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I haven't seen any of the specific stats you're asking about. Through my research though, I've found that Yelp seems to have a strong presence in the coastal United States, while Google has a strong presence just about everywhere.

But even if Yelp still outnumbers Google in quantity of reviews, this ratio would likely be skewed anyway because of one category, restaurants. Take away this, and I'm even more certain Google has more reviews.

I could be wrong, but I've analyzed so many local listings that this is my intuition.

Brodie

Hence, my growing desire to create the anti-Yelp. Anyone with me?

Brodie

Miriam, are you certain Yelp has more reviews than Google? Although I've never compared them next to each other, I've personally researched tens of thousands of Google and Yelp listings in recent months (i.e. https://www.reviewjump.com/local-search-analysis/), and it seems to me Google still has more reviews than Yelp, overall. Of course, in some parts of the country, even in Google's own back yard of Silicon Valley, Yelp is the stronger review platform.

Brodie

Found the link to TSO's magento hosting... https://www.tsohost.com/web-hosting/magento-hosting

Although I haven't personally used these guys, I hear TSO is good. Plus I think they even have a special Magento hosting plan.

Can you go with a VPS? We're not on Magento but are using Godaddy's (actually from a reseller) servers and it's been great.

Great question Miriam. I just wish Yelp was asking me.

First thing Yelp should change is their perception of businesses. Their attitude sucks, and businesses feel it. Is it any wonder they're known as the online mafia? This would require something as basic as Yelp changing how they word things when talking about consumers and businesses.

Second thing would be for Yelp to understand that not everyone is a Yelper. As such, it's okay for businesses to legitimately ask for reviews. "Check us out on Yelp" just doesn't cut it. If Yelp was in more favor with businesses, and businesses were permitted to ask for feedback on their profile, Yelp could turn businesses into an audience of promoters. In turn, this would increase Yelp's traffic and volume of reviews. Even the number of Yelpers would increase.

Finally, Yelp should invest in a dispute process. It would likely produce a higher ROI compared to the home services function, for the same reasons I mentioned above. I can't tell you how many businesses I've worked with who obtain reviews from people who were never their customers or patients. For example, a plumber knows who his/her customers are. If the plumber sees a name attached to a Yelp review that isn't a customer, then the plumber should be able to dispute that review, even for a small fee. The customer could then upload a receipt from the plumber if they had one to counteract the dispute. It's a scaled back version of the "No Receipt No Review" point of view (thanks TomEats), requiring a receipt only in the case of a dispute.

I believe the outcome of all of the above would produce more Yelpers, happier businesses that would be more willing to advertise, and more authentic reviews. Until then, Yelp is leaving a host of revenue on the sidelines.

This content appears to be Google's Knowledge Graph content. According to Dr. Pete, this content is being generated on the fly and that there's not much you can do. Read here: https://moz.com/blog/knowledge-graph-2-now-featuring-your-knowledge

Hi Vernon, to answer your questions...

1. I prefer to put review Schema markup on the home page since it's likely to show up at the top of a branded SERP.
2. There's no telling how Google will use your data. I've seen this Schema work and not work, with no rhyme or reason.
3. Yes, you may embed the AggregateReview within the HomeAndConstructionBusiness tag, but it's not necessary. You can do something as simple as this:

Hope this helps!
Brodie

I think it's ironic, really. As someone knee-deep in the reputation management segment, I see first-hand how many businesses are left by the wayside in favor of "Yelpers" and one-time/one-star reviewers. Now, Yelp is looking to sell more to the very businesses they've burned.

Yelp's own blog says, "Rest assured that when it comes to protecting consumers, we’ll always have your back."

Always? Even if the consumer is unethical or untruthful? Even when the business has never serviced the customer? Even when there is no proof of purchase? Even when the customer uses their Yelp review as ransom for a discount?

This statement leaves no room to question where Yelp's loyalty lies. I just think Yelp has backed over their business audience one too many times. Their home service program may linger, but it won't thrive as much as it could unless Yelp repairs its relationship with local businesses.

