I had the honor of speaking at the Star Tribune’s 2011 Small Business Search Marketing Summit on Wednesday November 2nd at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Here is the Slideshare from my presentation entitled “2012 Search Marketing Agenda: What Every Small Business Needs to Know”. I hope you enjoy it!

 

View this this presentation or other presentations from WebRanking on Slideshare.net

Continue reading “2012 Search Marketing Agenda Presentation from Star Tribune’s Small Business Search Marketing Summit” »

WebRanking is proud to announce that our very own James Svoboda will be a featured speaker at the 2011 Small Business Search Marketing Summit presented by the Star Tribune on November 2 at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. James will be joining Sam Richter, the bestselling author on search and reputation, along with Leslie Gibson, a senior consultant with Nina Hale Search to discuss search marketing, reputation management and other advanced strategies for marketing your small business online.

Continue reading “James to speak at the 2011 Small Business Search Marketing Summit” »

As the Portland Community Manager for Yelp.com, the number one question I hear from business owners is: How do I make Yelp work for me? The value of positive consumer reviews (and even some negative ones) to sustain and grow business is beyond obvious, but in a social media market dominated by broadcasting tools, Yelp’s model for business/consumer interaction can be a learning curve for some. Here are some do’s and don’ts to help you reap the benefits of the lush information available in consumer reviews.

1. Do: Join the conversation!

Every day on Yelp, millions of people (38 million last month alone) are searching, reading, and writing reviews of businesses like yours. They’re discussing your products, your service and really everything about your business. And as with any conversation, you have two roles to play: listen, and respond. Yelp gives you the tools (for free) to do both.

How, you ask? By unlocking your Business Owner Account on Yelp, you have access to a bevy of tools that allow you to do things like track page hits, post special offers and announcements, respond to reviews (both publicly and privately), add and correct information about your business like address and phone number, complete an About This Business summary, recommend other businesses, and share your business’ history.

Continue reading “How To Succeed on Yelp (Without Even Really Trying)” »

The Red & Black Café is a worker owned, collectively managed, anarchist friendly, vegan coffee shop and restaurant located here in Portland, Oregon. A curiosity in some parts of the country, but here in the Northwest just another place to get a vegan meal and a cup of coffee… unless that is; you’re a Portland Police officer.

Recently the Red & Black café made national news when they asked a uniformed Officer to leave the premises because his presence reportedly made some of the other patrons uncomfortable. See, the Red & Black has a Safer Space policy, and according to reports, one of the “owners” asked the officer to leave (after they sold him his cup of coffee) because a good number of their patrons don’t feel safe around the police.

Continue reading “Red & Black vs. Black & White: Yelp Publicity Story for Small Businesses” »

Yelp has been getting a lot of attention recently and none of it is for being funny, useful or cool. With multiple lawsuits in the works, and claims of extortion and review manipulation being bantered around daily, the integrity of Yelp’s has been up for debate. In an attempt to quell those complaints and add more transparency to the process of how reviews are filtered, Yelp announced today on their official blog two major changes to the way they do business.

The first change, and one that has been requested by reviewers and business owners alike, is the ability to see the reviews that get caught in the oh so secretive review algorithm. That’s right, all of those reviews deemed to be from disgruntled ex employees, revenge seeking former lovers, unethical competitors, robots, the business owner’s family and the solicited 5 star customer are now available for all to see.

Want to discover reviews for your favorite restaurant or even your own business that didn’t make the cut to prime time? Here’s how you do it:

Continue reading “Yelp Increases Transparency and Eliminates Favorite Review Feature” »

This is the third and final part of my interview with Luther Lowe, Business Outreach Manager at Yelp.

In the first part we discussed what it means to be Yelp’s Business Outreach Manger, the recent class action lawsuit brought against their company and how Yelp is a transactional social media website. While part two covered why Yelp frowns on review solicitation, how they protect businesses from fraudulent reviews and the do’s and don’ts on interacting with customers who have posted negative reviews about your business.

Today we will discuss the free and paid tools that are available to businesses, the possibility of opting out of Yelp reviews and a new webinar series designed exclusively for small businesses.

Following is the final piece of my three part interview with Luther:

Continue reading “Yelp Interview Part 3: Luther Lowe Discusses Free & Paid Tools for Businesses, Opting out of Reviews & New Webinar Series for Small Businesses” »

This is the second part of my three part interview with Luther Lowe, Yelp’s Business Outreach Manager. In Part One, we discussed what it means to be Yelp’s Business Outreach Manger, the recent class action lawsuit brought against their company and how Yelp is a transactional social media website.

In this second part of the interview we look at why Yelp frowns on review solicitation, how they protect businesses from fraudulent reviews and the do’s and don’ts on interacting with customers who have posted negative reviews about your business.

Following is the second part of my three part interview with Luther:

Continue reading “Yelp Interview Part 2: Luther Lowe Discusses Review Solicitation, Fraudulent Review Protection & Dealing with Negative Reviews” »

I recently had the opportunity to sit down for an extensive interview with Luther Lowe, Yelp’s Business Outreach Manager. Luther was in town to speak at SEMpdx’s Searchfest, and was kind enough to set aside some time to enjoy a couple pints of locally brewed IPA and answer questions regarding his role at Yelp, the recent lawsuits brought against their company and how small businesses can get the most out of their Yelp business listing.

Following is part one of my three part interview with Luther:

Continue reading “Yelp Interview Part 1: Luther Lowe Discusses Recent Lawsuit, His Role as Business Outreach Manager & How Business Can Succeed on Yelp” »