How to Get Your Business on Yelp

Small Business RatingsYelp, a local business directory site with reviews by its members, is becoming increasingly popular in metro markets. It’s influence can be seen in both San Francisco, Chicago and New York where many shop owners display a “Yelp” sticker on their storefront windows.

As online directories take a certain market share away from traditional Yellow Pages – and even search engines – the rise in the popularity of website surfers looking for reviews has increased dramatically since 2005 (when Yelp first launched).

Yelp is also becoming a place where restaurant owners, plumbers and even professional services providers like attorneys can advertise. They have three ways of getting your local business listed – by advertising at a flat monthly rate, by paying $3 per click, or simply being listed for free.

Here’s how to be listed for free (it’s not as easy as one would hope).

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Managing Customer Experience – When Customers Give you Lemons…

Effective Twitter BrandingTV actor Charlie Sheen, on a tirade against his (now former) employer, blitzed every major media outlet and amassed a Twitter following of 2 million people in about 2 days venting about how he had been wronged by the network executive.

Thanks to Sheen and Twitter, angry people everywhere now have the wherewithal to launch a full-scale brand attack on any service, product or boss that rubs them the wrong way. Businesses have an opportunity to make brand ambassadors out of their most difficult or dissatisfied customers, yet so few fail to do so – why?

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3 Optimization Musts for Any Small Business

Search Engine Optimization1.) Have the right website host and setup

I wish more discussions about Search Engine Optimization (SEO) would touch on the fundamentals of website hosting and IP addresses. Before getting into code or content, we often forget the basics of how our web pages are going to be structured and served up to the public.

Most small businesses, unless they are web-based or software-based services, will probably have a cheaper shared hosting setup. This means the website will be on a server which has other websites it hosts. This option is fine, but making sure the website does not share its IP address with other websites is critical. If Google bans an IP address because it detects, for instance, malware being served from that website, it will ‘blacklist’ all websites being served from that IP address.

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