Are you fretting about that bad review on your Google Places page? Well fret no more, because Google has taken a huge step toward making its Places pages more friendly and useful by allowing business owners to respond to reviews. Until now, business owners staring at a bad review on Google have had little recourse. This is a huge step in the right direction for Google Places.

However, it’s not perfect. The only reviews to which one may respond are those left directly on Google Maps or Google Places. Remember, Google scrapes reviews from a number of sources, so if a negative review left on another site is scraped by Google, alas, there nothing to be done. (Unless you can respond to that review on the source site. Which is wise, if the option exists.)

A second, but minor obstacle is that a business owner must claim and verify their listing, then must be logged into the account which claimed it in order respond. That may pose a problem if a third party controls the listing, something we commonly run into when our SEO clients come to us from a competitor who has claimed the listing on their behalf, but for most businesses this merely will act as an incentive to claim it. And that is precisely what Google wants businesses to do in the first place. Aha, I see what you did there with your clever scheming, Google!

Now that you have the ability to respond to a bad review, what should you say? Here are some tips on how to turn a negative review into a win for your business.

1. Don’t be defensive.

If Jane leaves you a bad review, don’t respond by calling her an ignorant slut. (Unless it’s 1979 and your name is Chevy Chase, anyway.) Don’t ever fight fire with fire. It should go without saying, really, but I’ve seen more than one business held up for laughs because of a gross overreaction. That thing your grandma said about attracting more flies with honey than with vinegar? Absolutely true.

(more…)

Around here, we call it “The Scallion.” It’s a play on The Onion, but slightly less clever. Every month I gather together the news that I’ve found around the web about SEO, the search engines, and the internet in general. I put it all in small, easy-to-digest niblets that I send around in a newsletter to the whole company – web designers, writers, account managers, etc – so that they can keep up without having to spend hours reading the same articles over and over.

This month, I’m sharing it with you.

(more…)

Search engine marketing, especially in large metropolitan areas, is becoming increasingly competitive. With more and more business owners and professionals becoming aware of the benefits of ranking high for relevant search terms, it is becoming increasingly challenging to rank well.

The typical “formula” for good on-page optimization looks something like this (not an all-inclusive list, but does touch on some of the main points):

• A search relevant URL
• A “flat” html file structure
• Search friendly html file names
• Relevant page titles
• Quality, unique content  (and plenty of it)
• Good on-page linking with relevant anchor text

Then you go into the off-page factors like:

• Local profiles (Google, Bing, etc.)
• Quality, relevant Inbound links (I have issues with this one, as it still seems that spammy links benefit results. I guess my definition of spammy differs from that of Google.)
• Blogging
• Active social networking profiles

(more…)

Here it is, the exciting conclusion of our three part series, 11 SEO Lessons You Can Learn From Heidi Montag, written by the cosmetic surgery snarkmaster himself, Andrew Martin of The Cosmetic Surgery Directory Blog. The White Hat, Black Belt ninja squad hopes you’ve learned something. Like, “Be like Heidi!” Or.. “Don’t be like Heidi!” Or something…

(more…)

I’ve watched my Twitter friends drop the occasional mention of Foursquare for months, but I never checked it out until I saw Search Engine Land’s Danny Sullivan tweeting his own Foursquare explorations amongst all of his SEO and search engine posts:

It’s one thing if it’s an obscure hipster application – and quite another when the heavy hitters of SEO pick it up.  It’s time to give Foursquare a closer look.

What is Foursquare?

Do you remember Pogs? Well, take Pogs and combine it with social media and local search and you’ve got Foursquare. Players check-in at venues around town and collect badges. If you’ve been to a particular Starbucks more than anyone else, you are declared “Mayor” of that Starbucks. (You may also need a coffee intervention, but that’s a different topic entirely.) There are tons of badges to collect. I currently have a Newbie badge, and that’s it – though tomorrow when I arrive to work I shall be crowned Mayor of Page 1 Solutions. My mother will be so proud… (You can see a pretty good list of them here.)

This all seems rather silly, right?

Yes, but that’s just the hook, the thing that makes it rather brilliant for us SEOs. Stay with me here, okay?

