Still Avoiding Online Reviews? 4 Tips to Use Them to Your Advantage

Although monitoring your brand’s online reviews can be daunting, over eighty percent of consumers consult them when researching products and services, so simply ignoring them is not a practical option. By reading your online reviews — both positive and negative— you can learn a lot of useful information about how people perceive your brand and your products. You need to set up a systematic process for continuously monitoring your online reviews, including the negative ones. You can make this task more efficient with the help of a monitoring platform such as Birdeye.

Key Takeaways:

• When one adds reviews to his business he might feel that he is doing online dating because he is opening himself up to scrutiny.
• Bright Local conducted a survey on online reviews and it was gathered that 86 percent of consumers say that online reviews help them to make a purchase.
• When one wants to see an increase in sales he needs to pay attention to his online reviews by monitoring and responding to them.

"But reviews are vitally important for businesses, especially in an age when consumers are researching decisions more than ever."

Read more: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/335540

Mastering SEO for food and drink

Running a specialty foods business is impossible without a strong online presence and a sound Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategy. Among the most important things when designing a website targeting foodies is to maximize your use of visual imagery. Fill your online space with appealing colors and tantalizing pictures. Social media should also be a big part of your SEO efforts, because people love to talk about food. It’s also very important that your website be mobile-friendly, since many people research or buy food on their phones.

Key Takeaways:

• Selling specialty food is not an easy thing because while one might believe that his food is the best diners and connoisseurs might be unwilling to try it.
• Many people wonder what they are doing wrong when no one comes to taste their specialty food and the money spent starts to bleed.
• A brand these days cannot be seen or accepted in the market without the brand having an online presence and with it an SEO strategy.

"Many speciality food experts do what they think they should be doing to market their brand, instead of doing what they have to do."

Read more: https://www.specialityfoodmagazine.com/start-ups/mastering-seo-for-food-and-drink

How Google and Bing Handle Algorithms, Spam, and Penalties

Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, has changed a lot since its invention: no longer reliant solely finding keywords on a site Google and Bing have tweaked and improved their algorithms to take into account a whole suite of different information. Changes to these algorithms often elicit complaints however, as site owners view their sites as being penalized when they are displayed to users less. However, both Google and Bing maintain that their unique (and hidden) standards and methods of filtering results serve to better the end result for everyone.

Key Takeaways:

• While they have slightly different approaches, Bing and Google both demote and penalize sites.
• What defines spam varies a little between search engines. According to Wiese and Debut, Bing has a 42-page rater’s guidelines document, whereas Google has a 166-page document.
• Though it may seem counterintuitive, manual penalties are better for sites than facing an algorithm update.

"At a recent SEO conference event, two experts with experience in the way Google and Bing handle these issues internally spoke about the way these companies handle algorithm updates, spam, and penalties."

Read more: https://smallbusiness-seo.com/how-google-and-bing-handle-algorithms-spam-and-penalties/