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five ways negative reviews can help your online reputation

Posted by simon ashwin On Tuesday 10 Jun 08

It might seem counter-intuitive, but if you want to build a stellar reputation for your business, you should embrace negative reviews. Sure, the more positive reviews you have for your business, the better it looks, but there are some benefits to having some negative ones too.

Andrew Goodman, guest writing for HomeStars, hits the nail on the head:

I was recently a little disconcerted when I visited the American Apparel site, because of the presence of too many glowing, cheerleading reviews of its products. Some simply said "I haven’t tried this yet but I’ll be getting one really soon!" Poring over the various reviews, I actually felt like I’d be more likely to buy the product that had at least one negative or moderate review. Why? Because I wouldn’t be as likely to suspect that the reviews are fake.

Here’s how you can benefit from negative reviews:

1. Your need to know. If your products or services are crap, then you need to know about it. It’s better to hear it from your customers–so you can fix it–than never know about it and wonder why your sales suck.
2. Build credibility. As Goodman points out, negative reviews add authenticity to your reputation. Consumers are smart–mostly–and they know that if you have 1000 customers, a few will be upset over something. Take a look at the hotel industry. Just about every hotel has a review that mentions dirty sheets, cockroaches, or rude staff. Yet we still stay in hotels. We...

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   google gets tough on quality

   Posted by simon ashwin On Tuesday 10 Jun 08

   Advertisers who want to keep their costs down must keep the quality of their landing pages up. Nothing new. But Google recently reiterated their policies on the Inside AdWords blog.

   What does Google reward? In both natural and paid search the answer is quality - from a customer point of view. Google rewards landing pages that are easy to navigate and transparent. I will add trust and credibility. Create landing pages and sites that provide a good experience (quality content) for searchers and customers and Google will be happy.

   Google was clear about what is not considered quality. They will:

   • get rid of squeeze pages designed to collect a name and email
   • penalize arbitrage sites that are simply pages of ads
   • eliminate sites that knowingly or unknowingly install software (malware)

   Google specifically mentioned they discourage “get rich quick” sites, comparison shopping sites, and travel aggregators. This is where affiliates marketers gasp.

   Google is serious about the issue. If your landing page gets complaints you could be kicked out of AdWords for those sites. Google also noted that they will no longer warn advertisers of updates, but they will be ongoing.

   Affiliate marketers were hit especially hard. They are kings of landing pages. If affiliate marketers or any advertisers hope to survive the Google updates, they must add more content. Simple landing pages that are essentially just another advertisement will be penalized.

   Why the changes? Customers are complaining and that could mean losing money. Google makes money...

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