Your online reputation is now part of your marketing. The results that people see in search help formulate the first impression that someone has of your business and whether or not they will purchase from you.
Managing your online reputation through reviews that appear on Facebook, Google Reviews, and Yelp is vital for your future business health. Savvy consumers are referring to what other people say in these online reviews and other consumer generated co... VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET
Website review and analysis are part of my everyday job. I've been actively analyzing and making suggestions on improving traffic acquisition, user flow, SEO, and usability for several years. I've shared this analysis process and the tips for improvement in my writings for the last few years to provide an insight into how you could do it yourself.
Today, I'll share 6 of the most frequently broken or missing website features that I have seen over and over again, and provide some suggestions for maki... VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET
Online referrals are starting to make an impact on local businesses, but not in the way we all expected them to. A few years ago, the buzz within the online marketing community was that social networks would become a referral engine for people to ask advice through. Facebook even attempted to create a new type of social search engine to capture that referral service. Google also struggled with the idea that the internet would become a big referral engine, and they tried to capture a piece of it through Google+.
This is my weekly website review where I search for a retail jeweler at random through Google and pick apart what they are doing online. I try to uncover the flops that are being made so I can suggest the fixes needed to improve what they are doing.
This week, I started my Google search with the phrase "jewelers Brookline, MA" and quickly found myself heading down a rabbit hole after viewing these results:
Last week, I reviewed some good ways to correctly implement QR codes in your marketing and in your store. One of the methods I suggested was to create a QR code that would lead people to an online review form. To do that, you'll need the website address for that form, but Google doesn't make it easy to find any more.
There was a lot of marketing buzz around QR codes when they appeared in the USA in 2009 and 2010. Marketers thought they would be a hot sensation for smartphone users and started slapping them on all their ads. Even though QR codes began to appear everywhere, their usefulness and marketing success rates were small. What marketers didn't realize was that QR codes must be utilitarian, but most were gimmicky. I wrote this Nugget about... VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET
This is a pretty sad edition of #ThrowbackThursday. In fact, it's not even much of a throwback since I'm only jumping back 3 months to September 2015 to my explanation of how to share Google reviews to your website.
Testimonials and online business reviews are an important part of a customer's pre-screening process of you. While every online directory has a review system, arguably Yelp a... VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET
PLEASE NOTE: The new version of Google+ launched on November 17, 2015 no longer supports the ability to share reviews. This Daily Golden Nugget is defunct, but saved here for archival purposes.
That's what I always say when a jeweler wants to ask me a question but starts off saying "I have a stupid question," which happened several times over this past weekend while I was at the RJO show in St. Louis. When it comes to asking me questions though, you have to be aware that I always use the good questions as future Daily Golden Nuggets, like this one.
After my Local Marketing seminar at the RJO show, a jeweler was explaining that they often ask for their customers to write ... VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET
The other day while having a rather long lunch date with my friend and industry colleague, Peggy Jo Donahue, we touched on the topic of disclosure for paid endorsements and how they should be handled online. It is an important topic that I realized I have not written about in too much detail other than to briefly mention it in VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET
Welcome to the weekly edition of the Friday jewelry website review. Every week, I randomly choose a candidate website and put it to the test for design, SEO, usability, content, and a wealth of other website and business related issues.
I never know how they will turn out; sometimes good and sometimes bad. I always try to write these reviews in the order in which I browse around the site, providing my first reactions as I discover things.
Testimonials are a wonderful sales tool. They provide the social proof of good products or service that can help close a new sale. Every testimonial you receive should be posted to your website for everyone to see.
Customers are more likely to believe what other people say about you than what you say about yourself. Online directory sites like Yelp, Yellow Pages, and Google+ all provide methods of leaving online reviews. These reviews are good at helping to attract organic website visitor... VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET
What is the real value of the content you produce? Should you be creating your own content or hiring someone to do it for you? What about content curation?
This is part 2 of my in-depth answers to those questions. I've identified 6 levels of content and list them here in order of their most valuable to least valuable:
1. Business Owner Creates Content 2. Business Owner Curates Content 3. Business Owner Socially Engages 4. Hire Content Creator or... VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET
I was recently analyzing the Google+ Local account for a new jewelry store. The owners bought the previous bead store that was at that location and remodeled it into a new jewelry store. My analysis discovered a situation I'd not yet seen, or in fact, even envisioned. Of course, that makes it a perfect topic for a Daily Golden Nugget!
It's obvious that every new business needs to design their store and stock their shelves with merchandise. Before you even get to that... VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET
In this edition of the Daily Golden Nugget, I'll show you how you can use the interface within your Google My Business account to monitor your business reviews from around the internet.
This is the 3rd part of a multi-part series on using and editing your business account through the new Google My Business interface. Part 1 of this series was a basic orientation of Google My Business and Part 2 went into details of VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET
This is not my typical Friday Jewelry website review. I started out the normal way by opening my Chrome web browser in incognito mode, and I searched for the phrase "jewelry stores" followed by a town name.
