Welcome to this week's MIND your business podcast, brought to you by the MINDs at MIND Development and Design and our friends at Fresh Roasted Hosting.  We are back again here in the dear year 2015 once again to educate you and empower you and Schoolhouse Rock you with regard to your business website and getting the most out of it.  If you have questions about web development, design, SEO, content marketing, PPC, social media and what it all means to your business, please hit us up on Facebook with your questions, email us at info@minddnd.com or just hit that big beautiful and irresitibly enticing "Ask A Question" button to your right on our website.

Now...I don't know how many of you were geeking out over the holidays......hopefully not many because that's our job. lol   But in case you missed it - I teased this on last week's podcast - on December 26th the Italian Competition Authority in Italy (in case you don't know what Italian is...other than that I'm just being redundant)...The Italian Competition Authority fined TripAdvisor for QUOTE UNQUOTE "not preventing fake negative reviews on the site."

I have ranted about this kind of stuff for months and this is a great example of what I've been getting at.  These online review sites...TripAdvisor, Yelp, UrbanSpoon and the rest yada yada...in theory they are really good.   Real reviews of real businesses written by REAL people.

Truth is, I've gotten some solid recommendations by making use of the ratings on those very sites.   But...truth is...I understand that there are a lot of FAUX ratings on there.  FAUX ratings range from the hysterical rantings of people whose entire miserable lives are ruined by a lukewarm bowl of soup at a restaurant to unscrupulous business owners who actually DO PAY people to give their competitors bad reviews.  Seriously...this HAPPENS!

We all know how to handle the hysterical rantings...if they rate a business one star out of five it's probably REALLY a three.  If they rate it zero, it's probably a two. lol    The aforementioned unscrupulous ratings are something else altogether, though.  Occasionally, they are well done and appear to be legitimate.  But let's cut to the chase here...it's just us and we're not worried about hurting anyone's feelings...we're talking turkey.

MOST...and by most I mean over half...most of the illegitimate reviews online show themselves to be illegitimate through the nature of their verbage.  Now everyone has a bad day, but the problem is that if you're a business and you're having a bad day with the wrong customer it winds up in print and exaggerated on these online review forums.   And don't even get me started on RipOff report and similar sites who allow virtually anyone to post anything about your business and then want to charge you thousands of dollars to have it removed.  Often these REVIEWERS paint almost impossible scenarios of ineptitude that are made even more improbable by comparison to the other middling to good reviews that THAT same business has.   They stick out almost suspiciously.

Granted, as I mentioned before, sometimes they're cleverly done to where you can't tell they're fake...hey it happens.   And there certainly ARE some legitimate bad reviews...that definitely happens, TOO.  But at the end of the day this fine by the Italian Competition Authority (to the tune of $610,000 dollars no less) serves as fair warning to the change in landscape and provides to all of you a glimpse at the real reason that search engines are getting ever more granular with their data scraping to get their information.

In theory, these online review sites are a good idea...but then you have to factor in the human element.   The element that says humans are animals and some of these animals infiltrate these arenas and pollute them to the point of being almost invalid.  I don't think these review sites are invalid, mind you, but this fine serves as a wakeup call to ALL of these kinds of sites that they're going to have to do a BETTER JOB THEMSELVES in screening reviews and improving validity and legitimacy.    Google and the rest of the search engines are basically taking a step back and saying "Hey Yelp!  Hey UrbanSpoon!  Hey TripAdvisor!  Hey Insert-Your-Favorite-Review-Site-Here!  It's YOUR job to moderate your forum and make sure the reviews you allow to see the light of day are legitimate to the best of your ability.  It's YOUR job to validate this data.  It's YOUR job...NOT ours.  If we can't rely on YOU and YOUR reviews, we'll go elsewhere."    And they ARE!  That's why your blog and social media engagement are becoming more and more important!   

I'd hate to be the shoes of those review sites right now, to tell you the truth...it's no small task they have.  Just ask the search engines.

Heck, if everyone had played fair from day one you wouldn't be listening to me blathering about SEO because there wouldn't really be much reason for it...everything would be pretty cut and dried...but as happens in every arena, you have those who game whatever system is in front of them - in this case, review sites - and it's everyone else who has to pay the price. 

When we come back...after the groundwork we've laid here, it will make MORE sense to you why your blog and social media profiles are SOOOOOOO important for your SEO in 2015!

