In the real world, I was once told, you don’t get A’s and B’s anymore…until now. Reviews are playing an increasingly important role in consumer buying decisions. Let me share with you a personal anecdote. My automatic garage door opener broke. So I did a Google search for a repair service in Toronto, clicked on a couple of entries, poked around their web sites…then I remembered my bad contractor experience a few weeks ago with another home repair issue. So I looked for a reviews site and found HomeStars.com. It turned out that a couple of the top Google ranked companies (who looked like they spent some spent some time and money on search engine optimization), had very poor ratings. Steve at Open Sesame in Toronto didn’t even have a web site but he did have a 9.8 out of 10 rating with excellent write-ups. Did a great job too at a reasonable price.
Bottom line, getting to the top of search engines, or getting brand awareness period isn’t enough. You have to deliver results and your customers will evaluate you accordingly. ---Jason Dojc
JD - I had to laugh when you wrote this - in my day the guy with the biggest yellow page ad got the nod. And referrals happened by chance - Today they try and shout with search word optimization - the difference is that referrals are now part of the on line world - and this consumer driven report card that has to raise the overall quality of service in this country.
Posted by: Tony Chapman | December 29, 2008 at 06:43 PM