Tips to Provide the Best Website Experience, Page 3 of 25

The importance of responding to customers online could not be more prevalent as reviews continue to grow more than ever before. Aside from the fact that reviews from customers help others decide whether they should visit a business or not, reviews are now more prevalent on search results pages meaning a lot of eyes can see what is being said about your company online.

The influence that reviews have on shoppers is staggering: more than 88% of online shoppers incorporate reviews into their purchase decisions (Webrepublic, 2015). Businesses are told to get more reviews on review websites to keep attracting new customers. With so many review websites out there, where does a business even begin? Your business may be afraid to manage customer reviews on review sites as you may not want to end up in one of these situations:

receive zero reviews

receive zero recent online reviews

receive negative online reviews

or, your business simply has unmanaged online reviews across multiple review websites

Unfortunately, your business is missing out. This lack of free online word of mouth is actually hurting your business through inaction, because reputation drives conversion.

 Business reviews and social posts help shape your company's online reputation

In fact, one of the worst things your business can do is ignore your online reviews and social posts. As easy as it is to make a mistake when handling your business's online reputation, it can also be easy to recover if done properly (and with apology). While damage will inevitably happen, your business can take steps to mitigate the degree of damage that can occur. The biggest mistake of all your company can make is not participating in helping to shape the conversation about your company online.

 Business reviews provide valuable feedback for your business

While it can be easy for your business to take negative comments to heart, it is important to recognize that reviews are constructive feedback. All in all, reviews are valuable feedback! They help your company gauge their performance and see how you can improve. There is always room for improvement and a lot can be learned even from positive business reviews. Through reviews, your business can see which products or services you should be boasting, which needs work, and even discover which employees rock at customer service.

Your business reviews can now appear in search results

Search engines have caught on to the popularity of reviews and are now displaying them more prominently. So, if someone searches for your business, there is a chance that reviews from review websites could be displayed on the search engine results pages. In Google's markup the annotated content that appears in search of a company or product, business reviews and ratings can now be included in search results. In other words, when a user performs a search on Google, Google will find and possibly display review summaries from online business reviews and consumer ratings. Below is an example of how business reviews now showing up in search results.

How can businesses get more reviews?

There are a variety of methods your business can employ to ask for more business reviews, including emailing consumers manually, using surveys, asking consumers to leave reviews with codes and review sites on their receipts, or utilizing review generation software to automate the business review process.

Three important review website management tips:

 Remember to add or claim listings on the top review sites

It's a good idea to add or claim a listing or business profile on the most popular review sites (unless your business doesn't fit with the niche), correct your business's listing information and start getting more business reviews!

 Your business should keep asking customers for reviews

Asking the average customer for a review can be hard work. Granted, it is often easiest to get reviews from consumers that are either really happy or really unhappy with the level of service they were provided. Your business should always remember to ask as customers are busy creatures and will not remember unless they are asked or reminded to leave feedback.

Customers are more open to leaving reviews on review sites

Why not just ask for business reviews or testimonials on your business's website? Well, asking consumers to leave a review on your business's website seems a lot more screened and inauthentic than simply asking consumers to leave reviews on a trusted review site. Since the review site is a third party, it feels more open for customers to leave an honest, unbiased review.

Business reviews are here to stay

In conclusion, there's no getting away from business reviews. The good news is that there are methods to get more business reviews as well as effectively managing reviews from customers. Also, businesses needn't fear negative online reviews, as there are ways to negate the effect of negative reviews.

Amazing customer service may seem like a lot of extra work on a short-term basis, but it does improve your brand image and goodwill, which means a lot in the long run. No matter how big or small your business is, you must focus on making your customers happy. There are many ways to do this with the strength of your product, with free incentives that you can offer or with amazing customer service experiences.

With all the competition out there, succeeding with your business nowadays is a matter of wills. Are you willing to provide the best possible value? Are you willing to offer your customers the perfect customer experience? If you are, then it's time to get started at improving the customer service experience your company provides. Here are a few important tips to help your company provide your customers the perfect customer service experience.