If you ask me, this is an impossible task.

Yes, but this is a judgement call. There's not necessarily a right or wrong answer.

We went through this with our own company last month. We updated and branded our reputation management software which is much different from our agency business. We decided to go with a completely separate domain, ReviewJump.com, knowing full well that it would require a completely separate marketing strategy. In effect, we split our available resources (time, labor, budget) in order to build up this separate property. In the end we felt it was worth it, even though it meant starting from "scratch."

How different are your subject matters and does it make logical sense to separate them? Then, I guess the question is, are you willing to split your marketing resources between multiple properties?

Thanks EGOL. I like this approach and think we'll give it a try. I think it's a soft approach that can help us get our foot in the door.

Bethany, it sounds like what you're describing is sort of like a mall. There's multiple businesses in one location, each with a different business name and phone number. They just happen to be at the same address.

It works for malls, so in essence, it should work for the doctors at this wellness center as well. The key is that everyone has a unique NAP (name, address, phone number). Combined, these three bits of info are their "thumbprints" even if they are at the same address.

To help reinforce this, just make sure your NAP is cited on all the right directories.

Note: Miriam asks some good questions. My answer above was assuming the doctors had their own individual offices within the wellness center and that they operate independently of eachother.

I agree with John. Keep it on the root domain and avoid diluting the online equity you have.

About a year ago I went though this with a client in a similar niche, contracting. The company had multiple websites and was considering dividing them up even further. However, we took the opposite approach and consolidated all their web properties into a single site.

Organization, that's the key. I'm talking about the design as well as the navigation structure. On this particular site we instructed the web developer to color code each section to differentiate the content even further.

The results were great and traffic didn't fall off. In fact, we were able to start attracting traffic for a wider variety of keywords.

Google is smart. It will adapt and learn what your website is about as it evolves.

There's plenty of content out there that teaches how to become a guest author on other blogs. However, I'm looking for ideas on how to attract other authors to post on our own blog (www.reviewjump.com/blog).

Specifically, we're targeting agencies and marketers to write for us. Admittedly, it's a fairly new blog, but we've done quite a bit of outreach so far, and this hasn't been brought up as a concern. Ironically, we've found that many agencies we've spoken with don't even maintain their own blog. I'm guessing if they don't author their own, why would they spend the effort to write for ours?

Anyway, to make it easy for authors to apply, we even created a specific page for it (www.reviewjump.com/guest-author/). And I know that while some sites charge $100's for guest posts, this would be free for our published authors.

We are making some headway with our outreach, but I was searching for any helpful ideas you can share on what works for you and your "reverse guest posting" strategies.

Thanks in advance!
Brodie Tyler

Gagan,

Yeah, duplicate content can diminish link benefits.  Check out this video from Wil Reynolds about #RCS: http://www.seerinteractive.com/blog/seomoz-meetup-rapid-fire-link-building-strategies

As for the Yahoo Directory, in my experience I haven't seen any boost in rankings for websites that had this link.  Vice versa... I haven't seen a drop off in rankings when the link was taken down.

Focus on QUALITY, not quantity and you'll win in the SERPS.

Brodie

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My honest take is that if you're doing press releases for the sole intent of getting backlinks, it's not a good way to go.  Three reasons...

1. You're likely going to create a lot of duplicate content with these press releases.
2. If the "news" is not newsworthy, it's not going to be picked up by reputable organizations anyway.
3. The sites you mentioned may have a PR6 for their home page but the page your press release will be on won't be.

I hope this helps.

Brodie

I'm wondering if anybody has tried and had success in improving search rankings by creating links to Google Place pages. What say you?

Of course Google may not come right out and say it, but this article seems to make a case that bounce rate is a factor: http://seoblackhat.com/2008/11/21/bounce-rate-seo/

And here's an interesting Google blog post where site speed is a confirmed signal of their algorithm: http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2010/04/using-site-speed-in-web-search-ranking.html

Hope this helps!