Elmer is back this week with another Small Business Tip and he is more excited than ever!

Tip #2

Tell your customers about your CitySquares profile

The more people that write reviews about your local business the better. Word of mouth is critical for all businesses, and word of mouth has moved online. These first-hand accounts make your business’ experience more believable, adding credibility and objective perspectives.  Your potential customers want to see what other people are saying about you and from website reviews they can see that other customers are enjoying your products and services. This increases the chances of them visiting and becoming future customers. Reviews are also really good for search engine optimization, providing your business listing with even higher organic search engine ranking!

Here is a little way to nudge  your customers to go online and write reviews:
Give them an incentive: Tell your customers that if they enjoyed their experience with your business they should write a review on your CitySquares profile and then print out what they wrote. Next time they visit they can bring in the review and get a discount on a product or service. This makes your customers return and also builds the amount of reviews on your profile.

Make sure to tell your customers that they don’t have to create a separate CitySquares profile. They can just connect with their Facebook accounts.

All they have to do is simply click the Facebook Connect button and they are logged onto CitySquares.

Also, don’t worry about ridiculous reviews. Our site is all about user generated content so absurd reviews are  bound to be written. You can just flag a post as inappropriate and we will check on it and deal with the matter as soon as possible.

So spread the word about your CitySquares profile and you will have a chock full of reviews on your profile and eventually see more customers arriving at your door.

Marissa Green is Marketing Associate at CitySquares.com, the premier hyper-local search site for small businesses nationwide. Marissa is also a full time student at Emerson College majoring in marketing communication. A native of New York City, Marissa's young career spans marketing and PR agencies in Manhattan to her position at CitySquares in Boston. Email this author | See all posts by Marissa Green

Tags | user generated content, user reviews