Know your products and services inside and out

No matter the business or industry you're in, knowing your offerings (products or services) inside and out is absolutely necessary. Customer service is, after all, all about helping your customers succeed with your products or services. Therefore, your customer service should focus on offering the proper suggestions, tips and solutions to ensure that success. Each and every employee (not just customer service) should know the ins and outs of what you're selling. Helping your employees succeed by providing the proper training (regardless of their job description) is the first step in helping your customers succeed.

Be more accessible

If you want your customer service department to strive for success, here's what you should know, customer service must be readily accessible to all of your customers. One easy way of accomplishing this is setting up more communication channels in which customer can connect with a customer service member when they have a question or issue. The minimum that you can do is to provide a phone number, an e-mail address and a mailing address. If your business can afford it, and really need it, develop an online support desk that can be instantly reached 24/7. This communication channel is usually required when the company reaches a big number of requests and website visitors.

Speed up your response times

Customers love quick answers. According to a recent report performed by Frost, 41% of customers suggest that their biggest frustration regarding customer service is when they're put on hold. They want to be respected, and your company must give your best to solve everyone's issues quickly.

 Focus on the customer, not on the sale

Customer service is all about the customer's feelings and experience. You must focus on their well-being and you must avoid thinking about combining customer service with sales or other aspects of your business. If you want to leverage your customer service system in order to make more sales, I'm sorry to disappoint you: it's not that effective! The selling side of your business is totally different and you should focus on it separately. Continually work at ways that you can improve the customer experience to keep your customers satisfied and coming back for more.

 Clear communication

Keep communication simple and ask straightforward questions when communicating with your customers. The truth is that we all communicate differently, so be prepared for communicating with your customers in different ways to ensure that they will understand whatever information you are trying to relay to them. If corresponding by email or online, grammar and spelling must be perfect or your credibility as a professional company will slowly vanish.

 Over-deliver whenever possible

Over-delivering can help create loyal customers. On average, loyal customers can be worth 10x more

than their first purchase. If someone gets treated right, they'll often come back. They'll perceive your company as a trustworthy authority or provider; therefore, over delivering from time to time helps your company's reputation to grow positively. Find a way to reward your customers with a customer service issue for being patient. It could be anything. Nothing costly or hard to obtain. Ideally, this small attention should also deliver some value. Find and fix your mistakes

Mistakes are a part of any business, after all we are all human. Nevertheless, do your best to make things right with your customers. When we are talking about mistakes, we are talking about a customer that hasn't been treated right. Your business can make it right by offering them solutions, returns or future guarantees. Pay attention: if you're not fixing your mistakes in time, your company's reputation will suffer. People will start talking, reviewing, and sooner than later you'll realize that your sales are dropping.Test, fail, test again and ultimately optimize

Before reaching success in a customer service program, every business goes through a trial-and-error process. The marketplace and the customers within any industry tend to become more complicated as an industry ages or becomes more fragmented. If you try out a new product, service, or customer service initiative, don't be afraid to fail. Know that a failure isn't failure, it is merely feedback, it lets you know what not to do so you can start focusing on things that might work. After you find something that works, begin the scaling process. Optimize everything until you find the balance that you're looking for.

Conclusion

Businesses are always looking for new ways to make a name for themselves and an excellent customer service experience is one of those ways in which a business can afford to get a great reputation in. Competition is almost always growing in any industry and new strategies and actions must be implemented to keep up with the constant flux. Providing the perfect customer experience is just one way for your business to stand out from the crowd, win customers over and keep them coming back. It's never too early or to late to create a customer service program that turns your customers into repeat customers, or ambassadors of your brand.

Check out this link to another great article on Customer service: https://replyco.com/brainery/32-customer-service-facts/

Mobile apps are not for big name brands only. Nowadays, more and more mid-size and small businesses are jumping on the mobile trend. These companies stay ahead of the competition and understand that it's not enough to only have a mobile-friendly website. Having a mobile application increases and expands customer interaction with your products and services. Use it to your advantage, and for many businesses it just might be the best way to engage your client base.

