According to BrightLocal, 88% of online shoppers trust reviews posted to consumer websites over word of mouth. Who knew that the opinions of strangers would make such a difference in consumer behaviors? So, where do you want your reviews posted? How do you encourage customers to take the time to review your business? Let’s take a look at how you can amp up your online credit (and business reputation) by jockeying for five stars across the board.

Where Can You Get Five Star Reviews?

Many of the websites you want your company’s listing to show up on (with said 5-star reviews) are the sites you use personally when perusing the internet. These include:

Yelp

Yelp is one of the most popular company directory websites with an easy-to-use platform for consumers who want to leave their opinion regarding products and services.

Facebook

Once you set up your Facebook business page and designate yourself as a ‘local business’ there will be on option on your homepage for users to write a review.

Google

When your business is Googled, a business summary will populate on the right-hand side of the page which also displays your rating. You can set yourself up to get 5-star reviews via Google through a Google My Business listing.

Angie’s List

If you’ve got a service related business this is a terrific review site where five stars can go a long way.

BBB

Any and all businesses should have their info with the Better Business Bureau. Audiences who are less tech-savvy or social media-oriented are still likely to know about the BBB.

10 Tips for Getting Five-Star Reviews

A company’s reputation is as important as their products and services. Often times it takes one disheartened customer to voice their disappointment and suddenly, you’re seeing a drop in business. With the channels by which people may learn about your organization growing by the day, it’s vital to stay ahead of the chatter and in control of how the public at large views your business. Here are some best practices you can implement to be sure you’re reputation remains in good standing.

Why Practice Reputation Mangement?

Your business reputation isn’t just your rating on a review site. It is the general feel of the public toward your business, based on your actions, that gets expressed by the public across online and offline channels; and those same channels by which others express their feelings toward your business are the ones you use to generate those feelings.

Is your head spinning yet? Your business reputation is an entity in an of itself, neither fully in the public’s control nor fully in your control. This is why it’s so important to monitor your business reputation and be proactive in managing it.

We get it. Online advertising is complex and for most, it’s a foreign world that you don’t really even want to think about trying to understand. The truth is, online advertising isn’t as bad as it seems. Well, it’s not bad at all. What we mean is, getting a grasp on it isn’t as hard or as far away as you might think. If you’re wondering whether you should advertise your business online, the answer is most likely yes. Read on to understand the features, the facts, and the benefits of online advertising that make it a worthwhile investment for your business.

Why Advertise Online?

In order to have an effective marketing strategy, you must diversify the ways in which you reach your target audience. While you may be an expert on traditional marketing mediums like print ads, billboards or broadcasts, you’re missing out on a huge opportunity if you haven’t made the foray into advertising online. The reasons why you should advertise online are vast. To name just a few:

Word-of-mouth marketing is not something that happens by chance. Different than naturally-occurring word-of-mouth, this form of marketing is prompted, guided and encouraged by businesses. How can you encourage word-of-mouth recommendations that will help you to reach your marketing objectives?

What is Word-of-Mouth Marketing?

You’re already familiar with word-of-mouth—it’s a means by which information travels among individuals, groups of people, and larger social circles. The word-of-mouth communication you want happening around your business is that of happy customers, emphatic social media followers, and avid blog readers recommending your business to others.

Word-of-mouth is up to your target audience and customers. Word-of-mouth marketing is up to you and your business. This type of marketing focuses on publishing content, providing services, and creating experiences that your target audience will naturally want to share with others.

Examples of Word-of-Mouth Marketing

Word-of-mouth marketing happens more than you may realize. It can take many forms, such as:

• Online customer reviews (here’s how to get them)
• User-generated content
• Social media shares
• New customers referred by current customers (here are some referral program ideas)

Start With a Digital Foundation

Before you start to get overwhelmed with optimization, mobilization, engagement, and other “zations”, take a breather and think simple: build your digital foundation. Think of a foundation for a home or building. It’s pretty boring. It’s got no bells or whistles. Nothing special to look at. It doesn’t catch your eye. Yet without it, you can not have a structurally sound house or build off of it with aesthetic and functional elements.

