Why Review Diversity Matters

Mike Blumenthal, or Professor Maps as we like to call him is here to talk about review diversity.

Reviews are of increasing importance in the local business marketplace. They're highly visible. They lead to conversions and a lot of businesses are focused on them because they're negative or positive.

It's a hard area to work with, but you definitely need a plan to get them. You need a plan for interacting with your customers to encourage them.

Broaden Your Horizons Beyond Google

A lot of small business that are working on their search engine marketing think they have to get every review at Google.

You want to develop a much broader array of sites where you get reviews. The first reason why is it's what consumers want. In some recent research, Mike asked 1,500 American adults what would they do first when they got to Google looking for a local business.

• 30% of them said visit the website.
• 28 % of them said they'd visit reviews using Google
• 18% said they'd read reviews elsewhere on the Internet.
• 46% read reviews, but almost as many said they'd go elsewhere as to read them at Google.

So it's what consumers want. They want reviews in places besides Google.

Depth of Exposure

The second reason is that it increases the breadth and the depth of your business' exposure across the Internet. A lot of review sites, like Yelp and City Search, syndicate their reviews. So they may only get seen X number of times at those sites, but because they're syndicated, they'll get seen much more widely. For example, Yelp shows up on Apple. City Search shows up on Bing. They can increase how widely you're seen, and also it gives you an opportunity to show up in verticals where people with a special interest might be looking for you.

Easier for Customers

Thirdly, is a really critical issue; is it's easier for your customers. If you send them to Google and they have to get a login and they have to create a persona on Google+, it can be a very frustrating experience for them. It's particularly frustrating if after all of that work their reviews are nuked. So the advantage of working with a number of different review sites is that some of them like.

Some sites, like Judy's Book or Avvo, allow for anonymity. If you're a DUI lawyer, I'm not sure that you want your customer going out to Google+ and saying what a good job you did getting off on that drunk driving charge. Customers are going to be more familiar too. Roughly 18% of American adults, mostly older ones, have Yahoo logins. Well, it's going to be easier for them if they're more familiar with it, and it avoids frustration.

If they go to Yelp and leave a review and it gets buried, it can lead to unpleasant interchanges after the fact, and it gives them a choice. People don't want to be forced into a particular channel. By giving them a number of review sites, it makes it more likely that they will leave a review.

Google Wants Review Diversity

Then, finally, it's what Google wants. When you do a brand search or you do a keyword search for local, business name comes up and to the right is the information panel about that business.

When you look at that result, Google has the word "review" one, two, three, four, five, six times on that result. If Google's going to use that valuable real estate, some of the most valuable digital real estate in the world, and they're going to emphasize the word review six times, that's what we call a tell. They really want to give consumers what they are looking for, and Google is telling you that reviews are important.

Review Diversity is a Ranking Factor

The other final reason is that Google uses review site diversity and the number of sites that you're reviewed on as a ranking factor in the local search algorithm.

So when you put all of that together, it makes sense to not force a consumer into choosing one review site, but into several. What might those be in the review plan that you create for your business?

Creating a Review Plan

Plan on creating review plans for these sites to start:

• Google, the 800 pound gorilla
• Yelp, but keep in mind Yelp doesn't want you to ask your customers for reviews
• City Search which is a syndicate and seen very widely. Also, they use a Facebook login, so it's very convenient for your customers.
• Yahoo reviews show up on the first page of Yahoo search. While Yahoo search is a small percentage of total searches, it still provides significant local value.

So there are things five that you might want to think about in terms of building your review plan to help your business be more visible on the web.