If you are not completely convinced by now that a mobile app will be beneficial for your business, here are a few reasons why you should strongly consider building a mobile app:

Being Where Your Customers Are

Your customers are the most important people for your business. They can support and recommend your products or services, just like they can be your harshest critics. According to Statista.com, the number of smartphone users is predicted to grow from 2.1 billion in 2016 to around 2.5 billion in the year 2019. Reading, scrolling, and tapping on an app is a daily activity. Strive to be part of your customer's mobile application.

Another Marketing Platform

An amazing benefit of having a mobile app is the added channel you can use for marketing. Push notification on an app is a fantastic tool for not only communicating general info, but also announcing promotional offers, right at the customer's fingertip. This communication channel allows your business to get that much closer to a direct interaction with your customers.

Stronger Brand Awareness

Your brand awareness is crucial for your success. A mobile app contributes to your brand image as well as help shape and define it in some cases. An app is like a blank billboard, you can do whatever you want with it. With an app you can create something your customers will love while reflecting what you have determined for the world to think when they think of your brand. Also, the more you get users to be involved with your app, the more they will be inclined to buy your products or use your services.Things are only moving forward towards better integration of new technological avenues and business profitability. Tomorrow it might be holograms, but today it's the mobile app. Stay ahead of the curve and take advantage of it.

If you're ready to take your business or organization to the next level by creating an effective mobile app, feel free to contact us and let our team of talented engineers, analysts and designers help you.

Is your social media falling flat? Don’t sweat it; many hours have gone into perfecting the use of this not-so-secret weapon. Facebook, Google+, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram strategies are outlined in detail below. Once you understand how they all work and which will suit your business best, learn how to handle them and other factors such as SEO, reviews, and more!

Facebook, Google+, & Twitter

What works: Images, videos, calls to action, industry-related content, general share-worthy content.

What doesn’t work: Lengthy content, bland content, poor business/related/share-worthy balance.

Videos and images are best used to catch the eye of social media readers, though video works a little better to hold the reader’s attention. Whether it’s redirecting consumers to your website or online store, or getting them to stop and look at an interesting piece of content titled by your business, images and videos are your anchor.

The three best ways to get traction from your readers are to:

• Get them to go straight to your website or store
• Get them to like/follow
• and/or get them to share your content

Let’s say three people see your business posts about that 2 for 1 sale. These posts are not likely to be shared, so those same three people will see all your posts, and that’s it. Once people start liking and sharing your posts, you’ll start to see new eyes on your page. This is where industry related/general share-worthy content comes in.

If you’re a physical therapist, for example, get your readers excited to see and share those workout tips and you’ll have a better chance that someone who needs physical therapy will come across them. Having a good mix of these types of posts is extremely important.

Once you’ve gained the attention of your readers with a photo or video, a call to action is a great way to guide them to their next step.

“Do you like these home renovation ideas? Let’s get started with yours!”

As seen in this above example, calls to action can be used for almost every type of post. Tell your reader to check out your website for a business related post, or tell them to read the article or video you’re sharing. Though industry-related or share-worthy content may not lead your reader straight to your website, the posts are more likely to gain likes and shares.

Packaged in with the importance of shared content is the name of your business. Every time your post is shared, someone new has the chance to see you. That’s brand-recognition, baby! When the time comes for that person to need a lawyer, they’ll remember the interesting law posts you shared and seek out the name they remember seeing or hearing about.

On the other hand, lengthy content, bland posts, and a poor balance of business/industry/shareable don’t work well on these media channels. Lengthy content is an especially bad choice for Twitter’s 140 character count limit. As for Facebook and Google+, people just don’t have the attention spans to read posts that are more than a couple of lines long. Keep them short and concise! Don’t post bland, filler content like, “Happy Friday!” unless people have a reason to share it. “Happy Friday, here’s a hilarious cat meme” can improve brand recognition, but only if shared- use humor to your advantage.