On Friday, some of my co-workers and I visited D’Vine Wine in downtown Denver, and I took the opportunity to make my first Foursquare check-in. I had to add the venue, but it was simple and intuitive. I spent the weekend checking in to my grocery store, my favorite tea shop, and wherever I happened to stop for errands. My tea shop didn’t have any tips, so I added one, and noticed the optional space for a URL, which seemed like a natural place to link back to the shop’s website.

Here’s where it all gets interesting…

All of the information I added to Foursquare via my Droid is also available in a browser.

Looking at the venue page above for Park Avenue Plastic Surgery & Spa, I can quickly deduce the following:

• Each venue has its own page with a well-optimized, unique title tag
• Keywords are easily added in the form of tags
• The address and location information are prominently displayed and crawlable
• Venue profiles can be linked to Twitter accounts
• URLs can be attached by adding a “Tip” – and it’s a direct, follow link

I also snuck a peek at the code, and it’s as clean as clean gets. It’s kinda beautiful, actually.

Expanding on the idea…

While I was playing with Foursquare and letting it all roll around in my head this weekend, I started plugging Foursquare SEO queries into Google and came up with an October 2009 post from Peter Adams which confirmed that Foursquare’s venue pages are getting crawled. I’ll use his example as proof. Go to Google and search “Grand Sichuan New York”. As of the date of this post their Foursquare venue page is ranking on the first page in Google – just below Yelp and above CitySearch, NYMag and Chow.com.

What does this all mean?

When they say that Foursquare is social media meets local search, baby they ain’t kidding. Their venue pages have already gained “authority site” status, and it’s not a stretch to imagine that Foursquare info may be counting for something in local search apart from the game. The clean, clear address and map hint that a citation is certainly possible. If a lot of people are checking in to a venue, those could be construed as votes in favor that make it more worthy of a higher position in the 7-pack. At the very least, the search engines are taking some serious notice.

And so should we.

One of the most visible features of local search results is the reviews, which are pulled into Google’s “place pages” and other search engines’ local listings from hundreds of national and local sources. In 2008, growth in the local search market grew 58%, more than double the rate overall search achieved. In Google and Bing, local search results even display above the organic search listings. Wow.

Local search is here, and it’s big. Very, very big. Clearly, businesses have every reason to be concerned about how those reviews can impact their reputation. Great reviews are, well, great! No worries there. But then you discover that the receptionist you fired seven months ago when she forgot to give you your phone messages one too many times has come back to haunt you as unhappy clients have complained that she was smacking her gum and talking loudly on her cellphone with her friends instead of paying attention to them, and you realize it happened to be the day your daughter broke her arm and the dog threw up all over the kitchen, which had put a serious damper on your normally cheerful demeanor – and that isolated bad day is now seared indelibly onto your business profile for all the search engines to distribute. What now? What can you do to fight such injustice?

1. Respond to the reviewer – in public.

Many review sites allow responses to reviews, and web savvy businesses are quick to take advantage of it. However, it’s important to choose your words carefully. Don’t blame someone else. Don’t make excuses. Say something along the lines of, “I’m sorry you had a bad experience. Please call us so we can work on a solution.”

I’ll put it like this: Let’s say that you’re a shoe store in Chicago and I am a potential customer researching shoe stores in Chicago. I come across your listing. It has a bad review on it. Ouch. But you were concerned enough to respond and try to make it right, and that is one of the hallmarks of good customer service. It certainly improves my perception of your business!

2. Recruit your satisfied customers to write positive reviews.

A single bad review may deter potential customers, but if it’s buried under a pile of glowing testimonials that extol your virtues, that one lonely bad review begins to look more and more like a fluke.

Caution: Make sure the good reviews are genuine. Fake reviews are known as astroturfing, and engaging in it can land you in some serious hot water with the authorities – just ask Lifestyle Lift, who had to pay $300,000 in fines for posting fake reviews.

3. Flag it as inappropriate.

The worst that can happen is that the moderator who handles the request does nothing about it. But – what if they do? Basically, it can’t hurt to ask.

