By now, we are sure you understand the importance of acquiring online reviews for your company or organization. However, you may not be aware of the best places for your customers to post their reviews. The following websites are general and apply to most industries. Check how your business has been reviewed on them, and if you haven’t, set up a company profile.
Google Reviews/Local/Places/+
- Has been called Google Local, Google Places and now Google+ Local
- Business profiles available
- Comes up when your business is searched on Google
- Full-page viewed on “Read more info”
Angie’s List (www.angieslist.com)
- Higher-end review website
- Rated A-F
- Member’s only-reviewed site
- Well-thought out responses
- Reviewers cannot be anonymous
Yahoo! Local Listings
- Similar to Google+ Local reviews
- 5-star rating system
- Yahoo receives 13.5% search engine share (2012)
Yelp! (www.yelp.com)
- Rated on a 5-star scale
- Business can set-up profiles
- Can respond to reviewers
- Tight-knit community
Insider Pages (www.insiderpages.com)
- Local, user-generated review site
- Reviews are shown in search-engine results
- Begun in 2004
- 5-star rating system
Citysearch (www.citysearch.com)
- Similar to Insider Pages
- User-generated reviews
- Also operates using a 5-star system
- Redirects to local website (i.e. http://www.citysearch.com/guide/baton-rouge-la)
Consumer Search (www.consumersearch.com)
- 5-star rating scale
- Does not have its own user-base
- Generates reviews from internet and print publications
- Rank online reviews for company credibility
- They consider: timeliness of review, reviewer’s expertise, reliability of the reviewer’s top picks
Better Business Bureau (BBB) (www.bbb.org)
- Non-profit website
- Evaluates the best practices for how business should treat the public
- Do not directly endorse or recommend any business, service or product
- Have accredited (BBB accreditation) and non-accredited businesses listed
- Reviews include: company overview, customer reviews, complaints, directions and the BBB rating
- Ranked A-F
Consumer Reports (www.consumerreports.org)
- Non-profit and independent product-testing organization
- Tests, rates and recommends products
- 7 million subscribers
- Provide review criteria, overviews, buying guide and social sharing buttons for every product
- Model of superior content creation
LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com)
- Recommendations on personal pages as well as company profiles
- User-generated reviews found under the “Products and Services” box
Facebook (www.facebook.com)
- Facebook Recommendations
- Available on your official business page
- Looks like a regular post, but can be found on Timeline
- Recommendations can be comments on content as well