Find your balance between business and shareable content. Too much boring business related posts and calls to action can lead to a stagnant viewer count, while too many share-worthy posts may lead to your readers not knowing what your business does.

Pinterest

What works: Images, videos, industry related content, general share-worthy content.

What doesn’t work: Lengthy content, bland content, and it may not suit your vertical.

Pinterest, like Instagram below, is all about the pictures. If you’ve ever been on Pinterest, you know that it’s a very visual sight to behold. The hook of Pinterest is that people are looking for ideas. This will work best for you if your business provides ideas or the means with which to make ideas happen. A hardware store can benefit from Pinterest because you may share tree-house building ideas with your store’s name attached- don’t forget about brand recognition. Once people get the ideas from you, they’ll come into your store to buy the tools they need for the job! The best use of Pinterest includes non-business related content. Show people ideas that may lead them to your business, but don’t try to sell them right then and there.

However, Pinterest may not suit your vertical, and it definitely won’t prosper with too much emphasis on text. Many verticals such as plumbing just don’t have many corresponding ideas given the nature of the job. In this case, Pinterest can only be used for shareable content and brand recognition. The text attached to Pinterest posts is often ignored, so any applicable text should go into an infographic displayed as an image. That isn’t to say that you shouldn’t use any text. A small headline or message will suffice here.

Instagram

What works: Images, projects.

What doesn’t work: Mostly everything else.

Instagram is a strange beast. The entire point of this medium is to compel readers to follow you and talk about what you offer. This works best for verticals like restaurants because your customers can post images of your food for their friends to see. This also works great for verticals like home improvement. In this vertical, your business can post project and progress images of what you’ve been working on. Seeing these images and sharing them can work well to compel the reader to seek you out.

Instagram posts can’t include links, so just like Pinterest, the aim here is brand recognition. Can you consistently post interesting enough images for your readers to stay interested? Not every business can.

Reviews

Now that we’ve covered the main social media channels, let’s discuss other ways they can be used. Facebook, Google+, and other media channels support reviews. Aside from the engagement from posts, reviews can make or break a business. You may be thinking “I can’t control what people rate my business”, and you’d be right. However, you can control how you respond to people. You can turn around even the angriest rater by replying to their review in a quick and professional manner. See our other articles to learn about the importance of reviews!

Social Listening

Forbes discusses social listening as finding where your audience is discussing topics related to your brand. People are talking about cars somewhere, and these are great topics for your dealership. The short and sweet of this is that you need to be researching your competitors and your peers. What are people talking about, liking, and sharing, and how can you get in on it? You’ll want to shape your social media strategies around what’s getting the best traction everywhere else. Get researching!

SEO

This likely isn’t the first time you’ve read about the importance of SEO, and it definitely won’t be your last. When you search your business’s name or keywords related to your work, how high on the results page does it appear? The more you and your readers are mentioning your name and other keywords in relation to your business, the better your SEO results will be.

Measure Success

Finally, take a step back and look at what you’re doing. Naturally, you’ll want to look for what’s working and what isn’t. Whether you’re counting likes and shares by hand or using Google Analytics to track the information for you, understanding your trends may just be the most important part of the process, so what are you waiting for?

How does online advertising help a local business grow?

Digital advertising increases awareness, it's that simple. Digital advertising consists of a range of services, all of which work to promote a business online.
More and more businesses are increasing the amount that they spend on digital advertising, and experts like Jamie Turner suggest digital advertising on social platforms is well worth the spend.

If I were to provide one tip to people who are using social media, it would be this don't be afraid of paying for social media reach and clicks. Jamie Turner, 60secondmarketer.com

The best part about digital advertising is that results can be easily monitored and ROI can be easily tracked. You probably don't want to be spending a lot money without some proof of performance right?

