If you could post reviews to only one... Yelp, MerchantCircle, Google; which one?

21 replies
If you could post local business reviews to only one... Yelp, MerchantCircle, Google, another; which one?

I know the correct answer is - "Spread it around".

But if you could choose only one...
#google #googleplaces #merchantcircle #post #reviews #yelp
  • Profile picture of the author humili
    If you ask a non marketer which word he knows at first glance! His answer will be GOOGLE!

    Needless to say, Google bcos it is most recognised among the list!
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    • Profile picture of the author Nathon Hay
      Google 1
      Others 0
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      • Profile picture of the author zogman
        if you optimize your merchant circle listing with photos and good descriptions and fill in as much information as you can manage you could be ranking page one within a day for low to medium competition keywords. Make sure to use the exact address and phone number in other listings like yelp etc so that you get citations from google. Also build backlinks to the page that your listing is on to get extra link juice.
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  • Profile picture of the author Nathon Hay
    MerchantCircle 1
    Others 0
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  • Profile picture of the author Voasi
    My top picks would be:

    InsiderPages.com
    Google
    Yelp (Google isn't importing them bcuz of the bad deal that went through so just know that... but Yelp receives a TON of traffic so it's warranted to post there)

    REALITY:

    IF POSTING FOR GOOGLE MAPS:
    Go to each one of your competitors and surrounding competitors in other local areas and check and see which reviews are sticking. Those are the places you'll want to get reviews.

    IF POSTING FOR TRAFFIC/DEALS:
    Yelp.com is a monster when it comes to local traffic. I'd suggest building up your reviews there. Eventually, Yelp and Google will hold hands again and then you'll be positioned already.
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  • Profile picture of the author Rus Sells
    Yelp, and the reason why is this,

    1. Google imports Yelp reviews to your places listing, once they kiss and make up.
    2. Yelp business profiles rank very well on Google's search engine.
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  • Profile picture of the author Nathon Hay
    MerchantCircle 1
    InsiderPages 1
    Yelp 2
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  • Profile picture of the author iw433
    I guess they are all good but I have noticed MerchantCircle getting goood placments lately.
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  • Profile picture of the author thomasmps
    Yelp
    insiderpages
    merchant circle
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  • Profile picture of the author localdominator
    Don't post directly to Google when you can post to other locations and have the review scraped and added to the google listing. Also, if you consider some other websites, there are ones that will pull reviews in from other sites as well, that then get pushed to another site, that then gets pulled into Google. If you know the feeding hierarchy then you can get a review in many places at once. Of your three listed, yelp is your best option but there are better places than these.
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  • Profile picture of the author Nathon Hay
    MerchantCircle 2
    InsiderPages 1
    Yelp 3

    @localdominator - That's why I was asking for other places than Google to submit reviews. What are these "better places" you mention? Do you know the hierarchy?
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    • Profile picture of the author localdominator
      Originally Posted by Nathon Hay View Post

      MerchantCircle 2
      InsiderPages 1
      Yelp 3

      @localdominator - That's why I was asking for other places than Google to submit reviews. What are these "better places" you mention? Do you know the hierarchy?

      Yes I do know of many different hierarchies, (there isn't just one) however I am not going to share them here. I will give you an example though. Judy's Book, while on its own does not rank people very well, happens to have their reviews pulled into other places such as kudzu, yellowpages, and so on. This is the same for places like citysearch, insiderpages, etc the list goes on. There are also aggregators above these that we work with as well, but those relationships are much harder to establish and aren't free whereas these other routes are. If you find a good example of very well optimized and syndicated listings, you can reverse your way back up to find out what the food chain is. That is what we did. Hope that helps
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  • Profile picture of the author Dr Dan
    Yelp's filter is a bitch! So keep that in mind. But if you can get them to stick, I would say Yelp is number one because alot of people use yelp to review services etc. Also still very powerful in the G's searches.

    Plus Googles places will pull the comments from yelp.
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  • Profile picture of the author Nathon Hay
    Yelp 5
    MerchantCircle 2
    InsiderPages 0
    Yahoo 0
    CitySearch 0
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  • Profile picture of the author chris916
    I would use Yelp. It seems to rank very well for me.
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  • Profile picture of the author Nathon Hay
    Yelp 6
    MerchantCircle 2
    InsiderPages 0
    Yahoo 0
    CitySearch 0
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  • Profile picture of the author jspmedia
    I will use Yelp As well since G using Yelp comments as well...
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  • Profile picture of the author Nathon Hay
    Yelp 7
    MerchantCircle 2
    InsiderPages 0
    Yahoo 0
    CitySearch 0
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  • Profile picture of the author abbadox
    If I could only get reviews from one place it would have to be Google Places itself. I think it's the best.
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    • Profile picture of the author MarkR
      You didn't say what you were optimizing for. I'm assuming Places.

      Go to each one of your competitors and surrounding competitors in other local areas and check and see which reviews are sticking. Those are the places you'll want to get reviews.
      Voasi's answer is right on. Find out what review source other businesses in the same line of business are sticking and stick with that! It depends on the industry. I'm working with a car dealer and far and away the best referral source (auto-related!) isn't listed in this thread! So, it depends on the line of business.

      Voasi nailed it, as I've seen him do before.
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  • Profile picture of the author contentment1st
    Insider Pages would be my number one other than Google....
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