If you’re feeling overwhelmed with your digital presence, start here:

The world of business is growing increasingly more competitive with each passing day. It’s more important than ever to have a solid plan in place to capture the attention of new customers, get them to stick around, and turn them into loyal repeat customers. In this article, we’re going to walk you through the three stages of the customer lifecycle and proven strategies you can implement to build a loyal following.

1. Love at First Site (Acquisition)

The consumer market is a rapidly evolving animal that you need to constantly stay on top of to gain the upper hand over your competitors. Your brand’s first impression is one of the single most important experiences in the customer lifecycle, and here’s how to make the most of it.

Hi, this is Dale Ball and I’m the Education Category Account Executive at the DMG.  I’m reaching out to share vital information about the current state of Higher Education.

Did you know there are a large number of private colleges planning tuition resets next year despite many experts’ view that the practice is a gimmick? The colleges hope to grow enrollment, contain student costs and prove critics wrong. But it won’t be easy.  Presidents and trustees at private colleges are increasingly interested in assuaging student concerns about affordability by slashing sticker prices, with a surprisingly high number of colleges and universities in recent weeks announcing steep cuts to next year’s published tuition.

Please click below for more information on this topic: 

The Tuition-Reset Strategy
Posted By Rick Seltzer on September 25, 2017 at INSIDE HIGHER ED.

Thank you,

If you want your website to be a lead generation tool for your business, you need to drive traffic to it. If you want to drive traffic to your website, you need to give it a prominent presence on the web. Here are ten steps you can [and should definitely] take to make sure your website stands out, gets noticed, and helps to grow your business.

1. Get Search Engines to Notice Your Website

SEO (search engine optimization) is the practice of increasing both the quality and quantity of traffic to your website through organic (unpaid) search results. SEO is a vital component to your website’s success and must be planned properly to grab the attention of the right people.

Utilizing specific keywords and content throughout your website will be one of the primary ways to help you succeed at SEO. Conduct some keyword research to find which words and phrases you should be using. Also, be as specific to your product or service as possible to ensure you’re only pulling traffic that actually wants what you’re selling.

For example:
Option 1: Personal trainer

Option 2: Personal trainer for women in Boston

Obviously, option 2 is going to attract a specific demographic so you won’t be getting men from Arizona calling you for your training rates, and that’s a good thing.

There are other technical tips to improve SEO like optimizing your page to load quickly and revisiting your site’s navigation and internal links structure. If you have a webmaster, you should definitely be putting this on the table for discussion.

(Guest post from Silent Professionals for returning veterans looking for employment)

At some point, if we’re still alive, it happens to us all: it’s time to come home.

For most people, this is a joyful event. For most veterans – especially those who have been in hard combat – this is an event filled with wildly conflicting emotions.

While war can take a great psychological toll on someone, much of the psychological toll is mitigated and managed by the fact that you’re with your brothers who have experienced the same things as you. The camaraderie and brotherhood amongst those who fight alongside one another is lifelong. The greatest toll of war actually comes during the transition back to “normal life”.

I remember coming back to my hometown from one of my deployments where I was engaged in fierce battles every single day out in a remote, barely-manned outpost in Afghanistan. Friends and family gathered to welcome me with a big party; even though – just the very night before – I had been in one of the fiercest battles of my over 10 years in contiguous combat.

The transition is abrupt and surreal. So much of the extremes that life and death can bring are packed into months and years of life away from home; but while you were gone, life continued. Children are grown, parents are older, spouses and significant others learned to live without you – if they are still with you, that is.

Civilians – including family – may welcome you home with seemingly warm words and gestures but look at you strangely when you react to the sound of thunder or a sudden, loud noise.  Or they might ask you a lot of questions about things they don’t have any context to understand. Their concerns might be wrapped up in the latest TV series, or what the Kardashians are up to, or the latest work gossip or political scandal. It takes only a brief glance through news or social media feeds to see what is really most prominent in peoples’ lives.

But to civilians who may be reading this, veterans aren’t looking for pity or sympathy or even empathy. Veterans don’t want to tell you stories. They want to get on with our lives.

But what exactly does it mean to get on with life?