With traditional media channels, there is sometimes no way of tracking the effectiveness of an advertisement in terms of advanced data analytics. With digital advertising, companies like Google and Facebook allow users to access advanced analytics. This way local businesses know that their money is being well spent and that the digital advertisements are positively impacting their storefront.
When determining the success of an ad, the important factors will differ case by case. For the most part, the success of an ad lies in the indicators listed below.
ROI indicators/measures of a successful campaign:

Impressions: the actual # of views on an advertisement

Clicks: the actual # of direct clicks on the advertisement

Engagements: Social & landing page clicks

Results: In most cases, results come in the form of a phone call or a store visit.

The Best Places to Advertise

Through our team's extensive work in the digital advertising space, we have come to the same conclusion as pretty much every digital advertising company. The best places to spend money on digital advertising are Google & Facebook.

With digital advertising, not only is a local business visible online, but they are visible to the right people online. Platforms like Facebook and Google allow for advanced targeting, which puts a local business in front of consumers who are more likely to convert into a sale.

Plus, Google and Facebook accounted for roughly 60 percent of ad spend in 2017!

Why advertise on Google?

Reach: Google is the largest search network in the world, and consumers are using Google every single day to search for local businesses. Utilizing Google's massive network capabilities, digital advertisers are able to find ideal prospects and get in front of users looking for their products/services.

In the age of digital, people are not looking at TV commercials or listening to radio ads to find a local business, they are searching for a service and then locating your business online.

With 3.5 Billion Google searches conducted every single day, customers are looking for local businesses and businesses should want to be on Google.

Flexibility: Google allows the local advertiser to spend whatever they want, whenever they want. With flexible options for ad spend, advertisers are able to test what works and what doesn't work for a business. Spend a bit, wait to see how the campaign performs, and then reinvest in larger budgets for greater prospect reach.

Why advertise on Facebook?

• Audience: The audience on Facebook includes 1.32 billion daily active users (DAUs) on average, at an increase of 17% year-over-year. As a local business, you simply cannot ignore the fact that Facebook is likely an intersection in which you can find prospective customers. If the daily average users stat doesn't have you convinced then let's talk about how often social media is being used. The average person spends nearly 35 minutes everyday JUST on Facebook, according to a recent study by Mediakix.
• If there is one thing to take away it is that the audience on Facebook is MASSIVE, and they are on Facebook a LOT.
• Targeting: Facebook Ad targeting is a marketer's dream. Facebook allows the ability to focus on users so microscopically that you can basically become a bit of a digital stalker (in a good way?). Target users by their interests, behaviours, age, gender, location, and really anything that their Facebook profile may reveal about them including job title.
• The Facebook algorithm has brought about changes to the local advertising landscape, but it remains one of the best environments for local businesses to get the word out about themselves!

Conclusion

By leveraging these two platforms, every local business can easily take their advertising game to the next level, and begin to rake in new revenue's”with the data to back their investment.

Is your social media falling flat? Don't sweat it; many hours have gone into perfecting the use of this not-so-secret weapon. Facebook, Google+, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram strategies are outlined in detail below. Once you understand how they all work and which will suit your business best, learn how to handle them and other factors such as SEO, reviews, and more!

Facebook, Google+, & Twitter

What works: Images, videos, calls to action, industry-related content, general share-worthy content.
What does work: Lengthy content, bland content, poor business/related/share-worthy balance.
Videos and images are best used to catch the eye of social media readers, though video works a little better to hold the readers attention. Whether it's redirecting consumers to your website or online store, or getting them to stop and look at an interesting piece of content titled by your business, images and videos are your anchor.
The best ways to get traction from your readers are to:

