Mike The Internet Guy’s Blog

Pete Flint, CEO, Trulia
Andrew Shotland, Proprietor, LocalSEOGuide.com
Brad Jaehn, Directory of Product, ShopLocal
Paul Ryan, CEO, Done Right!

Andrew Shotland
Customer reviews grew the traffic of InsiderPages exponentially (via organic)
-did this by adding ‘review’, ‘best’, ‘top’ to ordinary keyterms like plumber
-adds unique content to generic business pages
-generates links (users link to reviews from blogs or MySpace pages)
-improves user experience

(shows list of social IYPS, Verticals, Regionals, Social Networks) (ADD LIST LATER)

Take back your reputation and get some traffic
-copy your reviews and put them on your site
-include member names and photos
-include links back to sources/pages (add nofollow tags)
-this is probably not illegal(google does it, yahoo does it,)
-put services and city pages on your site
-create your own mini IYP a couple pages on your site
-create your own community (blog, ning, etc)
-contact your friendly local search co and ask why they are putting nofollow on the links to your website (citysearch,insiderpages,Yelp,DexKnows)
-add name to your petition at www.localseoguide.com

Pete Flint, Trulia
-Trulia Voices uses community driven content
1) an interactive dialog between consumers and real estate pros
2) opporortunity for RE pros to position as a ‘local’ expert and post free profile which helps SEO!! (hint hint realtors)
average response time is 20 minutes. 75% questions by consumers, 80% answers from RE pros, 4.6 responses per question

Lessons learned
-requires different product mindset search vs user feature set
-provide unique value to the niche
-think incentives and scalability
-can reduce product research and customer service costs
-build broad feature set

Brad Jaehn
-invested in social media because it made since for customers, advertisers and business model
-consumers spend more on electronics if studied first on the web
-65% increase in organic traffic (from community)
-4x the page views
-35% decrease in abandonment better than non-registered customers.

benefits of social content at Shoplocal
-increased ability to dialog with customer
-reinforce missions of helping local shoppers save time and money
-organic traffic improved acquisitions costs

Preparing for Challenges and issues
-prepare company for participation
-be ready for critisim
(more but didn’t catch them all)

Paul Ryan
-everything said before Paul was crap his quote not mine
-problem with user generated content on plumbers doesn’t show that they are
a) real
b) have proper licenses etc.
-ask questions about reviewers (who are you?, Did you actually use the service?, Are you an expert? Would a reasonable person disagree with your rating? Do you have a financial or personal stake in the outcome? What do you want to happen as a result of the review)

Problems with reviews
-anonymity
-real money is at stake
-easy to game the system
-myth of the noble amateur
-number of reviews required for statistical validity
-see published.com to boot amazon reviews
-contractors are now suing people over false reviews
-advertisiers won’t pay for bad reviews
-no recourse for advertisters

A better approach
-editorial oversight
-expert ratings
-consumer guarantees
-qualified consumer feedback

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