Small business owners that I work with continue to have mixed feelings about Yelp today.  Many wish it would die off along with online reviews, but it seems that Yelp and customer reviews are here to stay.  Yelp had over a 60% increase in traffic in 2009.  Furthermore, the recent rumors of a potential acquisition (Google and Microsoft) along with a $25 million new investment have provided greater validity to its business model.   Inc. magazine recently published a great article about the Yelp model, along with its benefits and challenges included.  In addition, with AT&T’s announcement of Buzz.com (soon to be released consumer site that allows customers to create favorite places and share positive, brief comments with friends via their social circles, like Facebook), the world of online customer reviews will continue to grow as well. Forbes just provided some greater insight here. Buzz.com is set to launch in the next couple months.  Small businesses must continue to stay on top of their reviews and continue to encourage new ones in order to properly manage their online reputation. Yelp has had a very busy couple months. Here are some of the key points: Continue reading “Keep an eye on Yelp’s Growth: Key for Reputation Management” »

As a small business owner, it can be difficult to keep up with the number of changes going on across all the different local sites, from Google Maps, Yelp, Yahoo Local, Bing Local, Citysearch, …not to mention all the local sites in your town that keep changing as well.  However, in the last month alone, Google Place Pages has undergone a frenzy of important changes.  This posting will get you up to speed on what’s new and what you can do to improve your profile, increase your ranking on Google Maps and other local SEO strategies for the small business.

• Enhanced Listings
• Reviews added from local media, bloggers, and unconventional review sources
• Special Announcements and messaging

Continue reading “Google Enhanced Listings – January Updates” »