Word of Mouth

Learn About Web: Small Business Reality Check

Learn About Web: Small Business Reality Check

The Cafe at Queensgate, a Richland (WA) restaurant, is an excellent place in my hometown for lunch: good food, helpful staff, and a terrific, bistro-style atmosphere. You’ll notice that I didn’t link to them at all in that paragraph; I’d love to, but like so many small businesses, they don’t have a web site. And […]

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Local Business Owner Needs SERIOUS Reputation Management

Local Business Owner Needs SERIOUS Reputation Management

Follow along with me, please: The story begins on Sunday, when our local newspaper runs an article about a local military man named Burke Jensen who’s facing legal action because his new home isn’t landscaped. Shortly after Jensen and his wife bought the house, he was sent to Kuwait. His wife went back to live […]

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Word-of-Mouth Marketing: It’s About Being Remarkable

Filed in Word of Mouth by Matt McGee on July 21, 2008 13 Comments
Word-of-Mouth Marketing: It’s About Being Remarkable

Get noticed. Distinguish yourself from the competition. Create buzz. Be remarkable. Books are written about these concepts. But it’s much easier said than done. Many small business owners struggle to do things that will get people talking about them. Buzz/Word-of-mouth marketing isn’t one of the primary 15 blocks on the SEO Success Pyramid, but it […]

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Restaurant Reviews: It’s a West Coast Thing

Filed in Local Search, Statistics, Word of Mouth by Matt McGee on June 25, 2008 5 Comments
Restaurant Reviews: It’s a West Coast Thing

I remember someone saying that local search is like the wild west, and Palore has some data that shows at least one aspect of local fits the description. Check out this chart showing the amount of restaurants that have been reviewed online across the U.S. Palore says the data comes from crawling 70 local and […]

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Leave Feedback: Making Customer Reviews Easier for All

Filed in Local Search, Word of Mouth by Matt McGee on March 26, 2008 0 Comments
Leave Feedback: Making Customer Reviews Easier for All

It’s no secret that customer reviews can have a big impact on sales and conversions for businesses of any size. But getting customers to leave reviews in the right places isn’t an easy proposition. My friend Michael Jensen and his company, Solo SEO, hopes to change this with the introduction of Leave Feedback: LeaveFeedback.org helps […]

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Yahoo: It’s the Stars, Not the Reviews

Filed in Local Search, Word of Mouth, Yahoo by Matt McGee on March 3, 2008 5 Comments
Yahoo: It’s the Stars, Not the Reviews

In light of my weekend post about ratings and reviews not mattering when local listings are shown in the Yahoo! Shortcuts, we had a little dustup today and it turns out the original post needs clarifying. Here’s the real and accurate story: Ratings (stars) are taken into account, but review text is not. That’s word-for-word […]

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