You probably know you need to grow and manage online reviews already. If you don’t, you will the first time someone leaves you a bad review. And don’t be naive enough to believe you’ll never get one. You will no matter how good your product or service is.

Bottom line is reviews are important for building your search rankings so you show up in the results. And they are also important because your ideal client is looking at them during their decision making process. Many times before people even start their search process they just ask their friends for recommendations.

So not only are reviews important, I really cannot think of anything MORE important. This should be something every business just automatically does. Like filing your taxes. Hope you do that too...

If you’re not sure where to start or have tried it but your customers are just not leaving them, here’s a method that will help. This is a tried and true method for generating regular online reviews.

1: Identify the important review sites for your business

Is Yelp important for you? If you’re a restaurant, absolutely. If you’re a home improvement contractor, it may still be important. But Home Advisor may be more important.

One way to figure this out is to Google what you do and see what review sites show up. Google yourself and see if you have any reviews already.

Ask your customers how they find you. If they keep telling you about a certain review site, this may be one you should grow your presence on.

2: Create a review capture funnel

This is like a sales funnel. This is a process of asking for reviews, sending people to the right place to leave them and following up to make sure they take action.

This means writing out a sequence of emails, letters, print ads or whatever makes sense for your business. For you, it may be having a device like an iPad that can serve as a kiosk on your counter where they leave a review at point of purchase.

3: Ask for a rating before you ask for a review

The best system will ask them to rate their experience and give a little feedback. If you receive a rating of 1 out of 10 with some really negative feedback, the last thing you want to do is direct them to leave a review on Google. In this case, you would want to turn the 1 into a 10 by resolving the issue privately.

4: Monitor online reviews

If you have a negative review that you’re not aware of, it could be killing your business. A negative review seems to always show up well.

There are software tools that can do this for you which I will share at the end of this article. But the free way is to just make sure to look. Google yourself weekly. Dig into all of your review sites weekly as well.

You can also setup Google Alerts for your business name and your website. Any time Google indexes something with these alerts, you get an email. This isn’t going to work 100% of the time but will help.

5: Respond to negative reviews

You absolutely have to respond to them. How you respond to negative reviews is more important than getting one.

If you implement this process here, you will get negative feedback sent to you privately which is how you should really want that to happen. You need to get back to these and resolve. But also do the same for any that get left online. This means you cannot forget about #4.

6: Invite happy customer to easily leave reviews online

This is part of #2. After someone has had a good experience, the next step in the funnel is to invite them to leave reviews online.

Make it super easy for them to take action. The easier you make it, the more success you will have.

Give them links to go to a choice of several of your important review sites. Don’t just ask them to go leave it on Google.

This may be one of the most important podcasts/blog posts I’ve done in a while. Today I want to show you how a local business lost a job in seconds right on Facebook. But the worst part for them, not only may they never know why; they may never know they even lost it at all. It all happened completely out of their control in a private Facebook Group that they were likely unaware of.

This is happening more and more. I see it daily and likely so do you.

At the end of this article I will break this down into the 3 things you absolutely better be doing for you‘re local business. At least, that is, if you want to compete in this increasingly complex and ever changing digital world.

Do this for digital marketing success

If you're not taking your local web presence seriously by improving your SEO, managing and building your brand on social media and, possibly most important of all, getting regular reviews on your website and the online sites like Google, Facebook, Yelp, etc... you're killing your business. Seriously folks.

This example literally happened in real time as I was working on today's blog. I was just digging in to do a blog about the newest Facebook change (more on that in the podcast recording and coming blog posts) when I saw something crazy happen live in my newsfeed. So I decided to change course and share it here.

A strange request

A request for a recommendation popped up in my news feed. This is in a private community Facebook Group for my town. This goes on in every town all across the country.

The poster asked if anyone had done business with a local masonry company. They are looking to replace a patio and want feedback from anyone who used this company.

You will see in this picture a couple things that you should note if you're a local business.

1: The time stamp was 6 minutes and someone had already shared a different company as their recommendation. I just looked back since I grabbed this screen shot and there are several other recommendations now.

2: The person is asking about a specific business which means they want to do business with them and are simply looking for validation. They may have even already spoken to them.

3: Facebook knows the person asked for recommendations so it alerts the world that this person wants more suggestion. Like it or not, Facebook is inviting the community to provide more competition as happened in point #1.

I blocked out the names of the business and the people to protect privacy and not call out any specific businesses.

Let me be clear...

