By now, you know how important it is to keep your reputation in good shape on Google, Yelp, and Facebook. But there are so many other sites out there where customers can rate your services and share their experiences with potential new clients. How do you know which ones you should be paying attention to and managing your listings on? Which sites allow your clients to leave reviews, and are you able to respond to those reviews directly? WebPunch is here to give you an overview of the pros and cons of some of the other available listing sites.
YellowPages
YellowPages has managed to step into the digital world and claim a nice foothold in the land of listings and business reputation. While not as big as Google or Facebook, it’s still a household name, and many of your clients probably use YellowPages (or one of the other listings sites associated with YellowPages such as SuperPages or WhitePages) to look into your services and ratings. YellowPages allows for free business listings, with an option to upgrade to paid services in order to be seen higher in search results. YellowPages allows customer reviews directly on their site and also pulls reviews from TripAdvisor to give consumers a broader feel for a business’s quality. Unfortunately, they don’t allow business owners to respond to reviews.
Bing
Although Bing has fallen out of favor as a search engine and listings site compared to the giants, it still has a pretty sizable user base. Businesses can be added by users or pulled from Google, so most likely your business already has a Bing listing. Once you claim your listing, you can update your details to make sure customers are seeing the most current information available. Bing pulls its ratings from other sites like Yelp and Facebook, and business owners can’t reply to their reviews from Bing. The good news is the only thing you really need to worry about with Bing is making sure your business’s information is up to date since you can’t respond to reviews anyway.
Houzz
Houzz is a go-to review site for anything to do with home-improvement. From design to handyman services and home inspections, Houzz offers business listings and a review platform for interested buyers to peruse. There is a monthly charge in order to create a Houzz listing, so this platform might not be for everyone. Their premium services allow businesses to highlight the reviews you love best so that the first thing potential clients see on your listing are those reviews. While Houzz doesn’t offer a way for businesses to respond to their reviews, they do allow customers to post questions and businesses to answer them. It’s a good idea to make sure your Houzz page is up to date if your business works in or around people’s homes.
Nextdoor
Nextdoor is a great resource for finding services and deals in your neighborhood. It’s exclusively for residents of an area and kept safe by verifying each member and business. Nextdoor is perfect for connecting with your local clients and building a reputation through a network of people who all live in the same area, and while they don’t have a rating system for reviews, they do allow you to directly interact with your current and potential clients. Creating a Nextdoor listing is free unless you choose to upgrade to one of their premium options, and they are a great resource for all kinds of businesses.
HomeAdvisor
HomeAdvisor is a good place to list your business if you work in home-improvement or in-home services. It’s geared toward a similar user-base as Houzz, but also includes services such as house cleaning and landscaping, as well as architecture. HomeAdvisor requires licensing information and background checks for service providers, which allows homeowners to have peace of mind about their home’s safety. HomeAdvisor doesn’t use an external rating system. Instead, they match qualified professionals with home-owners in need by price, availability, and location. Because availability is matched through HomeAdvisor, it is possible that managing your listing and staying on top of communication here can take more maintenance than some of the other sites.
KidGooRoo
If your business works with children, this is a great site to keep track of. KidGooRoo specializes in listing children’s services and child-friendly activities. This is a great place for parents to connect and share experiences for services such as sports teams, daycares, and museums. It’s free to create a listing, and parents can post reviews directly. KidGooRoo also allows business owners to respond to reviews, which is an excellent way to build up your image! Giving thoughtful responses to reviews on this platform can help your potential customers see that you care and that you want every child that participates in your services to have an excellent experience. You can learn more about KidGooRoo’s business services on their business page.
This isn’t an extensive list. There are many other listing sites out there, many specializing in specific industries, and it’s worth doing research in your industry to see where customers are finding businesses like yours, but we hope this list helps you get started! It’s always a good idea to be in the loop about where your clients are sharing information about your services and what their general impressions are of your business, especially on sites like Bing, where your business may have a listing you didn’t create. Keeping your listings up to date on the most critical sites for your industry is something WebPunch is happy to help you with. Please reach out to matt@webpunch.com if you have any questions on how this works, and we’ll be waiting in your corner to step in.
Natalie’s Bio:
Natalie Jones is part of the Content Team at WebPunch. She’s from Boulder, Colorado, and went to Colorado State University. When she’s not working, she loves music, reading, hiking through Colorado’s most beautiful trails, and planning new road trips. Her current goal is to visit all fifty states by the time she’s thirty.