Along the same lines, some review sites, such as Amazon, give users the ability to rate reviews as “helpful” or “not helpful”. You can always rate a bad review as “not helpful”.

With both flagging methods, it’s important to note that you should not try to recruit your friends and family and in-laws to all go overwhelm the site with requests. Remember that bit about astroturfing in #2?

Also, don’t start emailing webmasters to plead your case. No one will take that seriously unless you have something to back it up, like an order from a judge. If the option exists, just hit that “flag as inappropriate” link, one time and one time only, and then let the moderators do what they will with the request.

4. Participate in industry discussion forums.

A few months ago, we discovered a client’s competitor was blanketing a LASIK forum with answers to users’ questions. The answers were helpful and insightful. They also had the doctor’s name and website in the signature line on every single one of those posts. When you conducted a search for him, the most prominent results were those which demonstrated his involvement and showed that he was both extremely knowledgeable about his craft and 100% willing to answer questions for potential patients. There may be a bad review in the search results somewhere, but anyone doing real research is going to take note of that demonstration of accessibility and expertise.

5. Be accessible.

Part of the key to #4 was that the doctor came across as accessible and approachable. It’s important to keep in mind that many bad reviews are written as a last resort. Chances are pretty good that they tried to approach you for resolution and couldn’t get it, leaving them frustrated, fuming, and needing to vent. If you are available, accessible and willing to work out a solution, that bad review probably won’t ever hit the web in the first place.

6. Act as though you care.

This obviously goes hand in hand with #5, but I think it deserves its own line. It’s one thing if your clients can reach you easily. It’s another to be friendly and caring enough to make them want to call you in the first place. Picking up the phone to register a complaint can be intimidating since most people seek to avoid conflict. Don’t make it harder on them by being confrontational or intimidating. A little warmth goes a long way.

7. Follow up.

The first time I visited my chiropractor, he called me the next day to make sure I was doing well after my adjustments. I’d never had a doctor do that before. I was really impressed! And yet, what a simple thing you can do to make sure everything is okay. If it’s not, this is their opportunity to tell you before they had a chance to complain! Make phone calls. Send follow-up emails. Make sure you delivered the expected service, and jump on the opportunity to fix it if you did not. It’s a nice, proactive way of heading off that bad review at the pass.

8. Accept criticism.

Maybe it’s not one bad review. Maybe it’s three. Or seventeen. That’s not good. A string of bad reviews can put you out of business. I’m going to give you some tough love on this one. The solution here is to LISTEN. You may be in denial, but the truth is that people are not happy with you and it’s not an isolated case. There’s a reason for it! Pay close attention to what the reviews are saying, and take it to heart. Sometimes a review is bad because you’re just not doing a good job. Listen to the criticism, conduct an honest self-evaluation, and work on improving.

9. Take legal action.

Libel, and I mean real libel, is not something you should gloss over. However, lawsuits should be an absolute last resort. Do anything and everything you can by playing nice before going down this road, and consider this: Anything you do within legal channels is fair game for the media. Take the plight of Horizon Group Management as a cautionary tale. Horizon sued a former tenant over a libelous statement made on Twitter. They wanted to defend and preserve their professional reputation, but then the story hit the national media. The entire world saw a tweet that was probably only previously seen by fewer than twenty people, and Horizon was painted as a tyrannical, lawsuit-happy company. Consider any ideas about libel suits very, very carefully and ask yourself if the potential consequences are worthwhile. In most cases, I’m betting they’re not. But I do believe it’s important to know that this option does exist for those whose reputations and livelihoods are truly on the line.

10. Stay on top of 1 through 9.

Okay guys. Look. This is not a one-time fix it and forget it deal. Reputation management is an ongoing process, and you cannot let the ball drop. However you choose to tackle those bad reviews, keep it up. Also, notice that many of these suggestions boil down to providing excellent customer service and being proactive about fixing problems before they happen. That’s called “being awesome”. How do you fight bad reviews? Keep being awesome!

Create a reputation management strategy and put it on the to-do list. Be responsive, be nice, be approachable, be accessible, be willing to take criticism, and be willing to keep it all up. Keep being awesome, and your bad review woes will simply melt away.