This is the LAST thing you want to happen to your business. To have successfully gotten on some prospects radar only to have them go to Facebook is asking for trouble.

Once they do that, they WILL get other recommendations. And if you do not have a strong online presence with good marketing, a tight website and strong reviews... you're toast.

Devastating!

I immediately went over to Google to look up this business. And you can see as I did there are no online reviews. If you cannot have anything else, you should ALWAYS have reviews. This is probably the biggest mistake by this business.

Had they had reviews, this person might never have gone looking for them and therefore wouldn't have been invited to call other competitors by friends. This just shows perfectly how devastating it is for any business not managing their online presence.

No Online Presence

Reviews is really the bare minimum. If you have nothing else, you have to get those.

Not only do they not have online reviews, they have no Facebook Page, no website that we can find, they have not claimed their citation sites: Google My Business, Yelp, etc. There's no digital footprint that they created for themse...

It's been a long time since I've released a podcast. A year and a half to be exact.

So in this episode I will bring you up to speed on where I've been, what I was up to, why I am back and...

We'll talk about the importance of being on Facebook.

It's expected

No matter what channel your clients are on, you need to be active on Facebook. If you’re a B2C business, it should be a huge priority for you. If you’re B2B then LinkedIn should be a priority.

But no matter what, you need a minimal presence on Facebook. And if you do it right, it can really bring in big results. As in revenue from new and repeat business.

Whether Facebook is a priority for your business or not, you must be there. I remember preaching the same thing to local businesses many years ago about needing a website. And I used to get asked if they really needed a site from a majority of skeptical local businesses.

Proven fact

Today, no one would think about starting a business without a website. It’s like doing your taxes. Every business knows they have to have one.

Well, same goes with Facebook. But Facebook is different. You don’t just set it and forget it. You have to constantly post content.

It doesn’t have to be something you spend hours on. But every few days, at a minimum, you need to be publishing something. Pictures, videos, written. You absolutely MUST have regular content that shows your a real business.

Why? Because your prospects will go there to check you out. More and more we are seeing that consumers look at multiple places when researching your business.

And Facebook is at the top of the list. If you’re not there posting regularly you will look like you’re not a real business.

Potential clients will ask Facebook first

Plus, more and more people turn to Facebook to ask for recommendations. And it isn’t just for a good restaurant or nail salon. People looking for pretty much any product, B2C or B2B ask their communities for a recommendation.

They do it on their private news feed to their friends and in groups. And there’s not much of a way you’ll see that they asked for that recommendation unless you happen to be their friend or in their group.

But what you can do is be super active on social and engaging with your community. Then when someone asks for recommendations for what you do, it’s easy for them to refer your page.

Now the more active, fun, educational, interesting you make your Facebook page, the more people will be drawn to it. So make sure your Facebook page is professionally created and that you post at least twice per week.

How to guarantee your page posts show up

The problem with Facebook today is their algorithm makes the chance of your audience seeing page posts almost impossible without paying for ads. And you should consider a small budget but...

Here's a way you can help your audience see you: Make sure they have 'See First' selected and they get page post notifications. Here's how:

See first

Notification on

What's your reason why?

Ask your audience to do this... but you have to have a great reason.

The reason all comes down to them. Ask yourself why should they see your stuff first? And the answer better be good because you're competing with their family, friends and all the other things they want to see.

What they don't want to see is you pitching your service or talking about yourself. They want what they want. Find out what that is and give it to them on your page. Then let them know if they want to make sure they actually see all this amazing content, they need to see first and get notifications.

Oh, I almost forgot...

Make sure to go to the Nuclear Chowder Facebook page and set see first a...

If you’re an SEO company or someone who is just really good at SEO, I want to save you some time and let you know you may find this article a little too basic.

If you’re a local business who is confused by SEO and looking for some simple advice that works, this article was written specifically for you.

This is the first of several articles on SEO written for small local business. There’s a ton of really good SEO training out there. But most of it is catch all training that is often too general.

My goal with these articles is to help the 'Main Street' businesses out there who serve their local community. So if you’re an attorney, dentist, moving company, accountant, restaurant or businesses like them; read on. This was meant for you.

SEO That Gets You Customers Starts Here

The secret to the success of your Search Engine Optimization and entire search marketing strategy begins with keyword selection.

Commonly known as keyword research, this is pivotal to get right. If you get it wrong, everything you do later will either not work effectively or flat out not work at all.