Get them to go straight to your website or store

Get them to like/followand/or get them to share your content

Let's say three people see your business posts about that 2 for 1 sale. These posts are not likely to be shared, so those same three people will see all your posts, and that's it. Once people start liking and sharing your posts, you'll start to see new eyes on your page. This is where industry related/general share-worthy content comes in.
If you're a physical therapist, for example, get your readers excited to see and share those workout tips and you'll have a better chance that someone who needs physical therapy will come across them. Having a good mix of these types of posts is extremely important.
Once you've gained the attention of your readers with a photo or video, a call to action is a great way to guide them to their next step.
“Do you like these home renovation ideas? Let's get started with yours!
As seen in this above example, calls to action can be used for almost every type of post. Tell your reader to check out your website for a business related post, or tell them to read the article or video you're sharing. Though industry-related or share-worthy content may not lead your reader straight to your website, the posts are more likely to gain likes and shares.
Packaged in with the importance of shared content is the name of your business. Every time your post is shared, someone new has the chance to see you. That's brand-recognition, baby! When the time comes for that person to need a lawyer, they'll remember the interesting law posts you shared and seek out the name they remember seeing or hearing about.
On the other hand, lengthy content, bland posts, and a poor balance of business/industry/shareable don't work well on these media channels. Lengthy content is an especially bad choice for Twitter's 140 character count limit. As for Facebook and Google+, people just don't have the attention spans to read posts that are more than a couple of lines long. Keep them short and concise! Don't post bland, filler content like, “Happy Friday! unless people have a reason to share it. “Happy Friday, here's a hilarious cat meme that can improve brand recognition, but only if shared- use humor to your advantage.
Find your balance between business and shareable content. Too much boring business related posts and calls to action can lead to a stagnant viewer count, while too many share-worthy posts may lead to your readers not knowing what your business does.

Pinterest

What works: Images, videos, industry related content, general share-worthy content.
What doesn't work: Lengthy content, bland content, and it may not suit your vertical.
Pinterest, like Instagram below, is all about the pictures. If you've ever been on Pinterest, you know that it's a very visual sight to behold. The hook of Pinterest is that people are looking for ideas. This will work best for you if your business provides ideas or the means with which to make ideas happen. A hardware store can benefit from Pinterest because you may share tree-house building ideas with your store's name attached- don't forget about brand recognition. Once people get the ideas from you, they'll come into your store to buy the tools they need for the job! The best use of Pinterest includes non-business related content. Show people ideas that may lead them to your business, but don't try to sell them right then and there.
However, Pinterest may not suit your vertical, and it definitely won't prosper with too much emphasis on text. Many verticals such as plumbing just don't have many corresponding ideas given the nature of the job. In this case, Pinterest can only be used for shareable content and brand recognition. The text attached to Pinterest posts is often ignored, so any applicable text should go into an infographic displayed as an image. That isnn't to say that you shouldn't use any text. A small headline or message will suffice here.

Instagram

What works: Images, projects.
What doesn't work: Mostly everything else.
Instagram is a strange beast. The entire point of this medium is to compel readers to follow you and talk about what you offer. This works best for verticals like restaurants because your customers can post images of your food for their friends to see. This also works great for verticals like home improvement. In this vertical, your business can post project and progress images of what you've been working on. Seeing these images and sharing them can work well to compel the reader to seek you out.
Instagram posts can't include links, so just like Pinterest, the aim here is brand recognition. Can you consistently post interesting enough images for your readers to stay interested? Not every business can.

Reviews

Now that we've covered the main social media channels, let's discuss other ways they can be used. Facebook, Google+, and other media channels support reviews. Aside from the engagement from posts, reviews can make or break a business. You may be thinking “I can't control how people rate my business. However, you can control how you respond to people. You can turn around even the angriest rater by replying to their review in a quick and professional manner. See our other articles to learn about the importance of reviews!

Social Listening

Forbes discusses social listening as finding where your audience is discussing topics related to your brand. People are talking about cars somewhere, and these are great topics for your dealership. The short and sweet of this is that you need to be researching your competitors and your peers. What are people talking about, liking, and sharing, and how can you get in on it? You'll want to shape your social media strategies around what's getting the best traction everywhere else. Get researching!

SEO

This likely isn't the first time you've read about the importance of SEO, and it definitely won't be your last. When you search your business's name or keywords related to your work, how high on the results page does it appear? The more you and your readers are mentioning your name and other keywords in relation to your business, the better your SEO results will be.