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And we are BACK on the MIND Your Business podcast.  In that first segment we talked about the Italian Competition Authority and the $610k fine they slapped on TripAdvisor for failing to prevent fake negative reviews on their site.   Now what does this really mean to YOU?   How does something like this affect YOUR business?

Well, it doesn't affect your business in a super direct kind of way, but the affect on your business is twofold...and the effect on your business is to make your blog and social media profiles even MORE important to your SEO mix than they already were.  Now, as I explained in the first part of the show, these online review sites are IN THEORY a good idea.  The problem is the human element.

First off...many of us don't necessarily trust "professional" reviews in newspapers, magazines, etc. because while there are some legitimate reviews, there has been enough favoritism and funny business that has gone on over the years to where we've become a little skeptical.   After all THOSE people are getting PAID to do their reviews...PAID to give their opinions...and not necessarily every publication is willing to give a less than stellar review of a restaurant or other business who is a paid advertiser.

Some of you are bristling with that statement, but you know it's true.  It all comes down to money...and where there is money there is the possibility of human compromise.   Now, I'm not saying that these kinds of reviews can NEVER be trusted...I'm merely pointing out the fact that there has been enough compromise over the years to where we don't trust them like we once did.

We needed a better platform to get truthful reviews.  Wow...here comes the internet!   Finally...we can get REAL reviews from REAL people and get a better idea of what restaurant to bring our date to this weekend...a better idea of what mechanics we can trust to get a fair deal with car repairs...a better idea of where we should have our wedding...a better idea of where we should buy our next computer or printer.   The list goes on and on.

Google and the rest of the search engines originally saw the validity in these review sites and thought the same thing we did.   In addition, they thought "Hey...we can incorporate these review sites into our search algorithm and make it easier for people to find these reviews for the products and services they seek!"   And so it was done.

Problem is, as I previously mentioned, that unscrupulous business types saw the potential in leaving fake negative reviews on their competitors' profiles on these review sites...under fake names, of course.     Add to that the aforementioned ridiculous hysterical reviews and you've got a quagmire (giggity giggity) of questionable information.   This basically has left the search engines exactly where we as consumers were with regard to the "professional reviews" in publications.   NOT totally discounting them, but having enough doubt to want to search for a better resource.

All it takes is a reasonable doubt, people.

So now the search engines are looking at your blog.   They're looking at your social media profiles.   They're looking at your ENGAGEMENT and INTERACTION with your audience.   The search engines believe THIS is where they can find the real truth.  And they're right.

How often are you posting to your blog?   How often are you posting to your social media?   WHAT are you posting on your blog?  Is it engaging and are people sticking around to read it and possibly comment?  What are you posting on your social media?  It it engaging and are you getting any interaction with your audience?  Are broadcasting your blog posts ON your social media profiles?  Are you CONSISTENT with both your blog posts and your social media posts?

You see, the search engines have figured out that you can't truly fake honest interaction.  NOT over the long haul.   The search engines can see that you have 3 thousand Facebook followers or likes or whatever the hell they're going to be calling them by the time this podcast comes out.   They see that you have 3,000 likes but are lucky to get even ONE or TWO comments or "thumbs ups" when you do a post.   That does not look too good.

Granted, it DOES take time to build an audience...but you have to be consistent to do it and the search engines can see that as well.

The bottom line is that SEO is no longer JUST about getting found.   It's about improving engagement with your content by your audience.   It's about USER EXPERIENCE and that engagement and experience is now factored into the search algorithms and is as much of a determining factor in your ranking as ALMOST anything else.

Write with your audience in mind, with your users in mind...first and foremost!   What information will interest them and encourage them to leave a comment and contribute to the conversation?   Sometimes your users can give YOU a helpful piece of information.

Write for your users, have clear calls-to-action on your website and make sure your website is as intuitive as possible.  Don't make people have to dig too deep for the information they seek.  Make it as easy as possible because if it gets too difficult for them, it becomes easier to just click over to your competitor's website and just start over.



Thank you for tuning into this week's MIND Your Business podcast, presented by the minds at MIND Development and Design...and our good friends over at Fresh Roasted Hosting...a good homegrown PA company!    Send us your questions on Facebook, on our Ask A Question page on the website or email us...info@minddnd.com.   We'll see you next week!