If you plan to do your own SEO, getting help with keyword research can be money well spent. You really need to have this done well.

I’ve had the opportunity to perform a keyword audit on many websites. And one of the most common things I find is that businesses are just targeting the wrong keywords.

SEO Is Not Easy

If you’re doing your own SEO or even hiring an SEO company to do it for you, one thing you will learn is it is time consuming and can be technically difficult.

Google’s algorithm has changed dramatically in the past few years. The ‘Algorithm’ is a complex system that decides in real time what the search results will be. It sifts through mountains of data and matches sites that are stored in Google’s database, also called the Index, to they keyword. It then presents the results in order of what it believes the importance to be.

First, you need to make sure that your website is in the Index for the keyword you want to appear in search results for. Then you need to make sure your website is the most relevant and authoritative of all the other sites competing for the same keyword. No small task.

But To Make It More Difficult...

They update their algorithm all the time and it makes it much harder to do SEO. You have to stay one step ahead of the ever changing way Google makes it’s decisions.

Not only does Google change, users change too. Users are more sophisticated. They can’t be fooled into clicking on a search result simply because it’s on the first page. So how you display in the search results is more important than ever. And your content needs to be better than ever so that when they do click, they want to continue reading it.

And to make it even worse… there are more competitors vying for the same keywords than ever. And new competition joins in all the time. Just think about how much local competition you have. They all probably have websites and are trying to be on page 1 of Google just like you.

Google makes changes, your prospect’s behavior changes, your competitive landscape changes.

What has not changed is:

1: There’s still only a limited number of spots on page 1 of Google. So you need to be smarter and work harder than everyone else. If you don’t, you can’t compete. And…

2: Search runs off keywords. Whether these are typed or spoken, the search engine still needs keywords to understand what it is the person searching wants.

While they’re getting much better at deciding what they want, Google still needs a question asked first in order to give you an answer. And this is the best way to think about your keywords. Think of them as questions your prospective custome...

Episode 103

This episode is sponsored by The LinkedIn Marketing Success Academy. If you sell to businesses and you want to use LinkedIn to find and generate leads that turn into customers, this program is for you. And, for the month of March, 2016 you can save more than 50% using discount code: ebmar

Learn more about Ian here.

We're going to talk about social media tools and how to use them to free up your time. But first...

Yes, we talk about tea.

What singing on stage has to do with teaching and helping people with social media

Ian admits something most people don't

How he went from unknown to speaking at major social media events

The article he wrote that still gets 10k views per month (This is a great example of how to build your own traffic)

How to become a sought after speaker (The one simple thing Ian did that you can too).

Ian's treasure chest of go-to social media tools

How Ian decides which tool is right for him and his clients

How to automate social media activities (How Ian uses it... this can be a little dangerous if you're not careful)

The tool he uses to find popular content to share

You can meet Ian this year if you're going to Social Media Marketing World in San Diego this April. And you can follow Ian on Twitter at @IAGDotMe

You can listen to this podcast on iTunes or Stitcher.

Episode 102

In this episode of the Nuclear Chowder Marketing podcast I interview host of The Manly Pinterest Tips podcast and all around nice guy Jeff Sieh. This episode is a natural progression from episode 101 discussion with Alisa Meredith on visual marketing.

In addition to being a great podcast host, Jeff is the perfect example of how to brand yourself online. You're going to love this episode...

Here’s what we talked about:

We appropriately and customarily make fun of Ralph M. Rivera from the Web.Search.Social podcast.

Why Jeff called his podcast Manly Pinterest tips (this is actually a great lesson on branding)

Who Peg Fitzpatrick is and why Jeff keeps talking about her.

How you follow people (and how you can follow them without even following them)

Why sense of humor sells more

How and why he NEVER makes his boards public until he has 10 pins in a board (Secret boards rule)… Pinterest is actually a great place to keep things organized. Who knew?

The types of images that perform best on Pinterest (and by best he means drive the most traffic to your site)

Video and audio tricks with Pinterest to drive even more traffic to your site

How to create images even if you’re not creative (you can never learn enough about this)

Why you must think about mobile when creating Pinterest images

How to use the same old stock images and make them your own works of art

The apps and tools that Jeff uses every day

How to organize your boards for maximum effect

How and why you should be search optimizing your boards

How to schedule pins to go out automatically

The one thing you should do before you share anyone else’s pins (pretty important info here)

The big method Jeff uses that gets more people to find and follow you on Pinterest (Spoiler alert: it starts with sharing other people’s stuff)

How Jeff broke into the expert niche (simple but elegant advice… totally worth listening until the end for this one tip)

How many times a day you should pin

How to get your Pinterest business account (super easy)

Why every social media marketing expert needs to go to Social Media Marketing World (where you can see Jeff speak live)

Listen to his podcast here and learn more about his agency here.

