The Increasing Impact of Reviews and Google+ (?!) on Local SEO
Some new data has given us some “big time insight” into how Google is using authoritative local sites to inform local search rankings, says David Mihm. Mike Blumenthal agrees, saying that the prominence of local review pages and appears to be “transferring prominence directly to the local entity in a way that is totally independent of links.”
Street Fight Daily: Bing’s New Ordering Service, Google Revives Wallet
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology…Bing Now Lets You Order Food And Book Hotels Directly From Search Results (The Next Web)… To Revive Wallet, Google Tries to Wrangle Unruly Partners (Wall Street Journal)… Uber Valued At $41 Billion As Revenue Growth Powers Expanded Funding Round (MarketWatch)…
Street Fight Daily: Digital First’s Thunderdome Implodes, Mobile Payments Heats Up (Again)
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… The Newsonomics of Digital First Media’s Thunderdome Implosion (And Coming Sale) (Nieman Journalism Lab)… Tech Titans Are Vying to Be Your Pocketbook (New York Times)… TaskRabbit For Business Service Portal Quietly Disappears (TechCrunch)…
Street Fight Daily: Square Makes Loans, Why Microsoft Invested in Foursquare
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal publishing, marketing, commerce, and technology… With Square Capital, Square Begins Offering Controversial Merchant Cash Advances (Recode)… It’s Now Obvious Why Microsoft Invested Millions In Foursquare (Business Insider)… Uber Says it Doesn’t Discriminate by Neighborhood in Chicago (GigaOm)…
How Online Review Sites Can Regain Consumers’ Trust
As long as there are economic incentives to create bogus reviews, unscrupulous people and businesses will continue to exploit the platforms that make it easy to deceive. For the local players seeking to help users in selecting a great business, use the offline world as a guide. Require an identity, build communities of real people sharing advice, and give legitimate customers a megaphone to honestly rate the service received…
Street Fight Daily: Square and Intuit Play Nice, Confidence Crisis With Reviews
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology… Square and Intuit Play Nice With New QuickBooks Integration (AllThingsD)… Confidence Crisis: 40 Percent Don’t Trust Online Reviews (MarketingLand)… Finding a Model for Sac Press by Looking at The Hawaii Independent (ScramentoPress)…
Street Fight Daily: Yelp Quantifies Its Value for SMBs, Identifying Anonymous Location
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.… Yelp Announces A New ‘Revenue Estimator’ For Small Businesses (TechCrunch)… Why the Collision of Big Data and Privacy Will Require a New Realpolitik (Paid Content)… How Indoor Location Could Find Its Way into Apple Services (GigaOm)…
Street Fight Daily: NYC Gets Local Discovery, Tiger Takes Stake in Groupon
A roundup of today’s big stories in hyperlocal content, commerce, and technology.… New York City Replaces 250 Public Pay Phones with iPad-like Screens (GigaOm)… The World’s Hottest Hedge Fund Manager Thinks Groupon Stock Is A Good Deal (Forbes)… Basing Hotel Choice on Web Reviews May Be Bad Move (LA Times)…
Street Fight Poll: Word-of-Mouth Is Primary Driver of Local Business
A new Street Fight poll finds that even with a slew of new locally targeted marketing platforms at local merchants’ disposal, word-of-mouth is still a primary driver of local consumer behavior. The poll of 500 U.S. consumers found that 43% of consumers are most likely to shop or dine at a local business after a recommendation from a friend or colleague…
7 Strategies for Dealing With Online Reviews
While nobody doubts that positive reviews can be good for a business, many merchants aren’t quite sure how to encourage their customers to post their opinions online — and how to respond when they receive negative feedback in such a public forum. We spoke to five experts in the field and asked what businesses should consider when managing their online reviews…
Poll: 93% of Respondents Check Reviews Before Dining or Shopping
A majority of American consumers check online reviews before shopping or dining at a local business, according to a recent Street Fight poll. The three-question poll of 200 U.S. consumers points to a customer base heavily reliant on local reviews sites, particularly among the crucial 18-34 age demographic marketers everywhere covet.
Echoer App Compiles and Curates Real-Time Feedback About Locations
Four months after its wide launch in iOS, the crowdsourcing, location-based service app Echoer has announced an expansion into Android and a new content partner program with more than 500 media, blogger and event partners. Street Fight caught up with Daniel Cowen, Echoer’s co-founder and CEO, to discuss the app’s progression, the difficulties associated with continually generating real-time content, and how it distinguishes itself from reviews sites like Yelp…
Can Yelp Save Itself from Its Users?
A friend at work is a serious cheap eats hound. He has eaten at more ethnic restaurants in the South Bay than I even knew existed. I asked where he was going for lunch yesterday. He told me. I Yelped it, and he laughed at me. Why? “All those reviews are useless to someone like me. I have different taste than people who use Yelp. And I’m sure that a ton of those reviews are gamed,” he said…
Could Chipotle Have Saved Millions of Dollars By Taking Online Reviews More Seriously?
If done right, online reputation management can act as an early warning system for multi-location businesses, and can ultimately prevent long-term brand damage and reduce the risk of decreasing profits.