how many times have you been asked to fill out a survey or post a review after you have finished an interaction with a business. For me, almost all the time.
If you are a business, we are hoping you are doing it to your customers all the time.
Reviews for your business are beneficial in two ways:
1) It’s accepted that people will make consumer decisions based on what other customers have said, especially if that customer is an influencer or even better, someone you know.
2) While the experts still go back and forward on whether Social Signals are part of the Google Algorithm, if those signals drive high quality traffic to your site, then indirectly they are benefiting your Search Ranking.
So based on the above, you should ask everyone to go and write a Google Review correct.
Not so fast.
There are plenty of places where it makes sense to add reviews other than on Google.
What about Facebook
Not only can you check into a business on Facebook, tag a business but you can also directly write a review. Facebook being Facebook, exposure here is important. We humans are followers so if a friend checked into a restaurant and then posted how they loved the food, how likely are you now to go and try out that restaurant. It’s collection of posts, likes and comments are great social signals for others on Facebook however Google continues to state that it does not use Social Signals in its Algorithm.
Industry Specific Review Sites
Anyone who travels checks Trip Advisor to see the hotel reviews, Looking for somewhere to eat? Check Yelp, Need a Lawyer, there is Avvo. Need a plumber, check Angies List. The explosion of Industry specific review sites makes it important for Business to know those review sites and ask clients to post on them. These sites have gained importance because people are using them, a lot, and making buying decisions based on the reviews posted.
Note that Yelp has reached a tipping point where it’s not just about finding a place to eat anymore. And while someone may not automatically gravitate to look for your business on Yelp, note that the Search Engine Bing, which doesn’t collect its own reviews, will grab reviews from other locations, notable Yelp and display them
Example: The following example is a local Funeral Home & Cemetery listing on Bing, not the place you would expect Yelp Reviews.
Yelp reviews on Bing
 
Local Listing and Directories
There are many secondary business listing sites and while none have the traffic of the likes of a Google, Facebook, Bing or Yelp, they shouldn’t be ignored.
While no one uses an actual yellow pages telephone book any more, the yellow pages online sites (www.yellowpages.com) gets a ton of traffic. Make sure your business is listed correctly there and direct some reviews their way. Another site that just didn’t take off to the likes of Yelp is Foursquare. Foursquare is an important one in that if there are reviews listed for the business, Bing may pull them in and use them similar to the example above
tgr-reviews-bing
Along the same lines as Foursquare, here are a couple more directories where a review could mean the difference between a new customer and a lost opportunity.
• http://www.superpages.com/
• http://www.citysearch.com/
 
Our recommendation is to spread the wealth. It’s important to know how people are finding your business online and then, if available, capitalize on that opportunity to grow your business with reviews.