I found a good candidate for a review, and I even browsed around their website and Facebook page for a while to find out a little more about them before I started to write.
As it turns out, I'm not doing a review of a website today, but I'm going to cover an extremely sensitive topic that was mentioned in their online Google reviews. ... VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET
The internet is an interesting place. You can find a lot of random stuff online, including things you never expected. While conducting some research for mobile usability I found the 2012 Consumer Complaint Survey Report published by the Consumer Federation of America (CFA) on July 31, 2013. The focus of this report is to give consumers extra knowledge ... VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET
Facebook recently announced a change in the way their search features are going to work. They are finally going to cross reference the online social activity of our friends and give us matching search results according to the pages our friends Like.
So, for example, if I search Facebook for an auto mechanic I'm supposed to see results that include all the auto mechanic Pages my friends "liked" on Facebook. I don't think my local auto mechanics would even have a Facebook Page, so that's a bad ... VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET
It's the season of cheer, and people are suddenly more giving, more willing to do something for others. As a retail store owner you certainly hope that people will shop at your store for their gift giving purchase, but at the same time, other than money, there's a gift you could ask of each customer.
Reviews and recommendations.
Ask every customer if they would be willing to write an online review for you. They wouldn't do it in the store; instead they would have to do it on their smartphone or on the... VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET
Review websites are popping up everywhere. Not too long ago, the only review sites we worried about were Google Places, CitySearch, Yelp, InsiderPages, MerchantCircle, and a few others. In the Spring of 2010, Google was so hungry for reviews they created new HTML tags to tell Google when a review was showing on a page.
Since then, reviews online have exploded because digital marketing agencies realized the power behind the tool. Does your marketing agency get it yet?
The review services mentioned above are typically out of your control, or you may have to jump through a few hoops to manage the reviews. Other online reviews can appear on your Facebook Business Page or on your website, and these are easier to control.
Your first ACTION ITEM for today is to contact your web programmer and tell them you want a review... VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET
Early last week, there was an important video announcement from one of the Google+ developers about Google+ Business Profiles. Originally they were going to keep G+ Business Profiles to a limited group, similar to how they have the trial period for current users. However they changed their mind and they are just going to allow everyone in (without a trial period) as soon as they are ready.
They are rushing, but they are not starting from scratch.
As we expected, Google is making huge strides forward to integrate Google Places and Google+. As of June 22, 2011 the appearance of all Google Places listings (i.e. your store's listing on Google Maps) now matches the fancy gray, red and black design that you see in Google+ and on google.com search.
The update to Google Places is definitely a step toward the Google+ inte... VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET
Before we close out this week's discussion of online reviews, let's reference back to the study we gave you in Monday's Nugget: http://bit.ly/oVuu21
Since it accounts for 57% of your online reputation visibility we need to talk a little about Yahoo! Local and how to manage your business listing there.
Yahoo! populates their listings with a phone book database. Unless you manage your own listing, any information you find there will be limited to that found in public phone records.
Only registered Yahoo! users can write reviews or edit listings on Yahoo! Local. You will first need to create a Yahoo! account to edit your own business listing.
It is important to realize that when a new potential customer finds you online, they can't immediately compare the size of your store to the jewelry store down the street. At first, they really will not care if you have a shoe box sized store or a grand palace.
A consumer is only interested in knowing that their needs will be met, that customer service will happily surprise them, and that they will have your complete attention when they visit your store or call you on the telephone.
Some people still price shop, but in truth everyone shops for service. You can create very fancy sales gimmicks to get people into your store, or you can win them over with amazing customer service and then entice them to bring in a friend.
Hopefully, a happy customer will post a raving review about your store online. The popular revie... VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET
"...articles are easy to follow and seem to have information one can use right away." -Ann, Gallery 4, Hamden CT
"...serious kudos to you. We love your straight talk, pertinent information and plain language. I don't know how many industries have something of jWAG's caliber available, but I learn from the emails every day. Really, really nice work, and very appreciated." -Cheryl Herrick, Global Pathways Jewelry
This is not my typical Friday Jewelry website review. I started out the normal way by opening my Chrome web browser in incognito mode, and I searched for the phrase "jewelry stores" followed by a town name.
The internet is an interesting place. You can find a lot of random stuff online, including things you never expected. While conducting some research for mobile usability I found the 
Facebook recently announced a change in the way their search features are going to work. They are finally going to cross reference the online social activity of our friends and give us matching search results according to the pages our friends Like.
It's the season of cheer, and people are suddenly more giving, more willing to do something for others. As a retail store owner you certainly hope that people will shop at your store for their gift giving purchase, but at the same time, other than money, there's a gift you could ask of each customer.