Here's the video I mentioned

And finally...

This episode was sponsored by the LinkedIn Marketing Success Academy. Check out the details below.

Episode 101

Warning: This was a really long episode. But well worth the listen... And there are a ton of great visual marketing resources she shared (links scattered in this post).

I had a really fun conversation with Alisa Meredith and she dropped a ton of great information. So I just let it fly for a record breaking 90 minutes.

Alisa is also co-host of the Super Heroes Of Marketing Podcast, which I was a guest on for episode 26. You can also connect with her on Twitter here, Pinterest here.

The Superheroes of Marketing podcast is also on my 12 must listen to podcast list.

Here's what you will learn on this episode

Why I was wearing a cape with a turkey embroidered into it

Which comic universe the Superheroes of Marketing podcast represents: Marvel, DC, other... spoiler alert: none of the above and I am apparently a geek.

I apparently said I was going to put a picture of myself with the cape in the show notes so that's why there is a picture of me with a cape here. Bet you didn't know I had laser vision?

Why should we even care about visuals in our social marketing?

The reason you WANT to be on Pinterest… might not be what you think.

What is buzz Sumo and should you be using it?

What makes a good visual and how you can easily create them.

I tried to stump Alisa by asking her how I might create an image if I was an attorney or a financial planner or a home improvement contractor. And the answer was not what I expected.

She also talked about a bunch of cool apps you might want to check out such as: Over for creative typography, Studio Design, Enlight, Wordswag and Pixabay for free images.

Legal issues of using images (You can really get screwed here)

Here is Alisa’s free image resource Pinterest board

And last but not least, but super important, we talked about promoted pins. And since this recording, Alisa created a very special offer on doing promoted pins which you should check out and get here for free.

If you enjoy this podcast

Feel free to rate, review and of course subscribe to it over on iTunes and/or Stitcher. And while you're at it, share this with all your friends, colleagues and even enemies...

Here it is, the big milestone in a young podcast's life: the 100th episode. It's been two months since I've published a podcast and it's great to be back!

On this episode:

Ralph M. Rivera and Carol Lynn Rivera of the Web.Search.Social podcast punk me

Alisa Merideth from the Super Heroes of Podcasting and Jeff Sieh from Manly Pinterest Tips podcasts stop by to say hi.

Chris Curran from Podcast Engineering School, several podcasts and Fractal Recording says something nice about me

I explain why I took over two months off from podcasting

I share a really important, and simple, LinkedIn tip that everyone should be doing. This one thing that the vast majority of people don't do will immediately separate you from the crowd on LinkedIn, give you a unique advantage and ultimately get you more quality connections.

I also created a video where I walk you through what I talk about in this week's episode.

LinkedIn Marketing Success Academy

On this episode I mentioned the upcoming three hour LinkedIn training I will be hosting for 20 professionals. If you're in Connecticut click here to get all the details.

LinkedIn is a super powerful and important tool for professionals. When used correctly LinkedIn can help you build your network, find and get introduced to your ideal prospects, and show your value and worth to the world.

In this episode, my guest is Mike Shelah. Mike is a LinkedIn expert and consultant. He helps businesses to understand and get more out of their efforts on LinkedIn.

Here's a sneak peek at what Mike and I talked about in this episode:

How and why to optimize your LinkedIn profile so you stand out from the crowd

I challenge Mike to prove me wrong about things I HATE about LinkedIn

Attracting the right people to your profile

LinkedIn SEO

Is it worth it to pay for their premium services?

An action plan for prospecting on LinkedIn

Learn more about Mike Shelah here. And don't forget to leave your thoughts, questions and feedback in the comments below.

A question for you

The next episode of this podcast is a big milestone. It will be the 100th episode.

So I have a favor to ask. I'd like to know what you get out of this show. What do you like, don't like, want more of, etc. I'd like to include all of you who listen each week in this special episode.

So leave a comment below and let me know what you like most about this show. Or, you can be a live guest by going here to record an audio.

With Facebook you can advertise for as little as a dollar a day. But most businesses find Facebook ads confusing to setup right and end up spending way to much money.