Measure Success

Finally, take a step back and look at what you're doing. Naturally, you'll want to look for what's working and what isn't. Whether you're counting likes and shares by hand or using Google Analytics to track the information for you, understanding your trends may just be the most important part of the process, so what are you waiting for?

Listings are an online summary of essential information for your business that serve as a powerful tool to help customers find you online and in real life. Here's what you need to know:

NAP+W

No, we didn't fall asleep on the keyboard. NAP+W is the acronym that explains all the information that should be included in business listings. Name, address, phone number and website.

These four pieces of information are the business listings starter-pack. They provide the basic information potential customers need to have in order to research, contact and locate your business.

Want to score some major bonus points? Include information like hours of operation in business listing's is what consumers are most interested in!

Will my listings work?

The effectiveness of a business listing depends on the information presence and accuracy. Listings are available through a variety of sources, including search engines, online directories and maps, or social sites. When it comes to listings presence, more is definitely better. Availability on as many sources as possible will create multiple avenues for consumers to find your business. But (and this is a big but), presence only pays off if the listings are accurate. Listings are accurate if the information is correct and consistent across all potential sources. Seems easy enough, right?

Why are listings important?

Listings with good presence and accuracy will undoubtedly pay off for your business. Here's how:

No more hide and seek

Just as the brightly lit bat signal guides everyone's favorite caped crusader (that's right Superman, we said it!), accurate and readily available listings will help guide consumers right to your business's door steps.

They even have similar shapes. Coincidence? We think not.

If a business's listing is incorrect or missing, the majority of consumers will feel less confident about the brand, likely leading them to choose a competitor's product or service. The availability of accurate listings ensures customers are actually able to find brick and mortar locations while they're open for business. This means money in the business owner's pocket and, just as importantly, it means the business can be reviewed.

In my humble opinion

An ample review pipeline is an essential tool for developing a business;s online reputation and fostering brand loyalty. Reviews allow customers to communicate their experience with a business to potential buyers, but if consumers can't find a business listed online, their opinion of it won't be well-informed. Accurate listings create the opportunity for transparency between businesses and consumers in the form of reviews, and the availability of this information will help increase a business's visibility.

All aboard the search engine

Consistent, accurate listings and the generation of reviews will directly benefit a business's visibility by boosting its ranking in local search engine results. Search engine optimization is a complex tool, so why not take advantage of it by simply ensuring your business is listed accurately! Increased visibility means more customers, and what business owner doesn't want that?

Now what?

This listings low-down provides a basic definition and describes the benefits of business listings. Create listings on sites worth lots of points to improve your listings score. We have ranked them by importance using a lot of key factors such as how many sites reference them, traffic, demographics and more.

As a business your reputation means everything. It says how you treat your customers, tells of the quality of your service, and speaks to the professionalism of your brand. Managing your reputation is big in today's world of Yelps and Google Business Listings, but it doesn't have to be a "big deal".

The social aspect of the online experience is simply an extension of how human beings as consumers and providers engage in the real-world. So, the main line of thought is this: Do right in the real-world and your business reputation will be a reflection of that. Sounds good right? It is, but it's not always so simple.

Just as there are bullies and liars in the world off-line, there are individuals online who may wish to pose a threat to your business out of spite. Thankfully, most tools that a customer or random troublemaker can use online to soil your reputation, have built-in safeguards that enable you to disprove the validity of false claims.

If a bad review or other form of bashing is pure garbage, it will usually be removed by the review service or website. If, however, a review seems to be legit, you may have to fend for yourself. This means, you manage your reputation by reaching out to the customer and asking how you can remedy their experience. Human nature should also dictate that if a real customer is satisfied that you cared for their needs, they will return your effort in good faith. If they don't, you can ask them to do so. 

Social media outlets, review sites, and blogs where your online reputation can be tarnished are inherently risky places for businesses. The golden rule though, should apply. Take care of your customers the way you want to be taken care of and your online reputation should reflect that ethic. In the worst case scenarios, you should find that most of the sites are going to have your back, so don't worry!

Contact us if you want to chat about keeping your online reputation up!